Are you running a vacuum table?

[phantomcow2]

I've just completed the base of my router. I am very happy, after 4 months of designing, things delaying, I think I have entered the phase of assembly.
Looks like my base is about 100 pounds...

Now at my school we ahve a Techno Isel router, T slot table. But we made a small vacuum table for it to hold things about 12x12 size.
I am considering making my table a vacuum table. I have teh setup for it I think. My table is...
a 42x24 sheet of 1/4" aluminum with holes drilled and tapped 1/4-20 every 3" as a grid.

I might just turn a 12x12 portion of the table into vacuum, since that is probably the size I will be working with most.

What are peoples experience using their homemade vac table?

[CNC Pro]

I use homemade vacuum tables every day. I’ve made stand alone tables for 2nd. operations, vacuum forming plastic etc. I’ve even adapted my design to two overhead gantries as vacuum lifting devices to load and unload my routers. Some of the material I run is 48” * 96” sheets of veneered panels @ 110 lbs. per sheet, the vacuum lifts allow for ease of placement and eliminate scratching the panels. The lifts also come in handy when I’m cutting molds for composite parts; mold blanks can weigh as much as 450 lbs. each.

[chuckknigh]

Has anyone converted their vacuum tables from suck to blow? Remember air-hockey? If done right, wouldn't that allow heavy sheet goods to float over the table, and be positioned with ease?

Just one of those "weird ideas."

-- Chuck Knight

[buscht]

Chuck, some commercial routers work that way for the exact reasons you state. Also, it helps keep the vacuum ports clean by blowing out any accumulated debris.

[2muchstuff]

That's not a wierd idea. I was at a plant where they cut panels for cabinetry. On their CNC table saw, the table was set up for vacuum/blow. This allowed them to move 50" by 100" by 3/4" melamine sheets with with very little effort.

[ger21]

Originally Posted by 2muchstuff This allowed them to move 50" by 100" by 3/4" melamine sheets with with very little effort.

Our saw will cut 3 sheets at a time (up to 3" total), up to 12ft long. Impossible to move around without the air tables.

[CNCRob]

I was watching a TV show last night about maps. They show this place that made maps and they used the same concept. After the maps were printed they were stacked in huge bundles and they used an air table to move them around. It's a pretty cool ideal I haven't really thought about before.

[lakeside]

Air tables are very common for large application like indexing a large weldment on a Large Hoz. mill I used them on 50,000lbs weldment needless to say The co-efficiency of Friction on surface is so minimal that your table does not wear out the ways

[CNC Pro]

The “air table” was used on a machine we had in school. The machine was a cylinder-boring machine, with auto centering “fingers” incorporated into the spindle. With a 1-ton head simply resting on the machined base, air was applied to “float” the head while it was centered within the bore. Once centered, the air was turned off, and the head would stay positioned simply from it’s 1-ton mass.