I may never put a finish on it. I don’t really care that much about how it looks. I’m a function over form kind of guy, 99% of the time
See YMMV.
I’m a little bit more finished than you (many people say I have an “industrial vibe”) but nowhere near what my friend Tim did (he’s just finishing up now; took over a year, his CNC machine sitting there).
He built his enclosure as FURNITURE with FURNITURE QUALITY. Real 2x4. Hardwood ones. Hardwood plywood (all layers). Screws. Seals on doors. Fine, multilayer finish - stain and sealer.
He designed custom dual pain windows (better sound suppression), diverter manifolds for the inlet ports, custom fittings for cable entry, custom LED spot lights (dimmable, of course), custom hard side ducting, custom dust head and attachments. The list just goes on.
It is so total overkill in my book… but it is gorgeous! He had so much fun building it I couldn’t tell him to stop.
I bought some sealing strip but after thinking about it more I probably won’t use it. I may add an overlap so when the door closes it will overlap a thin panel all around. Maybe, maybe not. I’m much more interested in attenuating sound so I’ll do what I need to do to maximize sound attenuation.
Depending on how things seat, a far amount of noise can get by the door, hence asking about seals.
I’m much more interested in attenuating sound so I’ll do what I need to do to maximize sound attenuation.
Definitely where I would go next. Run some jobs to get a range of frequencies - different RPMs too - and listen. I use a neat app on my phone for a pretty good approximation of a spectrum analyzer.
The electronics are mounted and I added hydraulic springs to balance the door. Here’s a video showing how much it attenuates the sound without any seals, damping or sound absorbing materials. There’s even a 1.25" hole in the side that hasn’t been plugged yet. So far so good…
If you like making stuff… check out some of my other gadgets on my YouTube channel and subscribe if you like. I’ll also be posting more updates there regarding the Shapeoko3 XXL enclosure as it progresses.
Any idea what the minimum height of the enclosure needs to be?
This is the guideline I use when designing an enclosure for someone:
Think about a big sheet of stock. What makes it easy to load on the top of a table or the bed? Measure yourself. Set the enclosure height such that the bed is at the easily load stock.
I like the folding table designs that I’ve seen. Nice work.
I don’t really have a good place to do it in my shop but I don’t see why you couldn’t just mount the router to the wall if the y axis counterbalance is added. Really it should work just fine since you have to secure your work piece anyway. It would make the enclosure easier since you would just make a cabinet with a big door.
Trying to visualize what you’re saying…but I can’t.
I have this on casters, as my garage is pretty small, so I want to be able to pull out the car and pull the XXL into the middle of the garage.
I had thought about building the folding table attached to the wall, but I was afraid of vibrations making their way into the walls and resonating throughout my house. That’d be terrible.
Your folding table will work great. My idea is more of an “out of the box” kind of thing.
I’m talking about physically mounting the machine to the wall or from the ceiling with the table on a plane parallel to the wall and adding counterweights or counterforce springs to compensate for the weight of the components carried by the X axis motors. If you suspended it from the ceiling via springs or bungees the vibration transmitted to the house would be near zero.
Its an out of the box idea but I’m sure someone has had to have done this by now. Maybe I’m missing some major disadvantage but, with just a little thought given to the idea, I can only think of several significant advantages.
That’s exactly how some semiconductor foundries are done! The building is literally suspended from a frame above it. The building basically moves on (high tech) springs (very fancy decoupling mechanisms). This reduces the vibrations on the chip production dramatically.
It’s fairly easy to kill noise above 400 Hz. 200 Hz isn’t that hard. Below that things get hairy. Sooner or later the vibration couples with something - the enclosure, the table, the floor, etc. - and one has seriously magnification in the sound.
Good decoupling kills all of that. You’re taking decoupling to the max.
For table mounted designs were the table is really good, I would check out some of the commercial super decouplers. Four of those under the feet of an enclosure are amazing… cheap too. The floor of my enclosures are thick HDPE, well supported underneath. The machines rest on the HDPE 0.25" of decoupling sheet. The enclosure has decouplers under the feet.
I could get a 1000%+ attenuation [through the mounts) for anything over 10 Hz with a simple suspended design. With a more expensive design I could do that down to 2Hz. That doesn’t really matter though since the frame is acting like a speaker before it gets to the feet.
Once I add the sound absobing material, seal up some gaps and put foot isolators on the feet the noise level will probably drop to less than half of what it is right now.
I’m working on the dust collection setup now and it’s kicking my butt. I thought I wanted the head to stay at a fixed height (after manually adjusted), but I’m not so sure about that now. There are pros and cons of doing it either way.
The other technique I’ve seem in super expensive CNC machines is exactly the opposite - they float the mill on a bed of air from underneath. Tons floating on air over a table weighing tons (it has to hold everything when the air is off).
A good table, enclosure, and several layers of decouplers should kill vibrations pretty far down too… the traditional solution.
That is one way to solve things. I’ve seen those on machines that process sheet goods… the stock rarely changes and is always sheets. My friend Tim does his this way.
The dust head moving up and down with the spindle is more common. I prefer this as I can do machining with more 3D aspects with better pick up. I also like not having to adjust the height… I might forget and crash something. YMMV.
I have a dB meter but haven’t taken any measurements yet. I will post the numbers when I finish all of the details. Here’s a video that will give you a pretty good idea. …https://youtu.be/mmNA96REfB8
