WM16 Advice

I have a WM-16 and yes it can be noisy. The shreiking sound that I've experienced only seems to be when taking high speed cuts due to some kind of resonant frequency and I found that lining the motor housing with self adhesive computer sound proofing foam (made by Akasa) gets rid of about 95% of the shreik. The motor housing grill slots are not covered with foam and this does not seem to have a negative affect on the sound dampening.

Ed.

If, as some have suggested, you want to go with the SX2 Plus you might like to look at my build thread here

Russell

Thanks John, would really appreciate that.

Luke

Nice suggestion Ed, I don't think i'll be going with the WM16 but i'll bear that in mind regardless of what I choose.

Russell, thanks i'll take a look!

Luke

Or maybe John could be persuaded to exchange his modded base with yours?

Just to underline John's excellent posts. A friend of mine converted a WM16 to CNC. His first attempt was a disappointment 'cos he thought he could economise by using the original lead-screws and compensate with Mach3 adjustments. It didn't work so he purchased ball-screws and then found what John has said, there wasn't sufficient room to fit the ball-nut on the table. Luckily we have a mutual friend who has a Bridgeport, so an afternoon spent measuring and milling solved the problem. The conversion works very well and noise has never been an issue - but it is in a shed away from the house.

Apart from the mill itself you do need to think about the floor and walls where it will be running - how well insulated are they? - and the mounting of the machine - can you use some sort of rubber mountings for it to stand on?

And, of course whether your neighbour is a retired riveter who is into heavy metal, or a piano tuner with hysterical tendencies.

Cheers, Tim

Haha Jason, I can only ask so much! Really though i'll probably manage, my real issue is getting the big chunks of metal to and from the uni workshop.

Gary, interesting to know your friend had the same issue on the WM16, i thought this was only on the SX2P. Thanks for the confirmation though!

Tim, something i'd though of, although not sure how i'd do it on the cheap. I'll probably get the thing going and assess the situation from there. Don't know my neighbours as i've only been in my new place for a couple of weeks. I'm not keen on leading of with "so i'm going to be running some loud machines upstairs" though.

Cheers,

Luke

The posts on CNC'ing the SX2P have been moved to a stand alone thread here.

http://www.model-engineer.co.uk/forums/postings.asp?th=119335#2039600

**LINK**

This is to split it from the WM thread and make it searchable.

No posts have been deleted, only moved.

Edited By John Stevenson on 27/07/2016 20:33:23