Vacuum Table....

[salewis]

Ok ladies and gentlemen, with about a year (little less) of use on our MM it appears that most of our work would be made much easier through a vacuum table.

I have read through several blogs and even visited other (*&^%bot) sites.

We have a 5x10 table and are considering two LH brand motors from central vacuum motors. We are thinking of laying another 0.75 inch of MDF to the existing 1.00 (little less due to surfacing) and cutting the vacuum plenum in that with a 0.50 router bit (cutting 0.50 deep) and then using additional MDF for the spoilboard.

The questions are simple. Do we need to plan for running these motors in both parallel and series? Also the knife valves, do they need to be metal blades or will plastic work?

Also references to machines with plenum pics would be grateful.

Stan

[KenC]

Stan,
Surely you can set up for swapping between series, parallel or individual for your own amusement, I choose to set up in parallel & a single port, this works great on 90% of what I do.
The trick is in managing your leakage & pay attention to tiny (2"x 4" & smaller) pieces.
My advise is just buy the motors & get on with it.
Have a look at my building thread http://www.mechmate.com/forums/showthread.php?p=50800&postcount=418

[salewis]

how many motors are you running (2 or 4)?

[adsiv@vodamail.co.za]

one motor

[salewis]

geez must be a big one :eek:

Seriously, I'm looking at the lighthouse (or is it lighthorse) from centralvacuummotor.com. (120 vac version).

Stan

[KenC]

you should be able to see 2 motors in my pix.
One motor can work too but you can always have as many as you wish.