I finished my build and got a crown printed a couple weeks ago, then went on vacation for a week. This past week I was working on the enclosure before making any chips. I’ve got that finished and things are working well.
The machine capacity is 2ft x 2ft x 3in. Printed all the parts on an Ender 3x that I bought just for this build. The conduit is 3/4" from HD and the kit is from the V1 shop.
The sides and back wall use 3/16" Birch plywood and has a frame of 2x4 planed down to 1" thick with 1" project foam sandwiched between with wood glue on the wood and liquid nails on the foam.
The front and top are 3/4" Birch plywood again from my bookshelf project. The door uses a piano hinge.
I have four outlets in the back. One is always on and the other three are switched from the front left. The fixed speed router is on the dimmer switch. The CNC board and lights are on the other.
I used pocket screws for most joints so I can disassemble it to make it bigger in the future.
I don’t know how much the foam panels help, but at full speed it isn’t horrible with the door closed.
Edit: I did some testing. With my enclosure open sitting at the front of the box the Shop Vac is 69db and my router on full speed is at 75db. With the enclosure closed it is at 63db (app said it was “conversation”) running the router and the Shop Vac.
I think my Shop Vac was way louder so I moved the vac to the other side of the wall which made it sound quieter than the router. In general after milling for 3 hours I’ve determined it is fine without hearing protection for the short term like 5 to 10 minutes. I’ve just switched to using some ear buds. If I move elsewhere in the shop I could do fine with no protection.
I did some testing. With my enclosure open sitting at the front of the box the Shop Vac is 69db and my router on full speed is at 75db. With the enclosure closed it is at 63db (app said it was “conversation”) running the router and the Shop Vac.
If you want it to be quieter you’d need to cut a grid of holes or slots on the inside wood panels. Ultimately, no inside wood panels and just insulation would absorb the most sound (though that’s unrealistic for a CNC machine).
Most of the loud sound is high frequency noise which is going to just bounce off the inside panels rather than penetrate and be absorbed by the foam you have in there. If you had holes or slots the sound would pass through and be absorbed more by the foam. If you really want to absorb high frequency sound you could use some rockwool insulation instead of the harder foam board and cut some slots for the sound to pass through into the insulation.
I thought about having exposed foam on the inside. However, I only had enough 3/4" ply for the front, top, and bottom, but had plenty of the thin ply to use however I wanted. I figured the sandwiched panel would be stronger and I could always add another layer on the inside since I left about 2" clearance. For now I think it is quiet enough to stop working on it and just play with the CNC.
