Dust Collection Monitor

I just finished and published my first product – the Arduino Shop Dust Collection Monitor. This was a fun project for me. The display tells me when to clean the cartridge filter in my dust collector.

The Dust Collection Monitor measures the pressure build up inside the cartridge filter. When the collector is on the filter pressure is displayed, which increases as the filter gets clogged with sawdust. When the pressure increases, it can help tell when it is time to clean the filter.

The monitor was built fairly cheaply using an Arduino. The monitor is hooked to the Internet, and can get and display the time, the temperature, humidity and barometric pressure in the shop. The dust collector motor tracks runtime in hours since the filter was last cleaned, since the filter was new, and a total for the dust collector itself.

To check it out – see my full article!

Dust Collection Overview

I want to go over my dust collection system, and explain some of the tips and tricks that I know of. Dust collection is for a couple reasons. One: to get a lot of the sawdust and chips collected without making a mess over the shop. Two: to try to reduce the amount of dust in the air for you to breath.  Wood dust in the air is really bad for your lungs, especially the smaller particles. Also, you can get wood dust allergies, which would be bad if it made it so you couldn’t enjoy your hobby, or how you make your living.

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Making a crosscut sled

I looked all around online at the different cross cut sleds that people were making. I really liked the Nick Ferry video, his sled really looked awesome, and he explained how to make it really well. I went ahead and purchased his plans as well. You can also check out his plans here: https://nickferry.com/product/table-saw-cross-cut-miter-sled/

Here’s a link to Nick’s how to make video:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZtwK9X8o1Gw

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Roller Stands for Table Saw Outfeed – Rolling Pin vs Roller Balls

I needed help supporting my maple lumber when ripping it on the table saw. These were unsurfaced 8/4 boards (2″ thick), 9 to 12″ wide, and ten or eleven feet long. To rip these by myself, I needed something like this to support the board coming into the saw, and on the outfeed side. The outfeed side in my case for a board this long actually has to go out my open shop door, and down a step, so it needs to adjust to fit the saw height when sitting down a step. I needed something that would fold up for easier storage.

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