aarn: four degree of freedom vacuum fixture [misc]
This is one of the first devices that I designed and manufactured in-house. The challenge was to come up with an interesting, highly-adjustable, and aesthetically pleasing attachment to hold/position the dust collection system (read: vacuum) for my CNC router. The solution that I came up with has four parts: two unique interlocking machined delrin (acetal) clamp rings, a threaded insert, and a socket head cap screw.
Tightening the single fastener clamps four different parts of the apparatus in one move, allowing for single handed operation and quick adjustments on the fly. When loose the large clamp ring can rotate around the router shell and move up and down along the z-axis of the router as well. The small clamp ring can rotate around the attachment point (threaded axis of the fastener) to the larger clamp ring, and can also lock the insertion position/length of the vacuum snout.
The small clamp ring has a stainless steel threaded insert which makes the clamp system pretty rugged and prevents thread tear-out and cross threading of the fastener in the delrin material. The two clamp rings were machined with a 1/4-in end mill out of 3/4-in thick white delrin.
The system works pretty well, but I think that I need a more powerful vac and some flaps on the opposite side of the tooling to help control how much material is ejected beyond the area in which the suction force is effective.
