The ducting and electricity are done! Â

Â
I now have power and dust collection to all of my machines. Â Let's talk about blast gates.
Â
What exactly is a blast gate? Â A blast gate is a way to open and close part of a multi-branch duct system. Â You may have noticed in previous posts that the under-floor ducting for the dust collection system is not a straight line system. Â It twists and turns and branches and terminates at each machine (or potential future machine -- I built in some extra stuff for that too).
Â
When you're operating your table saw, you don't want to be pulling dust out of your jointer.  The blast gates are there to ensure just one machine at a time is receiving the full suction of the dust collection system. Â
Â

Â
Some shops have manual blast gates that you simply slide open like the one pictured above. Â I have this one on my floor sweeps.

Â
Since I don't have access to the ducting (it's under the floor), I have electric blast gates. Â These gates work via a radio frequency system built into the gates themselves. Â You assign each gate a number (and set it by setting a couple of jumpers). Â The gate has a sensor associated with it that clamps onto the power cord of the machine it's servicing. Â When the sensor senses an electric current in the cord, the blast gate is opened. Â It simultaneously sends a signal to all the other gates in the system to make sure they're closed.
Â
Looks like it's about time to get to work on some real woodworking stuff.
Recent Posts
Archive
Tags
I'm busy working on my blog posts. Watch this space!