Building a vacuum hold down table for my Avid CNC machine

In this video I quickly talk about the steps taken to build a vacuum hold down table for my Avid CNC Router Parts table.

Table Layers:
1” HDF glued and screwed to the 80/20 frame
3/4” MDF used for the milled plenum layer
3/4” ultralight used for the “sacrificial layer”

Manifold and piping:
The manifold was made using 3” PVC
All other pipe and fittings is made with 2” PVC

Black Box Hurricane Vac System & blast gates

2P-10 adhesive:

[thetractorden]

One of the best Flow Thru Vacuum Table setups that I have seen. Great Job! Great Info!!

[homemadetools]

Nice one. We posted this video on our homemade tools forum yesterday :)

[GregsGarage]

great looking setup Brian. I just got done setting up a 6 zone system on my old digital wood carver. It's a small vacuum pump and won't pull through a panel like yours will... At some point, I'm going to upgrade to a big boy cnc. I'll probably copy most of your design when I do. I need to look up those blast gates. Thanks for sharing...

[stefanstraka]

Thanks Brian - could you share the file for you plenum board? Looks just right

[ianvanier]

Awesome info. Would you be able to share your file for the plenum? Or interested in selling file?
Thanks for the video

[Codswallopu]

What relay did you buy? I have the same setup and would like to trigger the Hurricane with relay 1 from my avic cnc.

[markcorneglio]

Hi Brian - thanks for the video. Is that 30amp relay something out of the HVAC industry? Do you have the brand or part number by chance?

[roadkill]

Thanks for the video. Excellent job.

I just ordered a 5x 10 with extended gantry and 2 Z axis with 12" ballscrew. I'm planning to do this exact setup for the vacuum table. Ready to order the hurricane right now. Is there a competing Vacuum pump system I should look at or have you found the Hurricane to be satisfactory?

I'm also curious why you couldn't just do the plenum table out of the 1" HDF instead of stacking another layer on top? Seems like losing 1-3/4" of height before spoil board adds up to a limiting gantry height. Also you mentioned only gluing the surface of the plenum squares, but it seems to me you wouldn't want any possibility of losing air through the plenum board, so you would want to make sure the entire surface is sealed, so maybe gluing or sealing the grooves would be a little batter. Would you do it the same way if you did it again?

I saw someone mention copper wire for static buildup. Did you do that or has that not been a problem?

Thank you for your time!

[hecope]

A better way of going about this.

1. Screw down 1” regular MDF
2. Screw down finished plenum sheet to 1” MDF ( don’t glue it, no need )
3. Screw down light weight MDF to plenum.
4. Surface plane the top of light weight MDF.

DONE

you should not use glue between Plenum and lightweight MDF. The glue will reduce air flow.

[mctrapp]

How deep did you mill the grid channels Into the mdf sheet?

[magicman]

I am trying to figure out how to build my vacuum table. This system won't work for me. Wonder if i could use 1.5" PVC (no space for 3 ")

[donbillington]

Brian- since you glue the entire assembly together, do you just scrap the whole set up when your spoil board gets milled down too thin, or is this s very specific set up that won't kerf the spoil board?
Thanks, much appreciated.

[gjebox]

It my experance for vaccum you dont need large pipes... vaccum is vaccum...the bigger the pipe the longer it takes to evacuate the air in the system..
Ie you manifold.. you could have 1 or 1.5 inch pipe with no issues

[GrahamCampbellNZ]

One warning - Due to the potential hazard from a dust explosion (Static from plastic pipes), either use grounded metal piping or run a bare copper wire inside the pipe and out to earth.

[Z-add]

I thought avid had already moved to mach4

[mavigogun]

You lost me at "and screw it into the aluminium".

[pernellkatchp]

My adventure with the tree began with projects from Woodprix.