Mechanical Vacuum Switch

myminifactory

I designed a mechanical switch to turn my bench-mounted vacuum system on and off using just one button, so I created this quick mechanism that converts rotary motion into reciprocating motion using a reciprocating rotary gear. It's printed in PLA (base, top, and switch holder) and ABS (gear and slider). It fits a Ridgid 6HP (16) gallon wet/dry vac, which I'll verify later. Here are the instructions: The switch uses a 3RPM gear motor (DFGA25RP-654i), and the motor mounts with two 3mm x 8 button head screws. The gear is tapped to accept two 6/32" set screws that fit the 4mm shaft. The bottom base and top plate are held together with six 2/56" x 1/2" screws and nuts. The switch itself just presses onto the vacuum and can be easily removed if needed. It runs off a 12-volt battery now, but I'll add a wall power supply later on. The motor could be a bit faster since it takes about seven seconds between on and off, but it's what I had at hand when I built it.