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I’m thinking it’s time to move my xcarve from the shed into the basement. My shed is unheated, wifi reception is terrible at best, and only “good” with doors open…
To do so, I really need to consider a soundproof enclosure not only for the Xcarve itself, but a cabinet to hold a shopvac or other dust collection motor so my machine runs as quiet as possible inside.
I know there’s various pics spread through the forums, but are there any insulated enclosure full build logs with pricing, specs, and detailed info? Or links to anyone who might have blogged about it?
Looking for ideas and some thoughts from people who’ve done it successfully.
I crudely made an enclosure with 1/2" OSB with a plexiglass window and a ton of caulking. It looks like hell but it was cheap and it works really well.
I performed some sound attenuation test about a year ago when I was building my sound proof enclosure for my Shapeoko, and I found that foam, on its own, really doesn’t do much for isolating the noise of the router. Heavy and dense materials, like MDF and ply, performed far better. And layering dense materials on either side of a strong vibration-absorbing material, such as Sorbathane or silicone, worked best.
Basically, mechanical isolation between the interior of the box and the exterior is the key to sound isolation. During my testing, I found that simply elevating my Shapeoko on four rubber feet reduced noise by 6.5dB. I theorized that building a box-within-a-box with vibration-absorbing material in between would effectively block all sound, but I should point out that I didn’t experiment with that at full scale.
I design one and built it in a few hours. I focused on safety more than the sound. But once closed it reduced the noise level to about 50%. I could use the computer sitting next to it. If you want help I can send you the dimensions. Most of the cuts are basic except for the closing mechanism.
I just finished an enclosure that really helped reduce the noise and the dust from my X-carve. Here are some photos to give you an idea of whats possible. This is made from mostly materials I had leftover in the shop, so its not aluminum extrusion enclosure but it works. There are ideas in forum about enclosures, so just look around and you can always adapt it to meet your needs like I did.
A Dust Collection is a great choice, I also like to share how I adapted ideas I saw in this forum and others to convert the DC to a 2-stage and re-arrange its original profile to fit into a sound absorbing enclosure. I have a small garage and my wife parks her car inside, so the DC had to fit between both garage stalls. Here are a few photos.
It went from 95 dbs (very loud) to about 75 dbs, now I can have the X-carve and the DC working in the garage without the need for hearing protection, actually I watch TV while they’re both running.
I´m interested on replicating this, cause I had to move to another locatio where noise is a sensible matter, would You share your design? Thanx in advance
