Workshop Dust Control Using Arduino

[AlanBeckett]

Those Bales look horribly familiar - Horse Bedding?

Alan

[pwdrive]

Yes, those shavings end up as horse bedding, I used to sell mine when I had my own sawmill years ago, they are always in demand, I sought of fell out with one customer once, he came in and asked for some shavings for his rabbits, he only wanted a couple of fertilizer bags full, loose filled, I said to him help yourself, I think a quid was exchanged, a few days later he came back complaining about the shavings, it turned out he was breeding white rabbits for show and the tannin in the shavings had stained the fur on his prize possessions....It's a tough old world...

Lawrence.

[Nick]

Those who do any woodworking or woodturning will know that getting rid of dust is an ever present problem and it’s all too easy to use your lungs as a non-renewable dust filter - quite a health hazard with dust from MDF and certain timbers used in woodturning which are known to pose serious health hazards, such as laburnum and iroko. ...

I too am very concerned about dust in workshops as I do a lot of machining... however there is a far simpler way of automatically turning on the extractors by current sensing a "master" line (the tools) and using that to turn on a "slave" (the extractor)... i.e. no manual intervention at all.

EDIT: Response moved to  http://golbornevintageradio.co.uk/forum/showthread.php?tid=4793&pid=51156#pid51156

[Refugee]

I can remember show rabbits.
If you know a breeder you can often get the ones that don't make the grade.
They are given away for the cooking pot as the breeder will not allow his/her breeding stock out in case you set up and compete.
Free food if you like rabbit though.

[AlanBeckett]

I hope it's Softwood Lawrence 'cause Hardwood 'aint good for Horses, although I can't really remember why. Breathing?

I like Rabbit

Alan

[pwdrive]

I hope it's Softwood Lawrence 'cause Hardwood 'aint good for Horses, although I can't really remember why. Breathing?

I like Rabbit

Alan

Yes, all softwood shavings Alan, mostly pine/spruce.

Lawrence.

[Nick]

...In larger workshops which have the space, and have several items of power equipment in use it makes sense to install a dust extraction system with ‘blast gates’ which can be opened and closed as required, for whichever machine is in use at the time. Blast gates are usually controlled manually, but there’s an interesting use of Arduino to control ‘blast gates’ on a home workshop dust extraction system here:
 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HAMYaCIXXYU
 
I know that Arduinos are cheap and clones are even cheaper. It isn’t something I’m into or am ever likely to, but  I thought some forum members might be interested in the youtube video as an example of a practical application of Arduino in the workshop. No doubt there are countless other practical applications. The home-made dust extraction system on which the Arduino controls the blast gates is here:

A comment - in the nicest possible way, of course

What a mad, mad, way to open & close a few air sluice gates. So over-complex and it won't save him any time - the gates don't even open properly and you have to go back to the keypad to control them. Instead of basically nothing to go wrong, he now has six servos, an Arduino, a keypad, a power socket in use for the Arduino PSU, and wire dangling around all over just waiting to snag on something.

I generally like this guy's videos, but this one is, IMHO, a complete waste of time & money 

Now, if he'd done power detection on each bit of kit and automatically opened the appropriate gate & turned on the extraction (easy to do), that would be better... but a keypad and no extraction control? Please !

[Alan Douglas]

Reminds me somewhat of people who go into CNC milling (and associated programming) without any clear idea of what they'll do with it or why they needed it in the first place. 3d printing too, for that matter.

[pwdrive]

To reduce the chances of blast gates gumming up you can get self cleaning ones, the ones where the plate slides right through, another point with dust extraction when machining timber is that usually there will still be some dust floating around even with an extraction system, this stuff can sometimes find it's way into the gearing of some machines including gearing to do with motorized/actuator blast gates etc, the dust accumulates at the bottom of the gullies of the gear teeth, it can get compressed and build up in layers, if left unchecked then something's going to give if there is enough driving torque, years ago I used to operate a large plate saw that had a drag/rope feed to pull the log through the blade, the gear shafts on the drag winch were about 1.25" in diameter, sawdust got in the gears and compacted in the teeth unbeknown to me, eventually something had to give, the main fuses blew, and the gear shaft had bent.

Lawrence.

[Radio Fixer]

Like a lot of hobbies, even restoring old radios, its a pastime thing Alan. I could easily get involved with CNC and 3D printing if I had the time and space. Spent a lot of time once programing, all useless stuff to anyone else, but I enjoyed it (and learnt a lot about PCs as well) and felt it kept the old marbles moving around.

Its just great to have something interesting to get up for each morning. Neighbours read newspapers from front to back ...Ugh!

Gary