ShaneGreen

Sound proofing a cutter. . .

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Has anyone ever tried adding some sound deadening material to the insides of one of these cutters?  I've got an LPII and the stepper motors are loud, but usually it's cutting so fast that it's mostly a high pitched annoyance for a few minutes. Sounded like a dial-up modem on crack.  But now I've started cutting a lot more Scotchlite reflective. . .at 100mm/sec and two passes.  What took ten minutes now takes an hour and the slow speed and thicker material gives it a nice dawn-of-the-dead type moan.  I need to cut for about 3 hours this afternoon and there is no way I can handle it with this sinus headache.

So I'm thinking of lining the top cover and the inside of both side covers with some sort of adhesive foam.  Has anyone tried it? Does anyone think it will help?  I can't afford to upgrade for a while so I've got to do something with what I've got.

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with the original dot matrix printers they would have a big box that went over them with plexiglas openings to make it quieter in the office - but would take up a lot of space and cost a bit.  maybe put it in a closet and close the door?   remember to put a little back from each job so you can upgrade a plotter every year or two to a better model . . worked for me working up from a p-cut to copam to graphtec and rolands 

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That's sort of what I do for bigger jobs. I send the job to the cutter, make sure it gets started well, then leave the room and close the door.

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Have you removed those covers yet and looked inside?

The top portion contains an electronic connector 'ribbon' for the carriage and it moves/folds/unfolds, so I doubt there's clearance for foam.

The left side has some space available to add foam, but there's no motors in there.

The right side has motors, but less room.

Let us know how it goes for you.

 

 

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Added some foam tape under the hood that covers the track and that helped a bit, but not much room in there to add anything.

Dakota, I may follow your dot matrix idea and build a partial box around it with some egg crate.

Darcshadow, that's what I've done when I could, start it and leave the room but it's not always possible.  And today it would have been a mess!  VinylMaster decided to cut each registration mark 4 times...@2 passes each for the reflective, so a total of 8 cuts for each registration mark. Needless to say the vinyl didn't stay in place and the blade holder started dragging it around.

 

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Slice...this model has just a little room on the front and back under the hood. I had some 3/16" weather proofing tape that is 3/8" wide.  I managed to get 3 pcs in the back and 2 in the front without getting in the way.  It actually helped a little.  It removed one higher pitched frequency that I had noticed I could change by putting my hand on the hood.

After its done cutting today I'll pop open that right side and see what I've got to work with.  I wonder if there is room under the cutting surface (the base) to add some foam?  If I place my hand on it while it's cutting there is quite a bit of change in the sound.

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If your cutting that much reflective, take the leap,  and get a higher end cutter.  You would be surprised how fast they would pay themselves off.  There are still many good used Graphtecs out there. 

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