Guarding of X Carve

Hi folks
Anyone have some ideas on how we can guard the X-Carve machines in schools. Need to meet Australian Standards. Any suggestions would be appreciated.
Ta Darren

do you have some sort of reference for the requirements necessary to adequately guard a machine?

at a guess you could put it within a total enclosure and spec a decent thickness polycarbonate viewing panel.
with the spindle setup on a relay you could have the machine powered down before opening the enclosure/access the xcarve

1 Like

You will likely need a full enclosure, probably with a latched cover or door.

https://discuss.inventables.com/search?q=enclosure

These guys would do a great job. :wink:

2 Likes

Without the requirements we can only speculate.

Hi Darren

Aus Standards either come into place when designing a machine or protecting from injury from a machine.

Being a mech engineer myself and now work in safety and setup a few workshops and safe work procedures, and grew up with my dad who was a high school woodwork teacher I believe a school like a Carpentry and Engineering workshop is the guarding as alot of machines are dangerous out of the box. Like in a Carpentry shop, Fitter Shop, school Woodwork Shop you would “risk access” the machinery and surrounding area that it would be installed.

Generally for a small bench cnc will be clothing getting caught in the belts, fingers pinched in the running gantry, fingers in the spindle / cutter or exposed power leads and lose cables

So in regards to guarding you could:

  • modify the machinery but once you start could get alot more difficult
  • setup a yellow handrail barrier limiting access to the machine and the area - generally 1 to 1.1m is sufficient
    or
  • setup a full flip down polycarbonate cover which will suppress some sound but will also reduce some accessibility - but introduces a drop down risk of the cover onto fingers
    or
  • a little more complex in design but would be my preference is a have a counter weight balanced slide down cover - 4 sided frame with polycaby running on linear bearings on 4 12mm rods, with a wire pulley to weights connected to the cover in a piece of plumbing tube so protects from pinching etc. The benefit is nothing can fall as where ever it is lifted to it stays and effectively hovers due to to the counter weight balancing. I built one for a 10 tonne load testing machine for a mining company years ago.

Also an additional emergency stop if you can’t access the x-controller one and get extra drag chain to protect cables right to the controller or protective covers

use the hierarchy of controls and send me a message if you need a little more help

hope that helps

Hierarchy_of_Controls_(By_NIOSH)

3mm poly carb would be ample when looking at specs for a bench cnc guarded panel