Nice spray mist system for the mill / lathe

I ordered one. I've been using a KOOL-MIST one for quite a while, but it was always a pain to get the air and water adjusted just right. Then you had to screw the air valve in and out to start and stop it. I realized that my mill had a front panel button and M7/M9 code for mist control that was an unpurchased hardware option. So now I'm in the process of installing a control relay and solenoid valve to take advantage of the new mister.

Ken
 
why did it fail? Always good to know what works, and what doesn't, but why it doesn't is just as important.

Thanks.
Two problems:

1. The water flow adjustment at the tip was very inconsistent. You have to screw down the air screw to stop the flow. Getting it back to the proper water flow after you turn it back on was a repeated, time consuming, trial and error. Part of this was also due to the lack of a backflow check valve. And with a large diameter water tube, as soon as the air is off the water empties back into the reservoir. It takes quite a while to reestablish water flow to the tip.

2. The LOC-LINE connection to the brass ball fitting at the body has a very limited range of motion before it pops off. A real pain to try and push it back on. Bought a pair of Loc-Line pliers to do that, but that didn't keep it from popping off when trying to position it by moving the tip. Loc-Line sells a bag of four clamps to tightly fasten one segment to another, or to the ball fitting. That worked for the pop off problem.

The new mister's Loc-Line seems a lot stiffer than the one on the Kool-Mist unit. I hope this is not a problem. I have yet to test it, as I'm still working on the control. I'll keep you posted.

Ken
 
Those ball valve type air misters seem to require a lot of air to get them to work properly. My vacuum pump was allowed to move enough air to drop under 12psi running just one mist line due to the larger orifice openings of the mist line. I found that they would need at least 15psi of air to start drawing water. But, this pressure was also dependent on the height of the water tank in relation to the mist line.

Say you have water in the tank and you run the pump to get air going through the mister. You can probably picture that the water tank will need to be lower than the mist line so a syphon effect does not dump all the water. So, here we are waiting for the water to make it through the line to the nozzle and the water is having too much difficulty making it into the mist line. At this point, one option would be to just grab the tank and lift it up a bit to help the water flow. It makes it into the mister and goes from nothing to way too much. One option would be to drop the pressure a little bit and try to lower the differential in the system so water stops flowing to much. The issue is that balancing this rate is pretty sensitive and the pressure would need to be adjusted in fine amounts. Very hard to achieve using a ball valve. Also, restricting flow would mean that once the pump is shut off, then it beings all over again because the next time the pump is turned on there will be far too little pressure to draw water back through the line.
 
Jake, with the interest you have generated and the orders that have been sent in, you should be asking the seller for a commission!
 
No joke! Guess I was not the only one. The struggle is real, lol.
 
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