- Joined
- Dec 18, 2013
- Messages
- 2,012
After a couple weeks thinking about the mill stand design to contain flood coolant my CAD screen is still blank. After some research tonight I think I'm going to go with a Trico Micro-Drop system instead of the flood coolant. Accu-Lube is a similar system. These are not mist coolant systems that fog up your shop, they were designed precisely to not do that and they don't run water base coolants they are oil based. Not sure which system is best yet but in either case some people report liking the Trico synthetic oil best even at (gulp) $99 a gallon.
Flood coolant cons...I ran flood coolant on my old mill so here are some lessons learned,
1. Its not really flood coolant its more like a weak stream, nothing like the pressure you see in say a Haas. You can't turn the pressure up much because A you will run your coolant tank dry, it won't drain back fast enough to keep your average 5 gallon tank supplied. Second if you turn the pressure up coolant flies in all directions you would really need a tall completely enclosed enclosure. My old one was about 2 feet high and that was not enough. I was constantly mopping up the flung out coolant off the floor.
2. If you go CNC all the electronics have to be water proofed. I kind of like CO's CNC kit especially the servo's but they are not water proof.
3. Its a big mess, wet chips don't vacuum well, the coolant makes them sticky, you get rust under your vise, the drain holes in the table plug up then the table fills with coolant, drain screen gets plugged with chips, it really was annoying.
I think it would require quite some engineering to fully enclose the 12z for flood coolant especially if also going CNC. Do I really want to go that far? Again if I'm getting that serious just go buy a Haas designed for it right.
So far the research on the Trico Micro-drop and Accu-Lube systems has been quite favorable. These systems also work really well on bandsaws (kicks self for already buying 2 gallons of coolant). Plus my brother kept telling me coolant on the bandsaw makes a huge mess. I didn't listen of course, then I read some reports from others tonight backing that up, it runs out the end of stock being cut and basically drips all over the place. The drop type systems pretty much give you dry chips and no mess, and the air blast keeps the chips away from the cutter.
I think I'm going to go this route, sure will make designing the stand a lot easier, any thoughts?
Flood coolant cons...I ran flood coolant on my old mill so here are some lessons learned,
1. Its not really flood coolant its more like a weak stream, nothing like the pressure you see in say a Haas. You can't turn the pressure up much because A you will run your coolant tank dry, it won't drain back fast enough to keep your average 5 gallon tank supplied. Second if you turn the pressure up coolant flies in all directions you would really need a tall completely enclosed enclosure. My old one was about 2 feet high and that was not enough. I was constantly mopping up the flung out coolant off the floor.
2. If you go CNC all the electronics have to be water proofed. I kind of like CO's CNC kit especially the servo's but they are not water proof.
3. Its a big mess, wet chips don't vacuum well, the coolant makes them sticky, you get rust under your vise, the drain holes in the table plug up then the table fills with coolant, drain screen gets plugged with chips, it really was annoying.
I think it would require quite some engineering to fully enclose the 12z for flood coolant especially if also going CNC. Do I really want to go that far? Again if I'm getting that serious just go buy a Haas designed for it right.
So far the research on the Trico Micro-drop and Accu-Lube systems has been quite favorable. These systems also work really well on bandsaws (kicks self for already buying 2 gallons of coolant). Plus my brother kept telling me coolant on the bandsaw makes a huge mess. I didn't listen of course, then I read some reports from others tonight backing that up, it runs out the end of stock being cut and basically drips all over the place. The drop type systems pretty much give you dry chips and no mess, and the air blast keeps the chips away from the cutter.
I think I'm going to go this route, sure will make designing the stand a lot easier, any thoughts?