Haas Gantry Router dust exraction options

[CJH]

HI evryone,

I just joined this forum, and it looks like a lot of useful info is shared.

I have a question for all the Haas users out there, about dust collection provisions or factory options from that come from Haas on their GR series machines.

Currently we have the TM-1 Mill in our model shop, and have been quite happy with the machine. It's a little dusty when we are cutting wood, foams, model boards, etc. But nothing major. So we are looking to expand our capabililty and purchse a router to do large models, cabinet work, and various other things. So the dust control is going to be a critical issue for us on a big machine. Our offices/shops are in a museum environment so we have mixed uses in our facility. The control of the dust has to bexcellent because of health reasons cutting MDF, foams, etc., as well as the fact that there are very expensive/priceless historical artifacts that we also store in our facility, and need to transport through shop areas sometimes while working on them.

Now onto the real business at hand. We went on a site visit to another facility yesterday (Friday) to look at a Gantry Router. The one we looked at was the GR 510. It seems to be a very stout and reliable machine. We talked with the operators of the router and asked about their success with the dust control and got mixed answers. They had bought the machine with the facotry dust extraction provisions and had removed them after delivery, and just hooked up a funnel port to the machine. I don't really know if this was due to fact that there are both machinists and cabinet makers running the machine and have 2 different mindets when it comes to this type of issue. Our group talked with the salesman a bit about this, and he said that they could work with us on this option and come up with something. I looked at the Haas website and they have dust extraction options for the all the routers except the little SR 100, but no pictures on the site. In their manual they have illustrations of what the Auto Chip Curtan option looks like but it's not really detailed.

Does any of you Haas users out there have the factory options installed on your machine for the dust control? i.e. the Auto chip curtain or the Atuo dust extraction that opens when the tools change. If so what are your thoughts on these? How well do they work? Could anyone supply photos of how they look? I guess I'm looking to see if someone can help me gain some preliminary info so that we can ask educated questions when working out a purchse of a machine. I looked around on the commercial router portion of this site and there really any mention much of Haas. Any help that could be provided will be appreciated.

As a side note, I have another question...Are there any shops out there in the Mid Atlantic region of the USA, that have a GR 408? We may look to our sales guy to also show us one of these machines. We want to keep our cost options open as much as possible.

Thanks in advance,

CJH

[Kool Parts]

You have probably seen these..but they have a video archive page. There is one on dust extraction in a VMC and one with the GR-408. I don't know why all these company's feel as though they have to come up with background music...

http://www.haascnc.com/news_videos.asp#news

[CJH]

Kool Parts,

Thanks for replying. Yeah I've seen the videos. It's not quite the info I was looking for. I'm looking for info specifically on the dust extraction for the router series of machines. They have a sentence or two mentioning the options are available, but no images. What we as a group are hoping to find out is whether or not the dust extraction options are similar to the ones found on commercial woodworking routers like Onsrud, or Komo type machines. These type of machines have the spindle area enclosed with a brush system and retract when the tool change happens.

I guess I may get other replys after prople get back into their shops on Monady and throughout the week. I decided to post it this weeknd since things tend to get busy for me during the week and i may not be able to get the chance to do it then.

CJH

[ger21]

Never used a Haas, but work in a woodworking shop. If dust control is that crucial, I'd build a room around the machine. Although it may depend on the parts you're cutting, collecting every bit of dust when cutting MDF would be very difficult.

[automizer]

CJH I have a GR-408 and I have been down the same road your on now and Im sorry to say its very untraveled. In looking I found that some of the Haas options I wanted did not work with the chip curtion so I have opted for building one myself. All tho I can no give any more info as I am not set up nor has the machine made it to my shop yet. I have working drawings and plans for building a dust collection system and I would be willing to share any info I have if you wish. I Know how frustrating this task is because in my eyes it seems as tho Haas has an attitude of "Hey look at out VMs, we have other machines too but Hey look at our VMs." There is some info here on the Zone about the GR series but not much.
I bid you good luck and I hope I can help in some way

[CJH]

Atomizer,

Thanks for replying, I have been away for a while and was not able to look at the forum. Yes I would be very interested in hearing more about the system you have come up with.

I actually spoke with our Haas dealer today, and it seems asthough the GR 408 is not quite as popular as the 510. I guess it has to do with the work envelope. It seems that no one either in goverment or private industry have bought any of these on the East Coast, in the USA. Well at least not in the Mid Atlantic region to New England. So that has me a bit leary, but I know Haas puts out a quality product at a mid price point.

Getting back to my conversation with our sales rep, he emailed me the install guide for the dust extraction option and it seems to be what we may be looking for, but not sure. We're going to explore this further.

CJH

[automizer]

Well One thing I can say about the two is that the 408 and the 510 have a similar footprint so for the same shop space your getting more machine with the 510, and if you look at the little booklets they hand out at the shows and such the GR serise starts at the 510 I found the 408 when I was looking for the 510 and im glad I did.
Let me put together my drawings and scan them in to my computer I will post something this week and see what you think. If you could do the same with the Haas version I have seent he chip curtin but not the dust collector and I am interested to see what it looks like.

[automizer]

As a side note from this are there any other members out there even remotely interested in the GR series from Haas. Myself I love Gantry Machines there more fun to watch and use then a Mill, but thats just my opinion. Please comment just even a yes I'm reading this post with internist. I'd like to know who else is reading this thread.

So back to the thread topic I have collected all my drawings and such but they look horrid and are hard to follow (like most things that come out of my head) so I am re-doing them as I need to explain this to some pneumatic guys anyways, should be up in the next few days

[CJH]

Atomizer,

I'm away from the office today, but I checked my email and our Haas rep sent some pics on the dust collection option. It looks to be a electronic version, non pneumatic. From what I can see it looks promising. I'll post them next week when I'm back. But I would still be interested in seeing what you came up with, we might consider it for our TM-1 that we have in the model shop right now, but it really isn't a big dust maker since we're occasionally only cutting wood on it.

On a side note 2 questions for you...What type of work will you be doing on your machine? Why did you choose the 408 over the 510?

CJH

[automizer]

I look forward to seeing the photos.

to answer your questions I chose the 408 for a few reasons, 1st was price, the 510 is just a little to high up there. 2 its unique lots of people I have shown look at it and say "that is odd looking" 3 I was looking at the 510 and when I stumbled across the 408 it was more of a "Thats the one" then anything else. To be honest it was kind of an impulse I wait 5 years to be able to get a machine the time came close and I jumped the gun and it has been in storage for 9+ months and Im still not ready for it sad sad affair im itching to use it

[CJH]

Atomizer,

Sorry about not getting back to you about the photos our Haas guy sent. I completely spaced. I was off work for a while sick as a dog, and when I back to working things were fast and furious at the office. Needless to say I forgot. I'm going to try and post them now. Hope it works since I haven't tried this before to a forum.

We're still hoping that our sales rep will turn up a machine with this option that we can look at. After many discussions either the 408 or 510 seem to meet our needs nicely. Plus if we have multiple machines on the floor our management is liking the idea of a shorter learning curve in having all the machines use the same control.

CJH

[GCMAN]

CJH,
We purchased a GR 408 last year with the dust extraction feature hoping it would cure our dust issues. Unfortunaly we had remove ours due to interferance issues due to the 3D work we do. It seems to be a good system for flat style work. We also looked at the GR 510 before the 408 came out. Only differece seemed to be price and table travel which the 408 fit our needs best. We really like our machine. Good luck on your purchase.