Now the cold has rolled in it’s getting harder and harder to mill in my garage, it’s just too cold - last week it was 1 degree and thats with a heater going full blast. I could buy a bigger heater and insulate the garage but there is some serious cost to that.
I have been considering moving my S3 into the house, but really this is a full time move as I don’t want to have to move it back again.
I have a enclosure and water cooled spindle so noise is not of a concern for me, but inconvenience of not having it with all my other tools and dust are possible issues. Has anyone else done this? Is so how do you find it?
I move mine back in after each time I set it up on the rear deck or in the car port to make a cut in tropical hardwoods (which I will not cut inside) — I vacuum it off, and it’s fine.
Running it indoors on aluminum, brass, HDPE, pine, spruce, and similar materials which aren’t quite as concerning from an air-quality standpoint it’s not that bad. It’s on a table on carpet in a finished area (I vacuum more often than my wife) on a Yoga mat, and really, the vacuum is much louder than the machine cutting (I need to get a quieter vacuum).
I also run a pair of air cleaners, one blowing across the cutting area towards the other, the other vents up (trying to create a circular air flow) in lieu of an enclosure — I do have a dust shoe and attached vacuum which works quite well, just trying to cut down on how much I have to vacuum in the balance of the house.
Tool access is an excellent point — I’ve worked up a pair of small, specialized kits which have the tools I need for the Nomad and Shapeoko, a small EDC bag which has an assortment of small portable tools, and a general-purpose tool roll which has about 80% of the tools I need for anything else (almost, I want a pair of Knipex plier wrenches for Christmas, and will probably indulge in a Mininch Toolpen Mini) — usually anything which needs a tool from my workbench involves using the tool at the workbench (a saw to break down stock, or a drill to drill holes for workholding). When I’m done the tool roll and other tools get put away.
Ha! I live in a 1 bedroom apartment so I have no choice. It lives in my kitchen in a full enclosure with a ghetto dust collection setup. The noise isn’t too bad, but it helps that my neighbors are elderly and hard of hearing. My shop vac makes more noise than the machine.
Mostly I cut Ipê which has a well-deserved reputation for being an irritant — I also worry about the whole environment aspect of it, given what happened to John Economaki (see: http://www.woodworkersjournal.com/john-economaki-designer-of-tools/ ) — since I don’t do it that often, it’s not a big deal — this was one of the reasons why I got an XL, rather than an XXL. When I need to move it, I just enlist my son to help — he’ll be going off to college next year, so we’ll need to make suitable adjustments by then.
I do find that if I mill wood, then open my enclosure, a light dust will fall on my neck and it will be itchy. One of those things really. But there is no way i’d move my machine every time I mill wood, I’d be working outside all year
We have one XXL in the basement and have been working when we can to commission the recent standard SO3, waiting on time to assemble the ensclosure and complete the final design of the dust boot. It’s been a busy holiday season which hasn’t left much time to complete the SO3 completely. - It’s assembled, but won’t run it in the house without an enclosure and dust boot.
We have an enclosure and run the XXL on a SuperPID and use a Festool Midi dust extractor connected to an Oneida Dust Deputy ( original Metal design, not the anti-static plastic one ) so we have HEPA filtering.
We have very little dust which escapes and typically lies on the floor or stays in the room with the CNC’s.
Room location was chosen to be the furthest away from our Family Room, which we spend most of our time, so you can’t hear it running unless it’s taking a deep cut, or something has gone horribly wrong.
Overall, you can hear the dust chips hitting the cyclone and the sound of the Festool Dust Extractor which is louder than the spindle in the enclosure.
