Starting a new topic here to avoid hijacking other threads and allow a more focused discussion.
I've had bits and pieces of automation in my shop for several years. The pieces were mostly iVac. A couple blast gates, and an IVac Pro Switch to control my RL160. They worked fine most of the time. It seemed sort of piecemeal, but it worked. One aspect that kept me from adding more blast gates was that I was spending money to buy the automated gate to replace an already pricey Nordfab gate. The iVac gates were so-so IMO.
Over the past several days I did a full install of a GRIT automation system. It was pretty easy to do and the individual pieces are real quality. One thing I hadn't expected was the exceptional service from GRIT. I have literally never had friendly, helpful service like this. Joel and Jaclyn made it even more a pleasure to install everything.
One thing I wasn't expecting to do was integrate my two dust collectors. I have the RL160 that serves the AD941, the tablesaw, bandsaw, and floor sweep. Earlier this year I added a Harvey Gyro 700. I'm using my CNC a lot now and it was really overkill using the RL160 for hours to keep the CNC jobs clean. I just switched hoses to each collector when I was doing a different type of job. When I was discussing the system with Joel at Grit he suggested adding branches to each collector. I hesitated for a while because of the added costs involved (Nordfab and GRIT), but decided to make the whole system work as a unit.
Long story short, the system is working really well. For the GYRO and RL160 Joel had to add a functionality to my collector switches which he did in a day and pushed them over to my system for automatic updates. Now, when I turn on the CNC, it triggers the CNC blast gate, the Gyro 700 blast gate, turns on the Gyro 700 and closes the RL160 blast gate (another functionality Joel added in a day and pushed over). It's a great system.
A few aspects I hadn't counted on but love:
1) GRIT support. Mentioned above, but they are amazing.
2) The software makes it so easy to understand how the whole system is set up, and is easy to customize instantly, No more dip switches. I can also turn on/off pieces in my shop from in my house.?
3) All the pieces are heavy duty. The 3 phase switch for the AD941 looks like it belongs in a factory. The gates are Nordfab gates, with solenoid operated switches. The 220V triggers for tablesaw, bandsaw, etc. are really heavy duty with L6-30 plugs.
I'd do it again in a heartbeat.
