Hey gang. My new 4896 will be here in a few weeks. I am contemplating putting it in a two car garage or a pole barn (concrete floor). My primary use will be for plywood, which should remain stable enough for my application in moderate temperature and humidity swings, but what about the machine itself?
I believe I need to semi control temperature and humidity for the machine, but to what degree? What do you recommend?
I found this on the website but I would think these would be the absolute extremes?
Operating Ambient Temperature: 32°F - 115°F (0°C - 46°C)
Maximum Ambient Humidity: 90% relative, non condensing
Thanks in advance This forum is a great resource of information.
I cant speak for the machine itself, but I’ll share my observations with my own machine. My shop is not air conditioned (in St. Louis) where we get pretty substantial humidity changes. The primary issue I see is the fluxuation in my spoilboard. If you’re using MDF is swells up and shrinks with the changes in humidty. The best way so far I have found to combat this is using a 1” baltic birch plywood base affixed to the aluminum frame with the spring nuts provided by Avid. Then I screw a sheet of 3/4” HDF screwed to the baltic sheet. I created a vectric file and pre-drilled the holes using the machine and saved those locations so I wont hit them in the future. This has been the best solution I have so far. Good luck! Take your time building it if you can. The more accurate you can be at the start will save you headaches in the future
I’m in Arizona and my shop runs from about 40F to 110F, but <30% humidity. I haven’t had any temperature issues other than the plastic dust cover strips on the sides that I had to re-adjust once in the summer after building the machine in the winter.
The air cooled spindles and axis motors get hot (maybe 140F / 60C) when the temperature is high, but nothing they can’t handle.