OF1400 dust collecting help needed

[Farming_Sawyer]

Working in a large scale project routing parts for a hydronic floor system. The dust collection has been a challenge. I'm working on site and have to keep the dust down. Any thoughts?

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[Birdhunter]

My 1400 came with dust collection attachments that, hooked to a vac, do a good job of sucking up dust.

 

[Farming_Sawyer]

You can see in the photo mind is attached to a 36mm hose going to a Ct26. Light passes or fill depth made no difference. Same amount of sawdust came out of the channel. Is this sort of cut inherently hard to dust collect or am I missing something?

 

[Cheese]

I’ve had good luck with shallow passes on both the 1400 & 1010 using the 27 mm hose on a CT 22. It won’t collect it all but I’d say it’s probably at the 80% level.

Also using a smaller diameter bit will help.

 

[rmhinden]

Check if the hose is clogged or the bag is full.  Might not be getting full suction.

 

[semenza]

That type of cut or a dado can be hard to collect from. Especially with multiple passes because the open channel that is being created is a perfect place for the dust to go other than the vac hose. The bit tends to throw the dust right along the channel before the moving air can grab it.

Seth

 

[semenza]

Try starting the cut with a plunge so that you can leave one end of the channel closed off with some of the work piece material. The closed end might help contain it long enough to get sucked up.

Seth

 

[Farming_Sawyer]

Also using a smaller diameter bit will help.

In this case, with hundreds to do, I have to use a 5/8" bit in a ssingle pass to create both convex and concave pieces at once.  I tried a template insert and an upspiral bit with no change. A bottom bearing bit with the template underneath helped, but I'd have to get a new bit and it made the set up take extra time.

 

[peter halle]

Gary Katz did a video or more illustrating the difficulty of collection dust is these situations.  He ended up reversing course in the cut with the router without changing depth to help clean out stuff and make the next pass better.

So, route.  Stop.  Go backwards and clean up.  Set up for next pass.  Route.  Go backwards and then repeat as needed.

As Seth said.  these are not perfect dust collection situations.

Peter

 

[semenza]

Gary Katz did a video or more illustrating the difficulty of collection dust is these situations.  He ended up reversing course in the cut with the router without changing depth to help clean out stuff and make the next pass better.

So, route.  Stop.  Go backwards and clean up.  Set up for next pass.  Route.  Go backwards and then repeat as needed.

As Seth said.  these are not perfect dust collection situations.

Peter

Yup, I have done that too and it usually gets most of it sucked up. Just make sure you are guiding it carefully. This technique can be especially effective if the channel end is "closed". You just need to finish the end bit after.

If you are cranking these out on the bench and the dust is mostly going in one direction / area, you might try another vac with a large floor nozzle clamped in place to the bench for a dust hood. I have dome that too.

Seth

 

[Farming_Sawyer]

Gary Katz did a video or more illustrating the difficulty of collection dust is these situations.  He ended up reversing course in the cut with the router without changing depth to help clean out stuff and make the next pass better.

So, route.  Stop.  Go backwards and clean up.  Set up for next pass.  Route.  Go backwards and then repeat as needed.

As Seth said.  these are not perfect dust collection situations.

Peter

Yup, I have done that too and it usually gets most of it sucked up. Just make sure you are guiding it carefully. This technique can be especially effective if the channel end is "closed". You just need to finish the end bit after.

If you are cranking these out on the bench and the dust is mostly going in one direction / area, you might try another vac with a large floor nozzle clamped in place to the bench for a dust hood. I have dome that too.

Seth

Yup that's my fallback position.

 

[Cheese]

Gary Katz did a video or more illustrating the difficulty of collection dust is these situations.  He ended up reversing course in the cut with the router without changing depth to help clean out stuff and make the next pass better.

So, route.  Stop.  Go backwards and clean up.  Set up for next pass.  Route.  Go backwards and then repeat as needed.

Yea I'm with Peter on this one...just remembered, this is what I did while routing these HVAC vents. Routed them using MFS guides so backtracking on the groove was really easy. The path forward generates dust, while the backtracking stirs up the dust a second time and guides it to the vac.

[attachimg=1]

 

[Gregor]

It's a bit hard to see from the pictures, but you don't seem to have a template covering the inner curve (only the convex side of the workpiece). Given I have seen this correctly: This leads to the channel being wide open on the 'offcut' side.

You might have an easier life using a template with a channel: It would close up the workpiece against the router base (and, given you make the alignment blocks along the whole template and a bit wider, the sides of the groove) which should make the DC attachment suck through the freshly made channel and hopefully collect more of what's in there. Would also make guiding easier as it would prevent the bit from escaping the intended path - or allow to use a smaller bit and two passes (one along each edge of the channel) for a cleaner (and possibly quicker, as a smaller bit needs to remove way less material) result.

Having such a template below the workpiece (using a bit with a bearing on the tip) might make life even easier as you could permanently clamp the template to the table (given that it's wide enough, but that shouldn't be a problem), then you would only need to clamp the workpiece aligned against a single-sided alignment block/strip (which would also be the perfect place to put any alignment markings you might need to reference the workpiece against) on the template.
Sitting such a template on a small box would also allow you to add dust collection from below (through the groove of the template) by connecting an additional vac to the box. Would likely be quicker to handle as you would only need to move/clamp the workpiece (not the template as that would stay) which could well compensate any time spent making that kind of jig (especially when you have to process hundreds of workpieces).

 

[Farming_Sawyer]

It's a bit hard to see from the pictures, but you don't seem to have a template covering the inner curve (only the convex side of the workpiece). Given I have seen this correctly: This leads to the channel being wide open on the 'offcut' side.

You might have an easier life using a template with a channel: It would close up the workpiece against the router base (and, given you make the alignment blocks along the whole template and a bit wider, the sides of the groove) which should make the DC attachment suck through the freshly made channel and hopefully collect more of what's in there. Would also make guiding easier as it would prevent the bit from escaping the intended path - or allow to use a smaller bit and two passes (one along each edge of the channel) for a cleaner (and possibly quicker, as a smaller bit needs to remove way less material) result.

Having such a template below the workpiece (using a bit with a bearing on the tip) might make life even easier as you could permanently clamp the template to the table (given that it's wide enough, but that shouldn't be a problem), then you would only need to clamp the workpiece aligned against a single-sided alignment block/strip (which would also be the perfect place to put any alignment markings you might need to reference the workpiece against) on the template.
Sitting such a template on a small box would also allow you to add dust collection from below (through the groove of the template) by connecting an additional vac to the box. Would likely be quicker to handle as you would only need to move/clamp the workpiece (not the template as that would stay) which could well compensate any time spent making that kind of jig (especially when you have to process hundreds of workpieces).

Thanks for this. I hadn't thought of a two piece template or mounting is to the table... To focussed on number of pieces to be made and learning a new tool. Been using routers of all sorts in all conditions, but this is my first Festool router, and first with dust collection that isn't a shop vac floor sweep screwed to the router table fence......

 

[Cheese]

Along the lines of Gregor's thoughts, because I was making so many HVAC vents, I went with a material holding fixture on the bottom with the MFS screwed to the top. That way the MFS/jig never lost registration with the piece I was routing and new material was simply fed from the underside of the fixture.

Photo 1.
This is a view of the bottom of the holding fixture with the MFS still screwed to the top.

[attachimg=1]

Photo 2.
This is a view of the top of the holding fixture without the MFS attached but showing how the blank is captured. 

[attachimg=2]

Photo 3.
A view of the top of the holding fixture with the MFS screwed to it. Easy to load in new blanks, just lift the bottom up 1"-2", pull out the routed piece and load a new blank in. Everything stays aligned and indexed properly. The only thing that's moving is the blank material.

For multiple pieces, speed and repeatability, something similar to this may work well for your situation.

[attachimg=3]

 

[Gregor]

Thanks for this. I hadn't thought of a two piece template or mounting is to the table...

In case you go for a solution where you put the template ontop of the workpiece (with a bit like the current one, with bearing on the shaft) you should make one template that covers both sides of the intended groove - simply because having it as two pieces would double your work for aligning and clamping the template, while being way more prone to alignment errors (compared to fitting a single template onto an initially in-one-piece workpiece).

 

[Farming_Sawyer]

Thanks for the photos and insight [member=44099]Cheese[/member]. An MFS700 is on my wish list, but hard to find. A deff must have for my line of work.

 

[jarbroen]

Or the Woodpeckers version of the MFS.  It was a 'One Time' tool but I think they were bringing it back.
I've used mine a bunch and it's super handy.

As others have mentioned, getting the dust/fuzz out of a dado cut is a challenge.  Even with the great Festool DC setup.
I had the same issue when cutting out a couple dozen holes with my little Makita palm router and a Jasper jig.  I had to make a pass with the router and then spin it back around to suck up the dust that was left behind.
On the positive side, with the DC hooked up at least we're probably getting all the fine dust sucked up.  That's the stuff you don't want to breath in and that will leave crap floating everywhere.

 

[GoingMyWay]

An MFS700 is on my wish list, but hard to find. A deff must have for my line of work.

I was just thinking about buying an MFS700 off eBay. The current 10% off coupon makes it enticing, though there have been higher discounts in the past.

 

[Cheese]

I was just thinking about buying an MFS700 off eBay. The current 10% off coupon makes it enticing, though there have been higher discounts in the past.

If you actually need one, buy one, they're a hard animal to capture.  [smiley]  They don't last long in the wild.