The K.I.S.S. Vacuum Manifold

I have been fortunate to visit a good number of ShopBot equipped shops. This has enabled me to compare many setups and implement my favorite “borrowed” ideas into my own setup. Even though I have seen many ingenious vacuum distribution and valve setups I never really saw one that seemed simple. Our previous system had …

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Part 1: Buddy 48 and Innospann vacuum system

We would like to give you some background about our company and share some experiences we had improving our 48” ShopBot Buddy with a new vacuum hold down system.

Intelliview UAS, LLC was originally organized to help design an aerial surveillance video platform for unmanned aircraft systems. Running back and forth to meetings, I spent …

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My 4 Motor Vacuum Setup

While waiting for our shipping date to arrive, my son and I, like most new users, agonized over all the details of electrical, vacuum, placement and layout of all the items necessary to running our Bot. We probably read every post on the TalkShopBot Forum concerning vacuum going back to 2005. After asking a few …

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A PVC Vacuum Table Part 2: A little more on Plenum Design…

A plenum is little more than a few slots cut into a piece of material, but there are some options to consider when designing one for the first time. Start out your design with a size that is very close to your finish zone size so that any resizing is minimal before cutting. The general …

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A PVC Vacuum Table

As a relative newcomer to the ShopBot community, let me first say I am honored to be asked to join the likes of my fellow columnists. I am sure that all of you respect them, and their opinions, as much as I do.

Over the next few months I will try to use my woodworking …

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Ed’s Ugly One Hour Vacuum Source

In prior articles I wrote about my vacuum table and how I used the Fein Turbo III vacs to hold my parts. The Feins are quiet and ready to connect and run right out of the box. ShopBot can even provide you with them!

For …

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The BradyVac II – A Production Vacuum Fixture on a Shoestring Budget

About 2 years ago, I set out to create a removable universal vacuum fixture for doing various jobs. (Please review my Nov. 2006 article) This universal fixture was coined the ‘BradyVac’ by Bill Young. The basic idea is to take a sheet of …

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Vacuum is vacuum, but how you use it makes the difference

I have had my PRTalpha96 for a little more than year now and am still learning how to do things and improving techniques I have been using for a while now. I would like to share with you how and why I have moved from a full table, four-zone vacuum system to a pretty simple …

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A Removable Vacuum Plenum that Maximizes Hold Down Potential

If you are anything like me, you want to be ready for any job that comes through the door. For me, this meant being able to quickly tool up for cutting 2” hardwood shapes that needed to be screwed down to a rigid spoilboard one day, and be able to hold down 4X8 …

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New Vacuum Table

A few months ago I replaced the worn out plywood and MDF table which came with my ‘bot (the demo model from the 2004 IWF) with a custom-designed 8 zone vacuum table. There has been a lot of interest in vacuum tables recently, and since I posted a few pictures of my newly upgraded …

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