CNC Manual, Part 1: Safety & PPE

Before You Touch the Machine

This is Part 1 of the Velocity CNC router manual for The Fertile Soil’s build side. Read this before you touch the router for the first time – regardless of experience elsewhere, every member needs a shop orientation from a certified CNC lead before running the machine unsupervised.

This CNC router is a powerful, fast-moving machine with a spinning cutting tool. Treat every session with full attention. No headphones with music, no phone in hand, no working alone if you’re new.

Required PPE (Every Time, No Exceptions)

  • Safety glasses or a face shield – chips and dust fly. Regular glasses are not a substitute.
  • Hearing protection – the spindle and dust collector are loud enough for sustained exposure to matter.
  • Hair tied back, and no loose clothing, drawstrings, gloves, or jewelry – anything that can catch on a rotating tool or the tool changer must come off first. Gloves are especially dangerous near the spindle: never wear them while it’s running.
  • Closed-toe shoes – dropped material and stray offcuts are common.
  • Long hair, scarves, and lanyards are a real snag hazard around the tool-change rack – remove or tuck them in before you start.

Know Your Emergency Stop

Locate the red E-stop button before you power anything on. The control box sits at the front-left corner of the table. Pressing it immediately kills spindle and axis motion. Use it any time something looks, sounds, or feels wrong – a fault code, an unexpected move, material coming loose, or a person getting too close to the cutting area.

Annotated photo of the control box: blue circle marks the spindle indicator light, red circle marks the CNC controller and Emergency Stop button, green circle marks the vacuum table control switch.
The control box at the front-left of the table. Blue: spindle indicator. Red: CNC controller and Emergency Stop button. Green: vacuum table control.

After an E-stop, don’t just reset and continue. Figure out what happened first, and get a shop lead if you’re not sure.

Dust Collection & Housekeeping

  • Dust collection must be running any time the spindle is cutting. Confirm airflow at the hose before starting a job, not after.
  • Clear chips and dust from the table and rails between jobs – buildup interferes with vacuum hold-down and hides small parts or fasteners that can turn into projectiles.
  • Wood dust is a respiratory hazard even with collection running. If you’re doing a long or dusty job, a properly fitted dust mask is a good addition to safety glasses and hearing protection.

Rules While the Machine Is Running

  • Never leave a running job unattended. Stay in the room and within reach of the E-stop for the entire cut.
  • Keep hands, tools, and brushes away from the cutting area while the spindle is turning or the machine is in cycle – including during tool changes.
  • Don’t bypass guards, interlocks, or safety switches for any reason. If a guard is making a job impossible, stop and ask a shop lead – don’t remove it yourself.
  • Don’t reach into the tool-change rack while a job is running or the machine is powered – the finger-rack changer moves without warning between tool numbers.
  • If material shifts, sounds wrong, or the tool appears to be deflecting or chattering badly, stop the job (Feed Hold, then E-stop if needed) rather than waiting to see what happens.

Before You Leave

  • Vacuum/dust-collect the table and surrounding floor.
  • Return any clamps, wrenches, or tools to their storage location.
  • Report anything unusual – strange noises, error codes, a tool that didn’t seat right – to a shop lead, even if the job finished fine. Small issues caught early are cheap; the same issue ignored for weeks is not.

Next: Part 2 – Setup & Workflow, covering power-on, homing, material loading, and zeroing.

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