I am in a 12x16 room w/ a Makita router. 3 windows + 2 glass french doors. Sound meter (iPhone app) a few feet away measures 115db / 125dB (light cutting / hard cutting) which is obnoxious.
Adding doubled comforters over window (black on left) and behind tool wall PLUS Roxul Stonewool panels in the top corners + room corners + glass door panels reduced the noise by ~10dB, so I’m at 105dB/115dB. It doesn’t sound like much but it’s palpable, especially on the screetchy-end. Goes from “ow that’s causing hearing damage” to “doesn’t hurt but geez that’s loud (and is probably still causing damage.)”
Most notable win from is that now the sound is coming from the router rather than the rest of the room.
Further reductions
Blocking the router using the contraption in the pic (stone wool wrapped in t-shirts hot melt glued to dowels for structure & vent clearance) drops it another 5dB.
Alternately, holding a large couch cushion between the router & meter drops it more like 10dB versus the above 5, as it also blocks the noise bouncing from router > table > meter…which isn’t blocked by the stuffed t-shirts.
But both of those “further reductions” sub-bullets are completely obnoxious and in the way.
Solutions?
Router change. Several people swear the Carbide ER11 spindle is quieter than the Makita. A few people say it doesn’t make a difference.
What else? Has anyone been down this rabbit hole far enough already to have found decent solutions?
2-3 is all you need. 5 or 6 is WAY too high. I was running on 5 when I started. I read some posts about running at 2-3 and turned my router down. My bits lasted longer and the wood chips looks like chips, not saw dust.
That makes sense, dB’s are logarithmic so you reduced the perceived sound by half.
If you want to noticeably reduce the intensity of the mill then you need to restrict as much air passage from the sound source as possible. A full top enclosure would help but would be complicated. Another method is to tuck it into a smaller area or corner you can enclose and seal off from the larger area. This is my ultimate plan if sound is intolerable on my unit.
Did a lot of soundproofing my house when I put up an addition. The gold standard is three-fold, prevent any air leakage from getting through. So think gaskets, seals, and foam in every nook and cranny on the enclosure walls. Second is solid mass, the hardest to make useful. Third is to limit conductive sound, so using rubber isolators between hard surfaces to limit transmission of sound through hard surfaces. I used these decouplers on my bedroom walls since it was attached to common area:
Otherwise, heavy soft drop clothes can help with reverberating. Just making a wall of moving blankets around the unit would have an impact. Insulation inside walls does not make a significant impact to noise levels, so if you make a wall enclosure save your money there.
You can also look up YouTube videos of soundproofing music studios, you may be able to gleam some tricks from them.
is that now the sound is coming from the router rather than the rest of the room.
