Building my own enclosure

CNC Machines Shapeoko
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I’m kind of new to CNC, but I finally found the time to complete the setup for my Shapeoko XXL. I thought I could share some of the pros and cons of what I have built.

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I wanted to be able to access the machine easily, so I built hinges on the back. I also painted the inside white and hot glued an led strip on the top to provide some even reflected light.

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The front glass framed panel hinges from the right side which makes it easy to change bits and place smalled pieces of materials in place without having to lift the entire enclosure up.

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Finally I built a custom power switch so I can turn on my CNC machine, router, Raspberry Pi, and vacuum independently of each other. I can also tape the Raspberry Pi Camera to the glass. I also set up the VNC and SSH on the Pi. This lets me transfer files, control the Pi, and view the camera very easily without having to be at the machine.

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A few things I would have done differently…

I would have made the enclosure a bit bigger. The power cables for the router and the z axis motor wires rub against the top of the enclosure in some places. Also I have a 2x2 going across the front and top of the enclosure. This really limits how I can access the machine (hence the hinges on the back).

The Raspberry Pi works great and is an inexpensive option, but I did spend a lot of time trying out different CNC software before I settled on bCNC. It works well most of the time, but it crashes every now and then and has 5x more features than I need. A version of Carbide Motion for the Raspberry Pi would be a welcome feature. All I want from the software is to easily zero the machine and then run a gcode file.

I hope this helps anyone thinking of how to set up their machine!

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Have you looked at using cncjs? It is a nodejs app you could run on the Pi and access from any other device.

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Enclosure looks great I especially like you painted inside and mounted a led light. Cool

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I second that, if you intend on using a Pi, going the CNCjs way is easy and several other users here use that setup, so you would have better support.

Sweet enclosure ! How will you handle dust management ? It usually eats up a lot of free space on top of the machine to route the vaccuum hose to the dust shoe and to the shopvac on the other side.

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I think you will find that enclosure VERY crampy after you use it for awhile.

As Julien says, dust collection is as important as the Shapeoko.

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I think I’m going to run the dust collection through the back, up the side, and then attach it to the router. I don’t want to have it get in the way when I tilt the whole thing back. Hopefully I will have enough space.

As far as dust collection goes, I’m pretty happy now that my whole basement isn’t covered in dust! Huge improvement :slight_smile:

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