For those of you familiar with my story, I’m not cooking with gas! Now that it’s up and running 100% it’s time to think about all of the add-on’s. I’m holding off on the chrome plating for now, but I was thinking about getting some dust collection going on. I’ve seen photos around the forum but was wondering if people would be kind enough to post photos, ideas, suggestions, model numbers, or whatever else you think might be necessary for someone starting out with CNC to know about dust collection.
Find a reasonably priced shop vacuum (you’ll want a decent sized one) and do a Google search for “Dust Deputy”. My vac is a Ryobi brand which has a plug for the router on it - when I turn the router on, the vacuum starts, when I turn it off, the vacuum stops a few seconds later. It’s handy.
The dust deputy catches 99% of the dust before it gets to the vacuum, meaning I only need to need to empty the bucket. The vacuum filter only needs to be cleaned every couple of months.
Have a look around for dust boots or dust shields on the forum. There are lots and lots of variations ranging from really fancy to cheap & functional. I’m in the cheap & functional camp…
Mine’s similar to a lot you can find on here. I used the 2" brush material you can get from McMaster Carr, which was listed on one of the forums here. The biggest changes I made were to use 4 magnets instead of 2 to hold the bottom part on, and to cut a 1/4" notch in the bottom so I could slip the bit through it without having to lift the router all the way up. Not sure how well it works for sure yet, but my quick test cut seemed to make a lot less loose dust.
I’m planning to use an ancient DeWalt dust extractor instead of a shop vac. I do have a shop vac and dust deputy but I’m concerned about it’s ability run for (potentially) hours at a time.
Using the dust extractor will mean running some 100mm ducting through a wall as I’ll want the dust collector outside of my work area. I’ll have to step the 100mm down to 50mm as I’m not sure that the X-Carve could drag a 100mm hose around.
First step is to find out if the fibro cement wall I need to cut through, contains asbestos.
Here’s what im using, its fixed to the gantry, so it doesnt go up and down with the spindle, you can lower it onto the stock and if needed leave a gap for your clamps.
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See? Ask 10 people and you’ll get at least 11, all really good, options.
Love this forum…
Hmm, I was just thinking… OMG 
Would it be possible to have the dust skirt/brush thing glued to a thin plate/disc and mount that to the dust shoe with magnets. This will allow easily removing of the skirt and more easily changing of bits.
That’s the only thing that makes sense. I use 1/4 inch plexiglass for the piece that is fixed to the router base and another with the brush. Rare earth magnets on both pieces and it stays in place very well and is easy to remove to change bits and also to zero the machine.
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Yep, magnets are probably the most common attachment system I’ve seen. If you make one pair sit ‘proud’ and have the other pair set into their holes a little deep, the magnets will self align the base onto the top half - you can see the bottom two magnets in my photo above.
Having these magnets sitting a little proud of the surface, also means the boot can be quickly stored away against anything metal - such as the leg of my work bench.
That’s a cool setup! How do you run the vac hose out of the box? And got some close ups of that dust shoe?
Thanx
The down side to having a Makita router is that there are no screw holes on the bottom to attach a dust shoe…
@Ebr I have a mount to run the hose out of the box. Oh and none of the routers have screws on the bottom, most shoes that attach to the routers do so by pressure and sometimes an adjustment screw to tighten the grip.
Here are some closeups:
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Thanks for the pictures!
I have built a box for the XC myself but unsure on how to get the hose to work without getting in the way.
Worried that just running the hose through the side might turn nasty as it might get stuck on the edge of the exit hole. A mount like that might be just what I am looking for. 
Wouldn’t the magnets pop off under a bit of pressure? I think I’d want 20 magnets at least. Screwing it on seems more secure, but also a pain to do. A dust shoe is something I need to do soon.
The small neodymium magnets are superstrong. You can get them so strong you will have problems removing the dust shoe by hand
Yes, @Srednasoft is correct, I bought some 12mm square magnets & catching some skin between them was sufficient to create a blood blister. Letting larger one’s hit together can be sufficient to smash them.
Four 10mm X 3mm magnets will be more than enough to firmly hold the boot in place.
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