New Automatic Blast Gates

[Kevin Gagne]

I just came across an ad for these in Fine Woodworking. Has anyone seen or tried these yet? http://www.grngate.com.

[John M Wilson]

This looks intriguing, but I'm wondering if the 4" duct size might be limiting and/or missing their target market.

Seems like the folks who are really into dust collection will have 5", 6", or larger ports.

[Kevin Gagne]

I did send them a message earlier about larger gates. I will post when I hear back from them.

[David Kumm]

I agree. The money would be better spent on a system with larger capacity. 4" gates usually mean 4" flex which is generally a bad idea. 5 and 6 should be a choice at the minimum. Or just build Alan's. Dave

[John Hays]

Kind of a poor design in terms of the space needed to use the gates. If those are 4" holes in the center of each gate, that means the width would be over 16" and the height would be over 19"... that's just crazy!

I do like the daisy chain ability, but doesn't PSI's Lone Ranger system have that ability too?

[Alan Schaffter]

A bit pricey. Under their name it says "Based on Proven ECOGATE technology." I wonder if this is the new ECOGATE, someone licensed the design, or had ECOGATE design a simpler system for them. I think the problem with ECOGATE was that it wasn't heavy duty enough for commercial use and too expensive for retail.

The problem you run into with 6" or larger gates (unless you have pneumatic actuated gates :) ) is that you need more force to overcome suction induced friction forces on the gate blade and therefore need heaftier gearing and/or actuating motor. A couple of other possible reasons they haven't come out with larger gates- Conscious decision to focus on a smaller target audience, uninformed about dust collection dynamics, or short on developmental $ required to pay for additional gate body injection molds or a heftier motor/gear assembly needed for larger gate(s). Those kinds of up-front costs can get pretty steep.

I think an RF vs wired system like iVAC is trying to develop is a neater way to go- a lot less wires, and addressable RF transmitters and receivers are really getting small and inexpensive these days. The iVAC system uses a sliding blade like typical blast gates. It has a feature where one gate is always open when the others are closed. They say it is to protect the DC and ducting- well it doesn't protect the DC because all gates closed puts the least stress on the DC motor. As far as ducting, that might be a consideration if you have thin 30 gauge ducting and a strong DC. I suspect the reason is to reduce DC SP friction forces on the gate motor and gears- even when not under suction they sound like they are working too hard in the video. I cautioned them about this. At this time it looks like iVAC will only be releasing a 4" autogate, too, and it looks like the release date has changed from May to August. Info and video are here (http://www.ivacswitch.com/index.action). That may be because iVAC changed ownership or was spun off from MBright (an investment/venture capital group?) to BCTINT Ltd.

In case you were wondering I didn't have any part in this design (yet :D ), though I did offer them my design for a high dust alarm that could be added to or integrated into their iVAC Pro system.

[Peter Aeschliman]

It is pretty odd that they don't have the 6" gates. Serious woodworkers know that 4" won't cut it, and I would think serious woodworkers would the target market.

Alan, I've always admired your design. I'd love to do it someday but I'm intimidated. ;-)

[Joseph Tarantino]

alan....whatever happened to the video american WW had of your impressive DC system? last time i looked for it, it appeared to have been disabled. is it available anywhere else?

[Alan Schaffter]

alan....whatever happened to the video american WW had of your impressive DC system? last time i looked for it, it appeared to have been disabled. is it available anywhere else?

Joe.

Its still there, just in a different location (http://www.americanwoodworker.tv/videos/5057_automatic-dust-collection/) since AWW reworked their website.

[Joseph Tarantino]

thank you. it's still the most impressive set up i've ever seen.