[paulr4]

I am using a porter cable 7310 laminate saw on a homemade gantry table, it works well but is very noisy even free-spinning. Is there any way to quiet these down? they seem to be quite popular so hopefully someone has info. The noise seems to be from both its bearings and brushes, and present on all of them, new or used

Thanks in advance

[ger21]

You can use a router speed control to slow it down a little, which will make it a little quieter, but you may lose a little power. Some people build enclosures around their machines to keep in the noise. You may find that if you quiet it down, that the bit can actually make more noise than the trimmer when cutting, though.

[kong]

Just to build on what Gerry said, I have a Makita RF1101 and it is very quiet - until you start cutting. If noise is an issue with the neighbours, then an enclosure can be extremely effective.

[ViperTX]

I have a Hitachi 3 1/4 HP....it's barely audible when running and when cutting it is still very quiet. My Craftsman router of about 1 1/2 HP is very loud when running and extremely noisy when cutting.

[ger21]

when cutting it is still very quiet.

A lot of that depends on what your cutting, the tooling used, and how sharp it is.

[paulr4]

Hmm, I have tried cutting AL with 2 flute and 4flute cutters (0.05-0.125) and it makes almost no difference in noise level. I have a speed control but it stays very noisy down to about 2k? RPM which would cut the feed rate too much. The main reason I went with this spindle was easy mounting

I will probably have to build and enclosure sooner or later but it is a 48' x 36' machine.

What is the source of the higher pitched whine in the router? I was thinking of removing it is cooling fan and cooling it with the cutting lubricant in a copper tube. That might cut the whoosh noise or destroy the router in the process

Thanks!
This is my first real cnc project

[kong]

I think it is always gonna be noisy cutting aluminium
You could always enclose just the moving part of the machine, using something like soft plastic fingers to allow it to move over the material. Might work?