Noise Containment Room for Shopbot

[mjindustry]

Hi. We have recently purchased a PRT 48x96 and are thinking of building a small containment room around it in our basement. It would be mainly to keep the noise level down. We were thinking that 2 inch foam would help for noise? Anybody have experience with this?

Also, for dust collection....is there anything on the market that could be placed under the table? Needless to say we are a bit limited on space.

Thank you for any assistance.

[blackhawk]

Jason - My PRT 48x96 is in my basement and sits directly underneath my living room. I only have R13 insulation in the basement ceiling with no sheetrock. The living room has carpet on the floor that also helps. With my setup, the shopbot with PC router & 2HP collector is not too bad, probably about the same volume as my 12 year old dishwasher. If you had R19 with 1/2" sheetrock in the basement ceiling plus carpet above, you would be in pretty good shape. For the basement walls you could use R13 and 1/2" sheetrock on both sides and do well. You could even goto 5/8" sheetrock. Thicker sheetrock is more helpful than standard insulation. You could also use 2 layers of 3/8" sheetrock on both sides with staggered joints and be golden.

One thing to keep in mind is that a small room surrounding the Bot will heat up pretty good. Heat can kill your drives and electronics. In the summer, my basement stays around 72 degrees. With the bot running for a couple of hours, it will get up to 76. My basement room is about 350 square feet, something to think about.

Here is a link to one chip collector that would fit under the table http://www.grizzly.com/products/1-HP-Light-Duty-Dust-Collector/G1163

[bcondon]

Jason,

My shop is new but what I have is a 16x24 foot room attached to the back of the garage. The room's cement floor is 16" below the finish floor. I used 2x8 under, with r19 insulation and 3/4" Advantek floor. The walls (studded) and ceiling (trussed) with R19 plus blue board/plaster.

I built a closet to contain my dust collector which is a 3 HP single stage collect and I placed a 30 gal metal barrel using a collector top (hose in, hose out to collector) to capture the wood going through the impeller. The walls are 2x4 with R13 plus 1 layer of 5/8 sheet rock inside and TWO layers outside. This config was for fire more than noise.

I can run my machine (SHopbot + dust collector) at 5:00 AM (if I wanted) without disturbing the neighbors. I tend to work later 7-8:30 and 5:30 - 10:00P as I have a day job and learning the wood working side.

I have an advantage because I know I am going to retire in this house so making "better investments" such as foam insulation in the main house keeps my costs down also.

In my basement (a second shop area):
One thing I was very surprised at is that they sprayed foam insulation where the floor joists meet the sills on top of the foundation and my basement stays toasty warm even though I have insulated all my hot water (potable and force hot water heating) pipes

[jerry_stanek]

thermafiber is a sound barrier that we use in offices.

[beacon14]

Completely sealing any cracks to prevent airborne transmission of sound is a big factor in isolating that kind of noise within a structure.

[mjindustry]

Wow, thanks so much guys. Very helpful. I really like that little Grizzly Vacuum. What would you think of two of them hooked to the cnc via a "y" splitter in order to have a little more horsepower and dust storage, or would that be overkill? It does say light duty and is 1hp.

Does anyone else have an opinion on Brad's concern about heat building up in a small room like that, and it's possible effect on the cnc equipment?

Bob...sounds like your cnc room could double as a bomb shelter? lol
Seriously though that has to be nice to be able to run that loud equipment and kill the noise like that.

Thanks guys! Great info...

[blackhawk]

Jason - You can always set you up a thermometer probe inside the control panel to keep a check on heat. Check with Shopbot and see what the temp limits are on the controls. Probably won't be a big concern except in the summer and maybe if you live in a hot part of the country.

[bcammack]

There are also mounting rails available that get attached to the studs and the sheetrock gets attached to the rails, loosely. It decouples the sheetrock from the structure and allows its mass to dissipate the energy without transmitting the majority to the structure.

It's used by companies that custom-build home theaters into homes.

[myxpykalix]

When we set up a recording studio some 30 yrs ago i recall we used this soft foam to line the walls that looked like egg cartons in order to absorb some of the noise as opposed to just having it bounce around a hardwall structure and back into your ears.

[bcondon]

Jason

If you look on page 168 of the Grizzly catalog, you see a G3376A (2 stage separator) for $30.
I would buy a little better unit (G1028Z) is similar to what I have, plus I have 2 separators on 30 Gallon metal trash cans. One separator is with the dust collector, a second one is at the shopbot because it generates so much saw dust.

I was surprised at how little loss there is of vacuum and volume of air by going through the two separators.

The reason I have a separator is a safety reason. I do not want any metal objects (nail, screw head etc) going through the impeller of the dust collector. All of the stuff in the dust bag is highly flammable and a nail hitting the impeller can cause a spark and a resultant fire.
[I know, why would there me metal being picked up by the Shopbot?]

I have 20 feet of 4" pipe connecting the separator to the shopbot, which has 3 bungee cords suspending the dust collection lines.

My basement shop and backroom of garage shop have a 4 " plastic pipe in the concrete to link both areas. So 1 machine services the shopbot and one other machine at a time. Each machine has a dedicated connection to plastic piping in the basement (which is all grounded)with plastic gates.

Grounding is done with copper wiring wraps around the outside of the pipe but also an internal wire inside the pipe, connected together at the dust collector and then going to my power panel for grounding. I have had no static buildup on any of the lines so far.

The controls to turn the dust collection is using X10 controls which are VERY SIMPLE.
I have a 220V, 20A applicance module which plugs in between the 220V plug and the dust collector. You set a building and device number (mine is blding C, device 1). I have a 4 switch controller which has an off and off switch for 4 devices (1-4 or 5-8). When I need to turn on the dust collection, I hit the On device 1 button and the appliance controller turns on the dust collector.

When I am in the basement shop, I have a remote reciever which just plugs into any plug and a little credit card FOB which has 4 on and off buttons so anywhere I am in the basement, I can hit the on or off button and the collector starts up.

It is very inexpensive to have these controls...

The fob and remote control is:

http://www.smarthome.com/4003/X10-16-Device-Base-Unit-with-Keychain-Remote-for-2-Devices-RC6500/p.aspx

My controller at the shopbot is:

http://www.smarthome.com/4030A/X10-Mini-Controller-X10-X-10-Remote-Control-Keypad-MC10A/p.aspx

The appliance controller is:

http://www.smarthome.com/2021/X10-Heavy-Duty-220V-Appliance-Module-HD245-or-PAM04/p.aspx

[mjindustry]

Thanks for all of the help guys! Bob, you have a pretty high tech setup there!


I found this stuff at Menards the other day! 440 Sound Barrier by Homasote. They had it in the 1/2" @ $22.50 per sheet. I bought five sheets for the walls and I might still do the ceiling with three more sheets down the road. Just adding this to my thin walls/sliding doors has helped tremendously for noise reduction while the shopbot is running!



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Additional information including a local dealer finder can be found at the website here..
http://www.homasote.com/Products/440-Soundbarrier.aspx