A Home For Mildred
My doomed attempt at an enclosure for my Shapeoko3
After assembling my Shapeoko3 CNC router I wanted to build an enclosure to keep the dust and sound it produces better contained. I also wanted to get some practice using the CNC router, so I figured I’d use the router to build the enclosure!
This lead to a bootstrapping problem, as I needed an enclosure to use while building the enclosure. I just so happened to have a Shapeoko3 sized cardboard box laying around (can’t imagine why) so with some tape and aggressive pocket knife work I was able to construct what I’d like to call the Jankotron 3000 Cardboard CNC Router Enclosure With Control Module Add-On.
This cardboard enclosure actually worked pretty well in terms of keeping the dust contained. I could even fold the flap at the bottom up and keep dust from spilling out the front. But I wanted something more permanent and that would also keep the sound in, so I designed an enclosure in Fusion360 and used Mildred to cut it out of 3/4" MDF. Since the enclosure is larger than the router, I over engineered the large pieces into puzzle pieces that fit together as sort of a round dovetail joint. It made sense at the time…
I glued the puzzle pieces together, so what I had was essentially a huge MDF box, with a hinge at the top. I had some grand plans for this thing — I got some hydraulic springs to make the box easy to open, and some clear plexiglass to use for the front face of the box so I could see into it…
The problem is, I hate this damn box so much. It’s too big, it’s ugly, it’s insanely heavy (there were some choice words trying to get this thing up onto the workbench), and due to the crazy puzzle piece idea it’s not even sturdy. I added some flat metal brackets to help with that, but, about half way through this project I sort of declared defeat and said good enough. The plexiglass was really expensive and I decided I’d rather save it for when I get around to trying this whole enclosure thing a second time. I’ve been using this “enclosure” for six months now and I have to say I really miss the Jankotron 3000. This MDF monstrosity doesn’t work any better than the cardboard box, and it turns out the loudest part of using Mildred is the shop vac so there goes the whole noise reduction idea. Bleh. Now that it’s been a while, and that I have a table saw, and I know what I’m doing a bit better, I will probably take another stab at this. Until then, I’m stuck with the Puzzlemaster Boxomatic, which I really cannot recommend over the Jankotron 3000.
I did upgrade my dust collection by getting a nice mask and a dust boot, the aptly named Suckit Dust Boot. It lets you attach your shop vac to the router and it works really well. Now I can step back and not have to follow the router around with my shop vac by hand!
