'Solid-state' worktable

[mkepke]

The thread on workbench tops got me thinking I needed to post a couple pix of my recent project involving the 3 phase conversion.

This is a table that a friend rescued from the dumpster for me.

The white 'box' on the table is the VFD and it is connected to a blower that sits under the table (to the right and below the VFD - it's the light grey circular object).

When the blower is turned on, it lifts a series of little ball-bearings in the top - each circle represents a ball-bearing.

I think the idea is that the when the blower is on, the material (sheet goods) rides on air-suspended bearings.

I do not have the blower 'dialed in' as it lifts the bearings, but not with much force.

Air-suspension system aside, the table is wonderful. The top and bottom are 3/8" thick phenolic with birch ply structural members. It's very heavy and dead flat.

It came off some enormous industrial wwking machine for cutting sheet goods. The machine had 3 of these tables for material handling.

-Mark

 

[Sanders Fine Woodworking]

I think the sheet goods ride on air. The ball bearings are there to "plug the holes" that are not under the sheet. It reduces the amount of air "spillage" and thus the size of the blower is smaller. Just my 2 cents.

 

[Gotcha6]

Sounds sensible to me. If the ball bearings have too much pressure behind them they'll bind against the phenolic top from below & not be able to spin. Try reducing your air pressure to where the bearings barely come up.

 

[Glennbear]

Cool idea, perhaps this link would be helpful ?

http://www.glasgowproducts.com/concept.htm

 

[Travis Porter]

Very neat! Can you make it double as a down draft table for sanding possibly?

 

[mkepke]

Glenn - I think you found the right stuff. My friend told me his company recently converted the tables to "balls with springs" because the old design (what I have) would tend to clog.

Both those types of inserts are shown side by side on the Glasgow site.

$6.75 an insert - yow !

-Mark

 

[Glennbear]

Mark, it occured to me that you might be able to kill two birds with one stone. I do not know what kind of air filtration you have in your shop but since the blower will be moving air anyway perhaps you could enclose the bottom section of the table and install pleated air filter(s) this would help shop air quality and assure that the air jets were being fed dust free air. :wsmile: