By Team FORG3D
Most vacuum workholding setups have a hidden constraint: the pump stays where it lives, and the workholding lives around it. Your best setup is bench-dependent because that's where the line runs. Take the work somewhere else — a cart, a staging area, an install site — and you're improvising.
The SYS-GRP Nexus Baseplate removes that constraint. It routes any Grabo-compatible vacuum source through the same pods, rails, and adapters that run off a dedicated pump at your bench. The system follows the work. Here are five workflows where that matters.
1. Sheet goods hold on any surface, not just the bench
BenchGrip pods connected through Nexus work the same way they do at your bench — same hold, same setup, same release. What changes is where "the bench" can be.
Sheet goods on sawhorses at a lumber yard. A door on a pair of stands at an install. Plywood on a cart in the middle of the shop. The pod placement is the same. The hold is the same. The surface is wherever the work landed.
The vacuum source — a Grabo Pro-Lifter or DeWalt Grabo clipped into Nexus — travels with the pods. It doesn't have a preferred location, and neither does your workholding.
2. Guide rail precision without clamps on the ground
FS Rail pods lock your track saw guide rail to the work surface. No clamps sandwiched under the rail. No interference with the cut path. No registration shift when you apply cutting pressure.
At a bench with a dedicated pump, this is a well-understood setup. On-site — on high-dollar sheet goods, on vertical cabinet sides, on a floor that won't hold a clamp — the pump isn't there, but the problem is. Nexus is how FS Rail pods travel to that location and work the same way they do in the shop.
The hold comes from below the rail. The cut path stays clear. The rail stays where you set it.
3. Shaper Plate registration follows the tool, not the pump line
ComponentGrip pods for Shaper Plate lock the registration field in place without clamps interfering with Origin's cut path. On a dedicated bench with a pump line, this is straightforward. The complication comes when the work is somewhere the line can't reach.
With Nexus, the vacuum source clips on at the Grabo and routes through to the ComponentGrip pod. Shaper Plate registration holds wherever the workpiece is — on a cabinet in place, on an assembly table mid-build, or on a surface that won't accept clamps without damage. The hold doesn't depend on how close the pump is.
4. The whole kit deploys as one lift, not a rig
Nexus changes the staging model. A baseplate with a Grabo attached is one assembled object — it lifts as a unit, drops into a Sortainer as a unit, and travels as a unit. At the next location, you lift it out and connect the pod.
You're not routing a vacuum line. You're not reconnecting at the other end. You're redeploying a configuration that was already staged ready.
The SYS-FIT Nexus Dock is built around this — lower drawer holds the assembled Nexus unit, upper drawer holds pods and accessories in SYS-ORG Pod Bins. The stack travels. At the next bench or site, the setup is lift-and-connect.
If you're running the new Grabo Brushless through Nexus, the reduced cycling frequency under load makes multi-pod configurations and longer setup runs more consistent — same interface, more predictable hold over time.
5. AnchorPod vacuum workholding works off a stack, not just a fixed bench
AnchorPod integrates vacuum into the bench grid itself — mounted in 20 mm dog holes, routed below the surface. On a fixed MFT bench, the vacuum source is stationary too. On a SYS-SRF Metris panel on a Systainer M Series stack, the geometry opens up AnchorPod placement — and Nexus is what supplies the vacuum when a dedicated pump line isn't running to that location.
The result is bench-anchored vacuum workholding on a surface that moves with the kit. Metris on M Series is the one SYS-SRF configuration that opens the AnchorPod path. Nexus is what makes that work away from the shop.
A single baseplate, the whole system
Nexus doesn't add a new category of workholding. It removes the constraint that kept the existing system tied to one location. BenchGrip, ComponentGrip, AnchorPod — the same pods that run off a pump at your bench run off Nexus at the tailgate, the install, the cart.
The vacuum source goes where the work is. So does the hold.
Explore the SYS-GRP Nexus Baseplate and compatible vacuum sources.
SYS-GRP by FORG3D
Your Workflow. Without Limits.