Frage Long Vacuum Extraction Dust Skirt/Brush

I require a dust skirt/brush with longer brushes than the standard item's 20 mm long brushes because I use long end mills.

Can anybody point me towards a replacement 1 1/2" (38 mm) wide brush insert for the Stepcraft item.

Yes, I can Google and eBay but I am hoping for a quick response.

Thanks in anticipation.

Doug

While you're there perhaps you might think of inventing some wider than 38mm attachment, for if you use a longer skirt you'll run an increased risk of having it getting in the cutter's way and your skirt will quickly become short again.

Hi,

I use strip brushes from Mink. But I have a DIY made suction head.
Here is the link:

Mink

I bought them here:

Enobi

BR
Roy

Thanks for the responses guys. I'll look into your suggestion Roy.

Regards.

Doug

By the way, I use the 30mm long ones and I can say, you can really drive Z down to the rubber part and the brush easily bends without any problems.

O.k., thanks.

I am looking at getting an EMCELBN carbide end mill, extra length, ball nose 4 flute (5 mm diameter, 31 mm flute length) ball end mill:

www.drill-service.co.uk/Product.asp?Parent=100120500000&Tool=173

www.knighton-tools.co.uk/acatalog/CARBIDE_CUTTERS.html

On the underside of my guitar neck, I will need to mill down to 36-38 mm depth so I am looking at two separate toolpaths on the underside with removal of uncut stock at the sides in between to avoid fouling.

I could run the roughing toolpath with a bigger end mill but I want to avoid manual tool changes with the requirement to re-zero the Z axis. The geometry has a 5 mm rounded bottom truss rod channel to mill so I can't go any bigger than a 5 mm ball end or else this won't cut correctly.

Doug

Sounds challenging, I'm sure you'll make it

Re "requirement to re-zero the Z axis", I got the standard Tool Length Sensor and it works a charm. Peterg1000 invented a better mousetrap but I'm happy with this one, no tinkering, no measuring, no testing, no swearing at all. Drop your z-axis on the button and your zeroed.

Agreed - a tool length sensor is an absolute must have, no guesswork and spot on every time. I did find that once I used double speed probing the second approach needed to be really slow for most consistent results- I set mine to 30 steps / second with a raise of 1mm after the fast approach trigger.

Whilst I'm waiting for Rory to take delivery of some VFD spindles ( like Doug's ), I'm making an even better mousetrap to allow 3 axis probing. My prototype works well but was very difficult to adjust - the new one incorporates a stroke of genius for the adjustment. I'll post some pictures when I've finished making parts.

If you manage to do that your glory shall elicit praise for times immortal

As promised - an almost complete kit of parts for the super mousetrap!!

Peter

I bought a Stepcraft tool height/zeroing sensor but removed it because I somehow didn't trust it compared to zeroing with a cigarette paper!

Doug

You can trust it, you just need to measure and set it up correct.
I use mine since the beginning and won't miss it anymore.

Hmmm... Could be done with some 2-3 telescopic rings. I will think about it, try and if it works I will put all the info here.

DerRoy schrieb: You can trust it, you just need to measure and set it up correct.
I use mine since the beginning and won't miss it anymore.

O.k. so I reinstalled mine while the Steppi was propped up on bricks and gave it a try. All good but it was about 0.35 mm off so obviously some settings need tweaked. Sadly, I have got into the habit of using the cigarette paper.

Doug

DerRoy schrieb: Hi,

I use strip brushes from Mink. But I have a DIY made suction head.
Here is the link:

https://www.mink-buersten.com/produkte-shop/leistenbuersten/flex-system/zur-artikelauswahl/produktauswahl-fbl.html?id_artikelkategorie=275

I bought them here:

Enobi

BR
Roy

Hi Roy.

After the huge amount of sawdust and chips generated from my attempt at cutting a guitar neck (see latest video), I have resolved to design my own dust skirt/shoe. This is what most amateur CNC operators do it seems. The problem is two-fold: the StoneyCNC industrial HF spindle axle is shrouded by the Stepcraft exhaust adapter and the industrial spindle blocks the mounting screw meaning that to change cutters, the spindle has to be removed from the orange plate. Also the brushes are far too short for my application. There is one available to buy here but is very expensive:

https://www.kentcnc.net/nc

and it is not known whether this will fit the Stepcraft system in any case.

I have had a look for flexible brush strips in the U.K. and my searches did not turn anything up, or at least turned up plenty of brush strips for domestic door draught exclusion but they all seem to be encased in an electrogalvanised mild steel channel and housed in an extruded mill finished aluminium alloy carrier.

I could buy the Mink-Buersten 50 mm flexible brush strip from Enobi but they charge 30 Euro to ship to the U.K. and I could do with 75 mm long brushes. I measured up the industrial quality HF spindle and there is about 25 mm axle stickout from the orange base plate. Couple this with about 50 mm cutter stickout on a modified long reach cutter and I'm way beyond 50 mm.

Anyway, I plan to use 12 mm clear cast acrylic sheet for the top of the shoe (13 mm still leaves enough room on the spindle axle flat to attach the spanner) with a 15 mm cast acrylic rod with a stainless steel threaded insert for the locating button and a 24 mm cast acrylic tube for the exhaust port. I will design a simple shape for the top sheet in CAD with a channel for the brush strip, a 24 mm diameter straight through hole to insert the exhaust port and a 8 mm deep rebate to accommodate the 15 mm round bar and mill this myself from the acrylic sheet.

Doug

I think I will have to use a thin, soft (probably silicone) rubber sealing strip and fashion it into a makeshift skirt by scoring it with a craft knife every 2 mm or so along the length.

Doug

I have had another think about this and I think these 75 mm door brush seals from Screwfix will just screw on to the side of a rectangular (100 x 75 x 12 mm thick) acrylic sheet if I put some threaded inserts around the edge:

http://www.screwfix.com/p/stormguard-industrial-door-brush-seal-aluminium-effect-1-25m-2-pack/95547

The filaments appear to be fairly soft polypropylene which is good. If I use a coach bolt to mount it through the 15 mm locating rod with a wing nut or nyloc nut on the bottom face of the orange mounting plate, then it will be very easy to remove to change cutters.

I will report back when I get this made.

Doug

Doug, I've been using the standard tool length sensor for Z-axis and I like it a lot. I have used the paper method before but the sensor was a very welcome addition. Besides, I don't smoke.

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peterg1000 schrieb: As promised - an almost complete kit of parts for the super mousetrap!!

---

Hi Peter, how's this going? I've been working with the 4th axis a lot and accurate zeroing alignment of the y-axis is crucial. I have been employing an optical method I brought in from an entirely different context, for now with Eyeball Mk.1 I get a <0.5mm error which for me is too much. I can improve on this with time and proper instruments but it will always be terribly time consuming. So if you have a better solution you'd like to share I'd be interested

Hi,

The "super mousetrap" works exceedingly well. I don't have the tools available to accurately measure the sensitivity, but using the UCCNC DRO the trip point is repeatable to better than .01mm (0.0004") both vertically and horizontally.

PCB was milled on my SC420/2 and uses polished phosphor bronze balls ans gold plated connector pins for the electrical "clever bits". Centre carrier is black delrin with a Renishaw ruby stylus. Metalwork made on my mini lathe and mini mill with the help of a precision rotary table for accurate drilling of critical holes.

Peter

I'm still working on this design, hopefully I'll cut the 12 mm acrylic sheet this weekend.

I realised just yesterday that since I won't be using the Stepcraft HF spindle exhaust system ever again (the StoneyCNC small industrial HF spindle fully obscures the exhaust port), I can just attach my VonHaus ash vacuum's hose (38 mm i. d. on the plastic coupling) directly to my DIY dust shoe, rather than keep on using the length of 24 mm i.d. hose from the Stepcraft kit).

Therefore I'm now on my second revision! I assemble the GCode manually by decrementing successive 0.5 mm depths per pass using the output from MeshCAM's "pencil cleanup" toolpaths. I ordered a length of 38 mm o.d. acrylic tube for the exhaust flue yesterday.

Incidentally, if anybody wants the Stepcraft HF spindle exhaust kit, I am happy to sell it. The new price is now £72.00 including VAT from StoneyCNC. I have drilled and retapped a mouting bolt hole right through the mounting bush but other than that, it has been little used. I could probably do it for £40 + shipping.

Doug