Keeping your shop clean

CNC Chips

My first thought is to say that you should not do it in your home shop.  My experience in my home shop has been that machining creates dirt.  I use the term dirt very loosely.  Dirt in many forms like plasma dust, machining chips, and cutting fluid spray.  All of these forms of dirt are very invasive and get into everything.You continually have to clean just to keep up.

In my home shop experience, I treat every one of my machines differently.My CNC plasma cutter makes the most dirt by far.  I built a special room for it to try to contain the plasma dust it creates.  My CNC Plasma Cutter is in my main working area.  I usually just have to clean around it from time to time.My CNC router is in mind woodworking workshop.  It creates a lot of wood chips and wood dust, which all my other woodworking machines do as well.

Factories invest in thousands of dollars in extra machines to keep things clean.  These machines purpose is to reduce the amount of dirt in the shop.  Some of these machines clean the air and some of these machines take care of the physical chips leftover from machining.

Here are some examples:
Automated Chip Augers - Chip augers are generally in the belly of machines.  As chips fall down the augers move them over to a collection area.  These chips can then be shipped out and recycled.

Downdraft tables –

Downdraft tables are usually associated with plasma or laser cutters.As the plasma cutter is cutting, dirty air is being drafted downward below.  This air is then moved through filters, which clean the air and place it back in the shop.  They put the air back in to the shop so the building doesn't have to be continually heated in colder areas of the country.

Updraft Table –

An updraft table works the exact opposite.  It pulls the air upward, then through a system of filters.

Water Tables -

Water tables are used mainly with CNC Laser operations.  There is water directly under the piece of metal being cut.  The dust and debris of the plasma cutting process is captured by the water table.  Over time, the table fills with this debris and must be cleaned out.

Janitorial Services -

Some factories maintain a janitorial service that cleans the facility every night.  This is usually dependent on the cost in the area the factory is located.

Free community site about CNC information:
If you would like to know more about CNC, head on over to http://www.cncinformation.com
It is easy to join up to this free CNC site today and get to CNC eBooks. One is a GCode Quick Guide and the other is the CNC Info Site eBook. You also get access to the Free Video Series...Image to CNC Art when you join the community.