Awaiting Arrival of Fusion 40

[Lee Miller]

I have explored several of the postings on air compressor and exhaust for laser use ... the older post shy away from in-line and I feel that the in-line will not provide me with enough exhaust on a 4" line. Are most of you 'super-users' utilizing the dust collector for exhausting fumes? If so, is Penn State or Harbor Freight the best deal going?
Lastly air compressor ... I am leaning towards a good airbrush compressor with moisture bulb/filter. Anyone successful using this type of set-up>
Thanks

[Mike Null]

Lee

Welcome to SMC and congratulations on your purchase. I believe very strongly in in-line blowers as long as your run is not excessively long. They are efficient and much quieter than the type you are considering. I don't know what you paid for your machine but why cheap out on a blower? Mine is now nearly 17 years old and still running as well as ever.

For air assist I would have a look at Gast if you want hard working, long lasting. They are more expensive but they run forever-it seems. Mine is 22 years old and used on my Newing Hall machine.

[Gary Hair]

Lee,
I have been using the green harbor freight dust collector for over 7 years and it's still going strong! I have two others that I use for sandcarving and they have been in use for almost 6 years. H.F. may be known for being cheap but I can't beat 7 years service for less than $100! If you do get the HF make sure you find a coupon, there is always a 20% or 25% floating around somewhere. As for compressor - if you use air for any length of time you will burn out an airbrush type compressor pretty quickly. At a minimum I would recommend something with an 8-10 gallon tank - unless you won't be vectoring much anyway. I'm lucky in that I have a 60 gal compressor in the garage, it runs about every 2 hours when I'm vectoring a lot and being in the garage I barely hear it.

Gary

edit: here is a link to a HF 20% off coupon, and they happen to have a 21 gallon compressor on sale for $159 - my guess is that is less than half of a Gast...
http://www.harborfreight.com/digitalsavings.html

I started out with one of these http://www.harborfreight.com/2-horsepower-8-gal-125-psi-portable-air-compressor-69667.html and it worked pretty well and was fairly quiet, relatively speaking anyway.

[David Somers]

Lee,

I second Mike. The dust collector units are wicked noisy. I use one of the small 1 amp units for wood turning dust collection and it is some kind of noisy. And that is not even a loud or especially powerful one in comparison to the bigger units. I would not want that puppy running every time I fire up a laser.

I also second Gast pumps. I have a 12 year old Gast vacuum pump I use with a vacuum chuck on a lathe and it works like the day it was bought. A great pump.

Dave

[Lee Miller]

Mike - may I inquire as to the type/manufactor of your inline blower? I am not looking for cheap ... I am looking at efficiency and bang-for-the-buck as they say. Gast recommendation I am following up on.
Thanks

[Mike Null]

Lee
Mine is out of production but looking at in-line blowers on google will turn up something. I bought mine at Grainger and it's a 6" unit that I reduce to 4" near the machine and at the outside duct.

I can carry on a phone conversation while my laser and blower are running just a few feet away. My run from machine to outer wall is less than 10 feet.