Building Pro XXL Table/Enclosure

Shapeoko Pro
#1

My Shapeoko Pro XXL shipped quicker than what I thought it would which meant I had to get going on building my table. My goal is to get far enough along this project so that the table is sturdy and moveable so I can setup the Shapeoko and possibly use the machine itself to keep building the rest of the cabinet/enclosure to serve as a learning project.

I decided to take the advice I’ve seen on the forums and go with a torsion table build and I inserted some cheap ceiling tile within each of the sectors of the table. We’ll see how effective that turns out to be but if too much noise still gets through the tabletop I may drill small holes from the bottom later on and possibly add some spray foam if needed, not sure if anyone has advice or thoughts on that? As for the top plywood the size cut out is roughly the size of the machine itself (42" x 50"). For the remaining grids I’ll either stuff it with more ceiling tile or batt insulation and use the cross members of the torsion assembly to secure the top enclosure to it and fill the gap with stacked ceiling tile to raise to the plywood and cover it all with a 1/8" hardboard. I also saw rolls of cork when I was getting my materials and was thinking this could also be good to cut the sound and also dampen the vibrations from the base of the machine.

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20210404_1149544032×3024 2.18 MB

As for the lower portion I just used 2" x 4" which I ran through the table saw to square up the rounded edges to facilitate gluing pieces together. A jointer/planer would have been better but I do not have these tools, maybe later in the future. I also decided to make the base not as wide as the table so there’s a slight overhang for when I’ll access the worksurface from the front/sides.

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I would have liked to start assembling my CNC today but waiting for an Amazon order to deliver the casters that didn’t show up today. Once I get the casters on I think I’ll follow up with the following:

  1. Setup the Shapeoko
  2. Build the top enclosure (priority will be to contain the dust over the noise of the dust collection/vacuum)
  3. Organize the space below the table (ie. drawer/cabinet, dust collection, power management, possible home for a future spindle upgrade/vfd, etc…)
  4. Sand, paint and add some extra cosmetic touchups.

Looking forward to joining this community and get my first projects underway. I’ll update this thread as I make progress throughout my enclosure build. In the meantime if anyone has comments/feedback/food for thought please feel free to share as I’d rather deal/catch something critical during the build process then discover an issue/flaw once is it’s all done and have to fix a finished product.

7 Likes
#2

For those looking at this in the future here is a doc I made about creating a torsion box for an XXL and how to. Here is the TOC

How Does a Torsion Box Work Page 2
Materials Needed Page 4
Tools Needed Page 4
Construction Steps Page 5
Optional Step Page 12
Optional Finger Joint Jig Page 13
Leveling your Spoil Board Considerations Page 15
Leveling your Supplemental Spoil Board for a Shapeoko XXL Page 16
Specifications and GBRL settings for Shapeoko XXL Page 18
Shapeoko XXL GBRL Configuration Carbide Motion 5.35 Page 19

torsion_box.pdf (2.0 MB)

3 Likes
#3

Great job on that guide, very detailed and useful information. As I was building mine I was thinking wouldn’t it be nice if I already had the machine setup to cut the pieces although I would have needed to tile the job as the parts obviously need to be longer/wider than the cut area of the machine.

2 Likes
#4

So I thought I read somewhere something about the hybrid table having a new design and doing away with the filler strips and by the looks of it that’s what I ended up getting. Now looking at this I had an idea to incorporate this into my enclosure design. I’m not delusional thinking that I’ll keep all the dust from getting out of the enclosure and spreading out in my garage but I’ll do my best to minimize it as much as possible. With the small separation between the aluminum extrusions I’m thinking maybe this can help create a downdraft worksurface by cutting a hole through the table and attaching dust collection to it. My plan is to eventually get a bigger dust collection unit with 6" duct work and for the CNC machine split into 2 x 4" hose where the 1st goes to a dust shoe and the 2nd goes to either an intake under the machine (the downdraft table idea) or near the back of the enclosure to extract the really fine dust floating around inside the enclosure. Interested in hearing others take on this approach of trying to create the downdraft idea. Also good to note that even if these slits are small and maybe not equal to the surface area of a 4" hose air could also make it’s way under the CNC bed by passing just inside the main Y beams/extrusions as there’s plenty of clearance there.

New Hybrid Table
New Hybrid Table3024×4032 2.11 MB

#5

Got some more time this weekend to continue my enclosure build so worked on the side panels today. Basically I’m going with a layered panel framing with 2” x 2” (actually it’s truly 1-1/2”), 1/4” plywood as the outside skins and 3 layers of fitted ceiling tile to fill the cavities between the framing. The middle will be a removable panel to gain access from the sides.

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