I have been making some river keychains for sale (so far, not so much 
), but, to that end, I bought a small belt sander for some of the work on them. BTW, it’s really small, the belts are only 15mm X 330mm! But it’s perfect for my needs and situation. However, it doesn’t have dust collection, something that I really like to have.
So, armed with FreeCAD and my Ender 3 Pro, I set out to design something. In the pictures you will see liberal use of Gorilla Tape to seal seams, and a couple of modifications to avoid reprinting things.
My original design for the pins to latch the door to the top of the wall didn’t work. So, rather than reprint things, I created the clamp that slips over the top. It works well, and I printed it in red so I can find it on the bench.
I made the flip-up front because I don’t have any need for more room than that, but I can flip it up if I need. Hopefully it increases the airflow near the business end.
The door and the flip-up are hinged with 3mm all thread and 3mm bearings. Had some of those kicking around in the parts bins.
The door has 1/4" foam rod in pockets to try to seal it up. The goal was to maximize the airflow where its needed. Probably a vain attempt, but the wind around the belt at the front is pretty good.
It works really well. I emptied the vortex separator on the vacuum line, then sanded a bit. There was virtually nothing outside the machine, and lots in the separator. So, a win, I guess.
It was by far the most complicated thing I ever designed and it was a good learning exercise to further my skills on FreeCAD.
Its for sure a prototype, and fairly rough, but its only for me, so its fine. I can see now how many iterations companies must go through to bring something to market.
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that’s great, Very nice job on that!
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Necessity is the mother of invention. This was very well thought out, and executed, GREAT JOB!!!
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