Workshop Dust Control Using Arduino

[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.