Hi everyone, Im a long time reader, first time poster. Was carving some parts the other day and got yelled at by the missus because it was getting late and LR3 in the garage was so noisy. Since i cant afford getting rid of her, i was wondering if anyone out there has come up with a “hat” of sorts for the spindle. My expectation isnt to completely eliminate the noise, but hopefully to muffle the sound of the spindle a bit. my table is 10x5 and folds up against the wall so a full enclosure isn’t feasible. any thoughts? thanks in advance.
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Hey Drew, I’d rather try to soundproof the garage. You can use egg cartons on the wall to the house or hang some thick curtains. Both filter quite a lot of sound because they diffuse the sound waves.
hi Phillipp, im ashamed to say my garage is a complete mess with all sort of shelves and stuff up against the walls, usually we put two cars in there also, so sound proofing walls may be a herculean task at this point. curtains would be feasible and a great idea that i havent thought of, but i was hoping to implement a less expensive option. maybe a hat with a drape around the cnc? lol
1.5" hard insulation foam made into a 5 sided box that can slip over the gantry. Make it longer in the front and back so that it goes closer to the spoilboard. Will need some way of attaching it to the XZ plates so that the top isn’t resting on the X carriage.
I could see that working. Not sure how dust collection would work.
For that matter, the hard insulation foam is stiff enough, You could make the box big enough to go over the entire machine. Use duct tape to hold it together. Then cut the tape and store the pieces flat until the next time you need them. You wouldn’t be able to see what the machine was doing, though. And might also cause a lot of heat build up inside the box in the summer.
Hearing plugs for the missus might be easier.
Ear plugs are out. i made that suggestion when she complained about my snoring. she wasnt going for it then, i doubt she would for the LR3. your suggestion about encapsulating all the lr3 instead of just a hat is a better idea i think. i imagine it would muffle the sound better too.
for dust collection i thought of just leaving the standard hose in place, i think the collection would bet better would it not?
regarding heat, that idk, maybe a vent on top that the vac can pull air from?
Big problem with a hat on the spindle is that most of these the spindles use air cooling. The Makita rt07xx series routers (like I use) need lots of air to keep them cool.
Many people say that a 1.5kW spindle is much less noisy than a router, particularly the water cooled ones.
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i use a dewalt router, i think the air sucks down and blows onto the bit. not sure if there’s a good way to bring in fresh air, into the box and still be effective with sound.
Have the box stick out past the sides and have it only be supported on the front and back edge. Then you have an air gap the full length of the machine to allow air in/out. Could even point a fan up into the gap on one side to help.
It will still deaden the sound because the air gap is pointing down into the ground, so sound would be directed down also. The sound radiating outwards would hit the foam and be slowed down.
If you read up on acoustics in listening rooms, they use various types of materials to deaden different frequencies. You could play around with lining the box with different foams to see what helps what noises.
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I would start with just seeing if anything is possible. Getting a chunk of foam and putting it in various places around the router and seeing what makes a difference.
My guess is that the very best insulation won’t make much difference. But if you can find a place to put a bit of foam that works, you can focus on solving problems like the router being mobile and heat removal.
There are phone apps that can give you a db rating. You might try putting your phone in the house, turning on the router, and then going back to check what the max was. The db scale is logarithmic. A change of 10db is double the sound volume. And distance really matters, so keep that constant during your tests.
And don’t forget about the bit cutting and the shop vac. They are also loud. I have always had the opinion that if you replace the dewalt with a spindle, you will go to two noise sources from three, and not really reduce the sound at all. It may be easier to sound proof the shop vac, but sound proofing the bit is really hard.
Maybe it is a good idea to leverage this complaint into getting the necessary approvals for building a new out building to hold the LR and some other noisy machines. Some science experiments showing the difficulty of silencing the machine might improve your chances too. 
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Is it coming from a door or a gap under the man door?
Also you could just try some foam board and tape to test a box quick and cheap over top/with top open.
Like the stuff from the dollar store. It won’t probably dampen the sound much but more deflect it to go up.
Depending on where your garage is attached to house etc.
Kinda like when your camping or at job site and put generator in truck box and it gets the noise up a bit and uses the truck box to bounce/deflect the sound up and away.
I didnt even consider the shopvac, but yes it does make a tremendous amount of noise. ill have to figure something out for that as well
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I found this on the forum a while back and always wanted to try it. Sorry can’t find the thread.
Sounds like it won’t really help on the garage side due to your shelving but maybe you can make some sound dampening art to place on the house side. 
Travis makes a good point as well. You may want to swap out your door if it’s a hollow core or try filling it with foam insulation.
But I do also like Jeff’s suggestion on using this to lobby for a workshop. 
Good luck!
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my home sits on about 1/4 acre, so no real room for expansion. maybe enough room a he-shed but that’s it. hahah.
Garage is attached, the door into the house is a solid exterior door and seals arent bad. ill do some sound tests this weekend. to me, the sound is muffled quite a bit when compared to inside the garage. i still can hear the constant hum of the shopvac, but what does come through is the high frequency whirring of the bit on wood.
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One guy here in the forum hung old woolen blankets around his LR instead of curtains. That would be an option as well, you need four blankets.
Actually I also forgot about the shopvac, mine is louder than the sidechannel blower and the LR together. -_- Just put it beneath the table. 
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Sound is energy, noise is sound energy getting to unwanted places. Soundproofing options boil down to absorbing the energy, or redirecting the noise to where it’s no longer objectionable. If you’re going to rely on an enclosure to “trap” the sound, you’ll want to use materials that absorb or deaden the energy, otherwise you risk concentrating it and making things worse.
Rockwool/mineral-wool is a nice non flammable, sound absorbing material. But frays and easily releases small irritating/nasty fibers into the air when physically disturbed.
Any suggestions on a sprayable thin binder to help reduce fraying/airborne fibers? Ideally something that dries/cures non flammable, maybe very thin coat of latex primer/paint would be enough to bind loose fibers without losing too much sound absorption.
anything sprayed onto rockwool would fill in the fibers, which would kill the effect the rockwool has on deadening the sound.
Rockwool is effective because the sound waves get into the fibers and bounce around getting trapped. If you spray something on the fibers to keep them from moving, your filling those voids in.
soft foams help deaden sound by trapping it also. the hard foam I recommended doesn’t trap the sound, but redirects it back into the box. it does trap some.
I used hard foam layered with 1/4" plywood on both sides to deaden the sounds coming from under a fish tank stand. It worked very well. The foam, in this case, was just adding mass to the two layers of plywood to help keep the plywood from becoming a sounding board and making it worse.
AVS forums used to have some really good resources for sound deadening a room for HiFi listening.
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There is only one approved hat choice for V1E equipment:
Complaints will heard tomorrow, outside.
Always tomorrow. Always outside.
Good day.
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+3 dB is double, +6dB is 4x increase, +10 dB is a 10x increase, +20dB is 100x increase (+13 dB is 20x)
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Sure the towels work great, but how will he convince her to sleep with them on her head?
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