Air Weights Work holding

[Robert166]

Found this and perhaps it is an alternative to a conventional vacuum table. I do not know what the cost comparison would be. Due to the design of my CNC it is a possibility.

AirWeights CNC Workholding Systems

AirWeights LLC designs and manufactures a line of CNC workholding solutions. The AirWeights vacuum table system is a modular affordable vacuum table solution that includes everything you need to add vacuum work holding capabilities to your CNC.

airweights.com

 

[kserdar]

Can it work with a spoil board? Most of my CNC work involves cutting all the way thru ...

 

[Robert166]

Watched some of the videos on the site and there is a 1/4 spoil board that can be used with it.

 

[Echd]

You can make a pretty effective vacuum table with nothing but mdf. I've also 3d printed smaller "pods" the size of the rockler units that work well using a pump for pulling vacuum on a car AC.

Can it work with a spoil board? Most of my CNC work involves cutting all the way thru ...

It's fine with larger pieces, or maybe using a downcut or compression bit and letting it pack the kerf with sawdust to mitigate movement. For smaller pieces you'd have to try and use an "onion skin" technique and peel off the thin layer.

 

[riggsp]

If you are going to use a vacuum to hold parts on an MDF spoil board, you'll have to take a skim cut on both sides of the MDF to remove the top "sealed " surface in order for the vacuum to pull through...also, a vacuum pump like an air conditioner pump has enough vacuum pressure, but not enough volume...you would need a high volume vacuum blower...very expensive and very noisy (they sound like a jet engine winding up).
We had one years ago on a Shopbot CNC...it was so big, it just barely fit under the machine table, and it had a 4" inlet to connect to the vacuum plenum on the table.
As Echd said, it's very good for large pieces, cabinet parts, etc, but not very good for small pieces...and once you cut through the bottom face of your part, the vacuum reduces considerably.

 

[tri4sale]

If you are going to use a vacuum to hold parts on an MDF spoil board, you'll have to take a skim cut on both sides of the MDF to remove the top "sealed " surface in order for the vacuum to pull through...also, a vacuum pump like an air conditioner pump has enough vacuum pressure, but not enough volume...you would need a high volume vacuum blower...very expensive and very noisy (they sound like a jet engine winding up).
We had one years ago on a Shopbot CNC...it was so big, it just barely fit under the machine table, and it had a 4" inlet to connect to the vacuum plenum on the table.
As Echd said, it's very good for large pieces, cabinet parts, etc, but not very good for small pieces...and once you cut through the bottom face of your part, the vacuum reduces considerably.

All you need is a quality shop vac. I run 2 Fein vacs for my hold down, and have it zoned for 4 areas of my 4x8 ShopBot CNC for better control on smaller jobs.

 

[Echd]

Probably a question of differences in static pressure at a certain level, i assume. I rarely use my vacuum pods and they are smaller and work well with a car AC vac pump. The pump Airweights uses seems like a larger version of the pump I use.

I would just be very hard pressed to pay air weights money for their product given the simplicity of the product itself. Most of the cost/value has to be in the pump itself. Airweights' board does have a method of "zoning" built in as well- those little peg things you see that stand up- that is fairly clever. But for a homemade vacuum clamp, I have found some cheap "foam rod" you can get for next to nothing at a big box hardware store (the stuff you use to fill and expansion gap prior to caulking) does a good job of sealing it.

I have attached a picture of my home made vacuum pods. They copy the rockler design fairly closely and are modification of a similar one I found on thingiverse, hardly anything groundbreaking. The cavity in the middle holds a short t-bolt so the pod can be rigidly attached to the t track in my cnc table, and the small cavity you see on the interior of the square is the outlet doe the vacuum. The air lines used are simple pvc airlines and inexpensive push fittings which self tap into the plastic of body. The exterior channel you just cut some foam rod to fit and super glue it in place.

By using two or more pods (you'll note some of the pods have two fittings so they can be chained) you can actually suspend a board or piece of stock and hold it rigidly, and cut pieces out which will fall through cleanly.

I honestly don't find them that useful for most of the stuff I do, though, and use them rarely. I prefer using clamps, wedge locking against a stop, or the blue tape method most of the time.

Here are the rockler equivalents. They are quite similar, i do like the integrated locks for t track but i think the printed design is cleaner. Also the printed ones cost like... 50 cents each.

 

[riggsp]

All you need is a quality shop vac. I run 2 Fein vacs for my hold down, and have it zoned for 4 areas of my 4x8 ShopBot CNC for better control on smaller jobs.

I made a vacuum table a few years ago using MDF with channels cut to match the hole pattern in masonite pegboard, and I used a small shop-vac as the vacuum source...it's easy to make and it works.
I used silicon sheets to block holes that weren't used to hold the part so there was no leakage...same problem though, if you cut through the part and a hole is exposed, you lose holding power.

 

[Echd]

I saw this on another forum. Very slick design and the user is powering it with a simple shop vac. His cost is only a couple hundred bucks.

 

[chris_goris]

Do you really need a vac table? I have one built in and never had much use for it

 

[riggsp]

After I built my vacuum table, I used it for only a little while...I was very reliable as long as I didn't make through cuts (leaving an "onion skin" on the bottom surface)...as I said, once the bottom surface was exposed vacuum suffered.
I've since, almost exclusively, used painters tape and CA glue hold parts with no issues at all...even through cuts on small parts.
I also have a wooden vise I built that I can mount to my table that I use on occasion.

 

[tri4sale]

Do you really need a vac table? I have one built in and never had much use for it

Depends on what you are doing and how you want to do the hold down. I've used mine to hold down 4x8 sheets of plywood where there were no good places to uses screws to hold down, and I've used it on a 2x4 zone for same reason. I've also used double sided tape to hold down, and sometimes use clamps on 4 sides for hold down. There are many ways to hold down so just depends on the situation.

 

[chris_goris]

There are many ways to hold down so just depends on the situation.

Im aware of that. but a vacuum module seems alot more useful if youre doing some sort of production work.

 

[tri4sale]

Im aware of that. but a vacuum module seems alot more useful if youre doing some sort of production work.

I'm not doing production work and find the vacuum very useful in the right situations.

 

[Stuart Kent]

as a rule, I use vacuum anytime I can. While my setup doesn't work well for everything, it is outstanding for most applications. I would be interested to know why it's not working for you guys?

 

[chris_goris]

Stuart, While my CNC (Laguna swift with vac 4 x 8 ) bed is zoned, when I got the machine it had a vac pump supplied , but it was 3 Phase. And for what I do, short of entire thin sheets of ply, I have never really needed it. I tend to do more one offs that are all different shapes and sizes anyhow. I prefer to simply screw clamps down or through my worpieces in the scrap areas to the spoilboard and go. I also cant see running another piece of equipment (vac pump) while running the CNC and DC even though I have electrical capacity , other than 3 Ph power.

 

[JohnnyR]

Norton, on my computer blocked airweights as it might be a "fake e-store"