From the discussion at the last CA cmte mtg, I understood the holdups on getting this baby working were the enclosure and dust collection…is that right?
@mreynolds made a wonderful cardboard mock-up of his design for an enclosure for the Shapeoko. He’s going to re-purpose the acrylic from the “a little too small enclosure candidate” Nicole donated for the windows in it. Mark mentioned at the Leather SIG mtg that he needed to know what the plans were for the dust collection so he could make allowances for that in his design. So were we going to use a small shop vac with some kind of cyclone attachment or?
@Photomancer or chuck would be the people to talk to or @John would probably also have some insight. You tell me what to get and I’ll get it. Can’t wait to get this going.
In my experience it doesn’t create much waste, it does throw around what it creates though! I’d suggest the main benefit of an enclosure is to reduce noise level as well as catch debris.
Has anyone fired up the machine in the CA room along with a vacuum to gauge noise level? Keep in mind job run times can be quite long,
I use a shop vac in my workshop as a dust collector for my micro saws / thickness sander. 5 gallons is not necessary. I use a 2.5 gallon, 4HP vac and they make some as small as 1 gallon (1.5HP) ($20 at Walmart.com). I would think that the smaller motors are much quieter and 1.5HP may be adequate from the Shapeoko. But Jay has a valid point … shop vac’s are not necessarily intended to run for long uninterrupted times - they tend to get real hot under those circumstances.
So is it best to run the job and just vaccume up after? So we could just have a vac under the machine with instructions. If so we can get that cracking really fast.
When working with Chuck, the design I proposed was 3 x 4" 115V fans that blow the work area clear and across the platform so it drops down into a slot into a bin/drawer that could be emptied. I have the fans. The advantage of 115V fans is they are more powerful, much quieter than a vacuum, simple interlock so when router runs fans are on.
If there is a design for the the acrylic upper enclosure, I have a piece in that is big enough to cut out all the sides (piece is about 4’ x 4’ . If someone knows how to do the design and model and get it ready for the laser, let me know and I’ll bring in the acrylic.
[quote=“Photomancer, post:10, topic:9527, full:true”]
Might not be needed - [/quote]
David, I wasn’t sure which thing you meant might not be needed? Could you please clarify?
If the only thing people do is light engraving, you might be correct. I route a lot of small things and my miniature router is actually the messiest thing in my (miniature) wood shop. In a full-sized wood shop that dust might not be noticeable, but in a non-dusty environment like CA it will be all over the place. However, the “chips” are small and aren’t a problem for any kind of shop vac or fan.
I think that anything that contains or consolidates the dust into one place is a good thing, because then it becomes more obvious to the user(s) that there is actually a need to clean up something.
Yeah, the cart that it is currently on rolls pretty well.
I have another question though, shouldn’t it have a micro controller attached in order to work? I noticed that all of the wires coming from the stepper motors (inside the black mesh sleeve) are cut.
