Hi
I was looking to use a 12v vacuum cleaner for my cnc router. Has anyone had experience of doing this and does it work for you. I would average a use of 1 hour per week and be cutting predominantly mdf/plywood. Thanks in advance.
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Hi
I was looking to use a 12v vacuum cleaner for my cnc router. Has anyone had experience of doing this and does it work for you. I would average a use of 1 hour per week and be cutting predominantly mdf/plywood. Thanks in advance.
I would doubt if anyone has used a 12v vacuum cleaner as they are generally not powerful enough. I would guess you already have one, if so, try it and find out. I would not recommend buying one for this purpose.
I use a cheap (35 quid) wet-and-dry from Wickes. That's had 5 years of abuse sucking wood dust to lumps of plaster and just keeps going. Even the cheap plastic nozzle is great for sucking from around the cutter as nothing gets damaged. Cheap enough to be throwaway if it breaks. And lots of suck - probably beats a 12V device. Given that you are going to be near a mains supply anyway, and you are going to be clearing a lot of dust, a cheap mains vacuum is probably the way to go.
ThanksQuote:
Originally Posted by Neale
Im assuming you dont have it mounted? My aim is to have the cnc machine fully enclosed and have a hose from the router end to the top. From the top their will be a connector so the vacuum hose can be attached as that way I can remove the vacuum cleaner for cleaning wood dust missed out. Does this sound appropriate for the cheap wet n dry vacumms. Thanks
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I use mine with a dust shoe while cutting, then unplug it from the dust shoe to clean up. Works for me. The dust shoe isn't perfect in that even with a fairly powerful vacuum cleaner, it doesn't collect all the wood dust/chips, but it keeps the vast majority of the dust which is not removed in place for sucking up after the cut is finished.
I used to have one of these https://www.machinemart.co.uk/p/cde7b-dust-extractor/ but an awful lot of the dust and shavings got everywhere else in the workshop. There seems to be some law of physics that determines that the effectiveness rapidly diminishes with distance from nozzle. Probably something like an inverse cube law.