My First Camp ShopBot
Since my last article in July I hosted my first Camp ShopBot on September 8th. I had been to a couple of camps and one Jamboree before so I had an idea of what to expect, but no idea about all that goes on behind the scenes. Well, let me say that the folks from ShopBot will help you every step of the way. Bill Palumbo, Bill Young and Ryan Patterson showed up the day before and were ready to lend a hand doing anything that needed to be done. The rest of the ShopBot crew that came were here early on Saturday and pitched in to help me with any detail that was not completed. Jay Wyant, another ShopBot owner, spent Friday and Friday night cooking BBQ and all of the fixings for our lunch on Saturday. Of course, none of this could have been possible without the folks who showed up for the day. Some got up and spoke while others took pictures, video and soaked in all of the ideas and knowledge that flowed from person to person that day. Thank you all for doing your part in the camp. There are pictures on the Camp ShopBot Flickr site. One person who never gets brought into the “lime light” but who is there every step of the way is my wife, Melissa. Without her, I would have never been able to get to where I am now.
Ed’s Vac Stack
As you may recall from prior articles, I use two Fein Turbo III vacs for my vacuum source. The Feins are working well for me with one exception: After a long run, the plastic canisters will start to soften and implode. This causes the top to deform, thus causing a vacuum leak between the motor and the canister. I decided to try out a small wooden box to replace the orange plastic trouble makers. So here is what I did.
I looked at the bottom of the motor and decided I was not going to suck water with this vacuum, so I didn’t need the plastic cone that captures the float. The purpose of this float is to stop the vacuum from sucking liquid into the blower if you overfill the canister while picking up liquid. Four screws and that part was removed. Next I saw a small foam filter just below the opening in the blower itself. I pulled the foam filter out to discover that the plastic holder behind it was melted and deformed. When it does break, it will be sucked into the blower, and I don’t think that will do it any good. So I removed the foam and the plastic disk behind it. Note: I am NOT suggesting you remove yours. You should have some filtration between your vacuum blower and the spoilboard. In my case the plastic part was deformed and I didn’t want it to break off and the blower ingest it causing more trouble.
Now that I had the motor ready to mount to something, I built a quick box out of scrap wood. The ShopBot cut a nice hole in the top for the Fein motor to just sit on. I did add some gasket material where the edge of the motor will contact the top of the box. I did not used any hardware to hold the motor in place as gravity seems to be doing a Fein (pun intended) job.
Since I have two Feins, I built two boxes. One larger box would have worked just fine but I am using scraps and testing the setup. The only problem I encountered was the need to bend over to turn the unit on and off. They are sitting on the floor! A quick look around and I solved that by adding the vertical strips to the side of the bottom box and putting a cleat where the top box could sit.
Now I have a smaller footprint, two Fein vacuum sources and an on/off switch that is located at a good height. Now when I run the Feins for hours at a time, nothing implodes or leaks.
The next thing I need to add to the Vac Stack is a filter between the vacuum table and the motors to keep any debris out.
