Enclosures...

Guys… next project is going to be to build an enclosure for this beast. now that my winch and fold down table is largely done. I need to attach the laser and get that working… then want to start on an enclosure.
Where do you get the acrylic stuff for lasers? the protective stuff.
Any fun cool ideas to implement or how to? ill be doing this soon :slight_smile:

Jtech photonics sells the laser acrylic shielding but it would get expensive to enclose the entire machine. A few of us have built the shielding into the laser housing itself instead which works well to protect passerbys from accidental exposure.

So im back to figuring out how to vent this thing… Cutting acrylic and wood produces chemicals and i gotta get rid of them. (laser cutting).

I had an HVAC guy quote me 1250$ to run a vent to the back of my house and mount a nice high cfm bathroom type inline fan to exhaust that stuff. Not against it, just not in it for $1250.
So my 2nd solution.
I need a new good vac for the cnc anyway.
So.
I bought a NICe vacmaster with hepa filters etc. I plan to use that for my CNC wood chips, the whole nine, but also for the smoke and vapors from my Laser… The kicker.
I know the hepa wont catch everything bad. So im putting in some charcoal filtration in there to help too.
That should get 95% or more of the bad sh*t out of the air.
Then I will find a way to mount my central vac to the exhaust area of the Vacmaster and run that when cutting laser items to exhaust the now smokeless vapers out of the house.

SEems viable yes? I dont have to worry about smoke and soot in my central vac pipes, because ill have that mostly gone. Its just the toxic vapers I want out (and they will be in drastically lowered numbers).

thoughts?

Nope nope nope! I wouldn’t trust the carbon filters to get all the bad crap out of the air. If I was doing this in my house, I’d go this route…

Hose from the router/laser head --> Dust deputy with a 5 gallon bucket underneath --> shop vac --> outlet hose connected to 4" pvc going to the outside --> outside with a 90 pointing down with a screen to keep out the critters. The dust deputy will catch most of the solid particles, floaty crap will get past them(plastic bag like material) the shop vac filter will catch the rest. The fumes will get exhausted outside.

I used to work near a place that did acrylic laser cutting and the smell was awful. Do your neighbors a favor and use a charcoal filter even if you’re venting to the outside.

well, its yet to be seen how much ill actually cut acrylic… I tend to think not that much.
Im not going to pay 1250 to vent outside (when i have 400 in to the cnc) if im rarely going to use it…
i dont disagree with what you guys suggest at all, its just a cost benefit analysis etc…

Ryan,

Why not install a dryer type vent through the wall and connect some flexible duct to the output of your shop vac? If you do this yourself, it should be very low cost.

Dave

Because I dont have a wall to vent it to… The easiest wall to get to is 30 feet to the back of my house above my basement sheetrock (past a hallway, my office and a double sided fireplace). the truss is OPEN, i can see straight back to where it would go, but I cant run 30 feet of pvc or dryer hose myself. I guess i could pay $500 for that part alone, but still. that sucks haha.
my lab is in the front of the house, but to the other side is a storm shelter and solid concrete. the other area i COULD go to is the front of the house and would be a potential eye sore…

but i LOVE this idea if i could make it work

Yea, running over existing sheetrock is a pain in the ass. We did a guy’s home theater a few months back and had to cut up the ceiling, twice. To make matters worse, it’s a stamped ceiling! I hate that crap. We installed a projector in the middle of the ceiling and motorized screen along with the surround speakers. Pulled two hdmi cables from the closet where everything lives to the projector, one was for the dvd/cable box, the other was for the xbox. After we got the rock back up and mudded, he decided the xbox controllers didn’t reach, so we pulled the cable over to the bar about 10 feet away, no problem we thought, except we forgot the hdmi cable is directional when they’re that long. No way we could pull the cable around the bends, so we had to pull the rock back down and refish the cable around the other way. Luckily the dude wasn’t worried about the ceiling, he had a guy that could retexture it.

WEll the only nice thing is its a clear shot. i can shine a flashlight 30 ft to the back of the house… so its a totally clear shot.
Im seeing on my bid

  1. Fan install $350
  2. Fan Venting $350
  3. POwer to Fan $240

So i guess if i just have them back to run the venting I could manage it for under $400… perhaps thats worth it.
THen i would need to devise a 3d printed part that connects to the exhaust on my vacuum and gets that in to the dryer/pvc vent.

Doable yeah?

Wow, that seems like a lot. Just to run 30 feet of vent piping would be about $100 in materials, that leaves $300 for labor. At a shop rate of $80/hr, that would be about 4 hours of work.

Well, they do have to run it blind to the back of my house across 30 feet of enclosed space. its just an open truss between basement ceiling and upstairs floor… It wont be super easy.
If i could do it myself I would :slight_smile: i just dont want to drill through cement board siding and find out i wasnt dead on :slight_smile:

Well, if it goes over your office, you can cut an access panel in the ceiling by the wall. Then you drill a smallish pilot hole to the outside, then make it bigger from the outside. Install one of these so you can get back to it later if needed.
Now you have your hole. To do the duct work, you can either use pvc or flexible dryer duct, just make sure any joints are sealed. Pvc would be easier, and better really. You can just push them in from the room your router is located and join them as you go. The hose would probably be cheaper, you’d just have to use a fish tape from the office side then pull the hose to your access panel.

Not a bad idea barry… Id love to be able to get at it and an access panel would do the trick. however im sure the misses wouldnt be a fan of an ugly metal (even painted) panel in the office…
without doing that, where i have access to that spot, i dont know how to find the right spot for a hole, when i cant get within 40 feet of it haha