Making progress on the enclosure for my mill from my last post! The goal was a flood coolant capable enclosure.
Somehow this ended up being one of the most time consuming parts of this project. Figuring out a way for the different pieces of the chip pan to come together in a way I thought I’d be able to effectively seal while still being manufacturable wound up taking quite a bit of design time. I designed and deleted 5 versions before settling on this one.
The frame is all 30 series t slot extrusion from Automation Direct. All the bent sheet metal for the chip pan is 14 gauge 304 stainless from SendCutSend. The front panels are clear acrylic.
Still have to attach the two sliding front doors, as well as design the rolling coolant tank that will go under the stand as the collection point/flood coolant reservoir. The scale of this thing is really something. Takes up quite a bit of garage space. I wish it wasn’t so imposing, but at the end of the day it really only takes up as much space as I’d need to keep clear for the travels of the mill anyways.
Getting there.