Activity Feed Forums Sign Making Discussions CNC Router and Engraving Should a CNC Router be in its own room?

  • Should a CNC Router be in its own room?

    Posted by Tomas_V on January 17, 2020 at 6:01 pm

    Should CNC router be in its own room?
    I say it should be, but are there any argument against it? Does everyone have their router in a room?
    My boss wants an open floor where all machines are visible and we have a lot of them (UV flat beds, eco-solvent, UV gel printer etc). I think router should be in a closed room, so that other machines do not get all dusty 🙂
    Also there is health aspect. All the gasses from routing acrylic/plexi, PVC are harmful, wouldn’t it help to have them contained and extracted from a router room?
    Or am I overthinking and there is no harm these days? Just want to be prepared and sure that it is normal, when I say "most companies have router in a closed room) 🙂
    Thanks for your opinion.

    Phil Davies replied 4 years, 2 months ago 5 Members · 5 Replies
  • 5 Replies
  • Robert Lambie

    Member
    January 17, 2020 at 8:21 pm

    an enclosed dedicated room is much better for many reasons.

    Noise reduction. if in a room it greatly reduces the noise pollution for others working around the router. Health & safety may come in here too if it’s running all day every day.

    Danger aspects of people walking by an operating router. It is the law that there should be laser parameters around a router to prevent people from being able to fall against it or whatever while it’s running. hefty fine too if you do not have it!

    Airborne dust is a nightmare. and yes, even with the extraction foot on the head.
    even if only fitting vinyls in the same room you will get all sorts of crap under the vinyl due to static.
    You will also have problems with the same issues around your printers. I don’t just mean landing on top of the printer, but getting in the workings sticking to the ink, getting under laminate coming through laminators and more.

    we have a room for the router with two windows side by side so everyone can see right into the router room.
    we even have a small partition with a window where the computer is that sends to the router and that still gets dust build-up on it.
    The only thing you need to keep in mind when it comes to having a dedicated room is your sheet material stock.
    do you have it in the room or outside the room? regardless, you must be able to get the sheet materials into the room very easily.

    You can see the posts with laser sensors in this picture. the fewer people that can access an operating moving a machine, the better for your health and safety.


    Attachments:

  • Simon Worrall

    Member
    January 20, 2020 at 11:05 am

    Mine (8×4) lives in a shipping container outside the back door. I put it in there because the dust and noise are intolerable in the main shop. I would certainly isolate it from the rest of the shop if you possibly can.

  • Tomas_V

    Member
    January 20, 2020 at 3:21 pm

    Do any of you have plastic PVC curtains instead of walls? Attaching a photo I found online, not sure how this would work with big aluminum or acrylic sheets, curtains should be easily removable, or so that it could slide.
    Wouldn’t be as good as a room, but it is see through and can be opened, but will it stop dust and sound enough?


    Attachments:

  • John Lacey

    Member
    January 21, 2020 at 10:23 am

    The PVC curtains won’t stop a lot of the noise, better in a partitioned room with a bit of lagging in the stud space to keep the other workers happy! Otherwise the whole workshop has to wear ear defenders when its in operation. I have tinnitus from operating routers, engravers and cutting aluminium on a chop saw in the 80’s – wish the firm had been more rigid about ear defenders at the time, suffering now..

  • Phil Davies

    Member
    January 21, 2020 at 3:32 pm

    I would even have an extractor in the room pushing outside to keep the room at a negative pressure, this way the dust is less likely to escape into somewhere you don’t want it.

Log in to reply.