Seeking Solutions for Setting Up a Shapeoko 5 Pro in a Limited Power and Space Situation

[Woodcrafter (John Matteson)]

@Col

I’m facing a challenge with my living situation. I reside in an apartment where we have a detached garage split into three units, all sharing a 15A outlet. My unit needs a sound-dampening enclosure for the machine, router, and dust collection, but the current power setup is insufficient.

I have my equipment on separate circuits, I don’t want to trip a breaker in the midst’s of a running program. (that would not be good).

Some other things to consider which are relate to you post:

Grounding your Shapeoko

Why would you want to ground your Shapeoko? This isn’t something everybody should do, but if you have either of the following issues, you should consider it; Dust & chip accumulation (on rails and V wheels causing movement problems) Random disconnects (when cutting plastics or when extraction is on) There’s nothing ‘wrong’ with the way the Shapeoko is delivered and there’s no safety issue WRT grounding on the machines (if you add a VFD spindle that must be properly grounded but that’s not for…

Static Electricity Issue Fixed!

I recently moved from (sea level) the San Francisco bay area to the Sierra foothills (3000ft elevation). The air is much dryer here and I ran into static electricity issues that I did not have at sea level. My machine kept cutting off when cutting PVC and running my vaccum, dust collection. First thing I did was plug everything into a separate electrical outlet. The laptop, the router and the vacuum all on separate grounded outlets. This did nothing to fix the problem. I then ran a ground …

Reasonable priced solution to EMI issues?

I regulary have som problems with what i think is EMI issues. I have a garage connected to a single circuit breaker with ground fault detection. I have build a enclosure that have outlets to shapeoko, LED lights and Spindle on the inside. On the outside there are a outlet for vacume and switches to controll all of the outlets. This is connected to one of my outlets in the garage throgh a powercon-connector. The problem is if i try to run the vacum(or compressor) or starts or stops the spindl…

@Col

Given that it might depend on the job, how often will I need to stop each job and manually clean the machine?

You don’t want and debris in the tool path.

Chips stuck in the cut

The Problem: Wood chips/dust stuck in the cut. Really stuck, like cement. Technical (Please ask if you need more detail): Running a DeWalt router on a Shapeoko XXL. Using .25" Spektra 2-flute compression endmill. Homemade dust boot. Feeds/speeds roughly derived from G-Wizard. Most all cuts are full bit-width cuts. Cutting 3/4" Birch plywood from Vietnam 11-13 layers. Context: I cut 3/4" plywood all the time. Almost exclusively. Many species. But this is my first go with this wood. During fi…

@Col

Could the lack of dust collection lead to additional wear on the machine?

Short answer yes, and the potential for a fire hazard the fine dust that’s produced is highly flammable.

This forum is a great place for references,( worthy of the time spent) and a big thank you goes to all who freely share their knowledge.