[zephyr9900]

TT350's enclosure inspired me to build my own so I'll say a few things about mine.

The height of the enclosure is really the driving dimension. TT350 made his 4 feet tall (the full width of the plywood he used) and it looks like he set his M998 toolchange position such that the top of the spindle enclosure door clears the bottom of his top perimeter frame.

I built my enclosure using a single 5x10 foot piece of Alumalite signmaking material. This is 6mm-thick corrugated plastic with thin pre-painted aluminum skins on each face. I don't have a tablesaw, so I had the sign supplies place cut the panel for me. They sliced it in half first, so my enclosure panels are about 30" tall. I dimensioned my enclosure frame so that the panels are flush with the bottom edge of the inside flange of the Tormach chip pan, and it works out that the top of my frame is 30" above the top lip of the chip pan.

The spindle enclosure door swings wide, and that presented a problem. Before I built the enclosure, I had M998 set at 3" below the top Z limit switch. In order to clear my enclosure, I had to raise M998 to be just 1/4" below the limit. Based on where the coolant and chips do and do not fly, if I were to do it over again I'd lower the enclosure height by the 3" so I wouldn't need to reach so far up to change tools...

Another aspect of the enclosure is that the front of the Tormach vise extends past the front edge of the chip pan at Y+ limit. When I ref the machine I need to remember to keep the door open (just forgot that one time, maybe I need an interlock switch?) but in actual machining, the vise clears the closed door when the spindle is just behind the fixed jaw so there is really no problem there. And the full machine travel is available when I have a workpiece bolted to the table (that doesn't overhang the table).

I used 1/4" acrylic sheet for my door, and perused the selection of replacement closet door wheels at the "big box store" to find a set that had the right offset to reasonably hang the door. I cut a double closet door track in half with a sheet-metal snip, and the doorstop is just a little chunk of acetal screwed inside the track.

The main power switch guard is a toilet flange (purchased new ) and rubber coupling.

My enclosure frame is possibly overkill. It is 2x2x1/8" aluminum angle. The lower perimeter frame is bolted to the upper perimeter of the chip pan. As I mentioned before, the panels extend below the chip pan flange so I didn't need to seal the frame to the pan. 1-1/2" angle might have sufficed but was not a whole lot cheaper than the 2". If it were not for the need to periodically disassemble the enclosure for maintenance, I would probably have pop-riveted it together. I assembled it with 10-32 flush-head machine screws from the inside.

That's all I can think of for now. I'll be happy to provide more details and answer any questions that come up. I love the enclosure! It doesn't really seem any noisier than the stock Tormach backsplash--the plastic-core panels must do a reasonable job of damping vibrations. And I'm using the stock backsplash panels on my lathe for now...

Randy