I’m building an enclosure for a Shapeoko 3 XL currently - tentatively an MDF shell, with a lifting door + window on the front, lined with mass loaded vinyl, and an external port for electronics + ventilation + vacuum hoses at the back.
However, in order to get it to fit where I need it to go, I’ll only have 23" vertical clearance. MMmmaaayyyybbbeeee 23.5" but likely not with the MLV (both inside and out).
Will 23" be enough clearance to use the Shapeoko? The site cites a 24" vertical footprint. I don’t know quite which router I’m gonna mount to it but I don’t want the router cranking into the top of the enclosure. The other box dimensions are 54" wide and 30" deep.
Given the cutting area is only 3" vertical, I don’t fancy limiting myself to 2" - and I especially don’t want to accidentally load something like 2.5" in and end up at best borking my cut, at worst damaging my machine.
3 XL with Z Plus (leadscrew) - absolute bare minimum is 19" (1/2" clearance above Z stepper).
Do you want foam under the machine? Add that in as well.
If you have a different Z, not sure. For the Z Plus, nothing else gets close to the top of the Z stepper motor, height-wise.
The problem with low clearance is running dust collection. It’ll be hard to have a hose that moves freely over the entire cutting area with getting caught up somewhere.
Awesome, thank you for the detail and the heads up. Not foam under, no, just a few layers of MLV. 19" is tons of room, I’ll probably round up to 20" to be safe. In total I actually have a biiiit over 25" to work with, but I’d like to surround the top+bottom of the machine with 1" MDF, plus yeah the vinyl.
Would having a decent amount of slack in the dust hose, mounted to the top of the enclosure with a pivot ring, be able to accommodate that? My assumption is that it’d help, but as you noted, never quite be ideal as freely moving vertically.
Here is my xl with a boom arm. From the supplemental spoilboard is 27 inches. Obviously I dont have an enclosure but the bottom of the boom to spoilboard is 24 inches. I bought Peachtree 2.5 dc hose that os very flexible. So if you come through the top centered on the spoilboard you should be ok. Notice I have the dc hose tied to the Z motor to keep the hose from getting hungup from flopping around.
I know we all have shop space constraints, but if there is one thing I have learned while building 4 enclosures for my Shapeokos, is that it’s a really bad idea to minimize the enclosure height (which I did, initially)
as already noted, the dust collection hose will be a problem, and you would really need to come up with a very smart pivot ring to NOT have the slack get caught up in the Z axis as it moves
have you considered loading/unloading stock from the wasteboard, and simulated doing it with a low enclosure ceiling? it’s the most annoying thing.
machine maintenance…there will be times when you may need to access the rear of the machine, so with a low enclosure height you would have to pull the machine out of the enclosure, which is no fun.
upgrades: if you fancy a water-cooled spindle somewhere down the line, you will not be able to install it as it requires extra clearance above the Z stepper motor
If you need to do it, you need to do it. But if there is any chance you can fit your Shapeoko elsewhere with more head space, you will be very, very happy you did
My setup is a bit different but I have 22-3/8” clearance at the low points and as others have mentioned, you’re either going to have to route your dust collecting under the x-axis extrusion or in front of the machine because at certain areas of cutting you will crush/collide with your hose.
