Hi all, I have a variety of small production machines (FDM printer, resin printers, desktop fiber laser, PnP machine for at-home SMT work), and I'm looking to expand my capabilities by adding a desktop C-beam CNC machine + BlackBox for milling as well as adding a CO2 laser to take care of projects that the fiber laser can't do. I'm already planning to get the RoutER11 + dust shoe, but I don't have a vacuum system set up yet, so I'll need that as well. (I do have simple suctioning ventilation for the fiber laser, but that's not meant for the kind of mess that a mill makes.) I have a dedicated home office space where the rest of the printers and machines are, and my hope is to be able to include this small(ish) mill among the rest of them rather than putting it in my garage. I plan to cut simple aluminum plates as accessories for the PnP machine I have or the occasional structural part for electronics-related jigs, as well as cut acrylic (either laser or mill depending on shape requirements) for small enclosures or, again, electronic device jigs. I know that milling is, by definition, incredibly messy. I fully expect to need to clean the work area after each job. But even with a good dust shoe, I'm worried about making a mess *outside* of the work area. I'm trying to figure out ahead of time whether it's possible to avoid this, even if it means taking somewhat extreme measures. I'm not concerned with maximizing production speed; going slow is fine (though I have read enough to understand that simply "going slow" is not a solution to mess and can in fact cause overheating because of the way milling actually works). My intuition is to set up the dust shoe as the first line of defense, and then put the whole thing in an enclosure, possibly the smallest (27x27x29) OpenBuilds modular enclosure. Separately, add slot covers to all of the lower T-slot framework to avoid catching material shavings there. Finally, vacuum up any mess left inside the work area after each job. Since this is my first exploration into milling and all of my other fab work has been additive (printing), I'm sure I'm overlooking certain things. Are my expectations realistic? Is it possible to keep a desktop mill reasonably clean inside and avoid mess outside?
I built a CNC lathe. I do not use dust extraction because it was cumbersome for what I was doing, and it did not make sense to me for a lathe. I bought an Openbuilds enclosure for it and it works great at keeping chips where they belong. The one modification I made was making a "flap" that runs the length of the seam where the two doors come together --on the inside. I used a super high tech material called Gorilla Tape. I folded it over on itself where it was not fastened to the door to make the flap. It works great. My criteria for selecting this particular material was because I had it, it was black, and so it matched the color of the extrusions.
