Hello! Just wanted to share a photo of my enclosure. A family friend owns a shop that builds commercial cabinetry, mostly for the medical industry. He did me a solid and built one at material cost. It’s pretty dang heavy, laminated 3/4” MDF.
I’m planning on gluing plexiglass in the door windows, using a hole saw bit for the dust collection hose and a few smaller hole saw bits for cables, power cable etc.
I’m a little nervous to start drilling holes. Anyone have any tips? This’ll be my first legit cabinet.
Hold (carefully) or screw or clamp a board behind where you are drilling to minimize blowout on the back side.
Dust collection hose would be a pretty big hole saw. Go slow and pause to clean out. Maybe make a test cut in some similar scrap to see how it performs.
Remember, it’s easier to make a hole larger than to reduce it in size.
Also, many dust collection setups will have flanges such as:
which will cover up a slight irregularity.
The normal thing to do here would be to draw a pencil outline of the fitting which needs to pass through, then drill a small hole to admit a jigsaw blade, then make the cut. If desired, make a template and use a templating router bit to clean up (but a fitting should eliminate the need for that).
If using a hole saw cut part of the way through and move your hole saw to the other side. The hole in the center will guide you and it helps prevent blowout in melamine or plywood veneer. Your advise about going slow is good but the drill speed needs to be fast. If you run the drill at low speed the hole saw tends to wander around. IMHO
If you have a handheld router, you can make a jig on your cnc for the router to follow, and make a nice clean circle. Take a look at some of the enclosures others have made. I saw one that had pvc piped around the top, and then a really short piece of flexible hose running to the router. If you run a flex hose out the hole, it will rub and eventually split the soft plastic. Making the hole in the top may work better for hose movement than out the back, but put it in a place that wont get hit by the machine at full height. If you put it on the left or right side, the hose will droop when extended, and if you try to tie it to the ceiling, it could bind.
Thanks for the feedback! I don’t have a handheld router, but I plan on cutting the holes with a hole saw bit and starting on one side, then finishing on the other. I have rubber cable passthrough grommets for the lighting, USB, power, and router power cables. For the dust collection hose, I do use a soft flexible hose, but am designing and 3d printing a flange that’ll snap together with magnets on both sides of the opening. I’ve added a fillet as to not tear the hose. With all that said, I might consider a top mounted hose! I’ve also designed and cut several “hooks” that will support the hose.
You may want the the port shifted toward the front rather than centered. The router sits on the front of the gantry. If the hole is perfectly centered then the hose has to reach farther when the router is at the front than when it is at the back.
