Do I Need A Coolant System?

No need to over think this.....it's quite simple. Go to HF and buy a fountain pump and some plumbing supplies and run it from a 5 gal bucket. Need an enclosure? try a shower curtain.
All of that will cost less than a gallon of good coolant concentrate.
 
Been there done this on a CNC mill in a basement, here are the pro's and con's of two methods...

Flood Coolant - Pro's are cools and lubricates well. You can rig a hose and use the coolant for washing down the enclosure. Con's include short of a full and complete enclosure including the top you won't be able to run the coolant at a high enough pressure to blast the chips out of the cut which is pretty important. You are talking 250-1000 psi coolant systems on industrial CNC machines. Even at modest coolant pressures, steady stream not capable of blasting chips coolant will fling up and out the top of the machine all over the floor. You will become one with a floor mop. Your coolant drains will plug up with chips. Cleaning up the wet chips isn't a pleasant task. Your coolant will go rancid. Even with the best full synthetic coolant, aerator, and oil skimmer. It will stink and colonies of god knows what will grow and plug up the pump and hoses. Its a nasty business. At proper concentrations you won't have a rust issue with water based coolants except under a vise this area always seems to rust. The coolant leaves a sticky film on everything including your parts, that's the rust preventative.

Micro-Drop Coolant - I have an Accu-lube system. Pro's are 1 gallon of lubricant will last pretty much forever. The Accu-lube system delivers a tiny spritz of coolant droplets onto the tool and part via air, this is NOT a mist system. Air does the cooling and blasts the chips out of the way, the lubricant does the lubricating. Will never go rancid. Properly adjusted your chips will be mostly dry so easy clean up. No risk of rust ever as there is no water. The lubricant is fairly thin, it doesn't get sticky or build up. Con's include you need air and dry air no less, you don't want to be blasting your machine with water droplets. Long story short I settled on a California Air compressor, 10cfm with air drying system. Its a LOT quieter than pretty much any other type of compressor short of a rotary screw, 60-70 decibel range but noise is noise. The compressor will cycle on every few minutes during use. But if you are talking your average gear head mill I doubt you will hear the compressor over the blasting noise the mill makes.
 
coolidge said:
Been there done this on a CNC mill in a basement, here are the pro's and con's of two methods...

Flood Coolant - Pro's are cools and lubricates well. You can rig a hose and use the coolant for washing down the enclosure. Con's include short of a full and complete enclosure including the top you won't be able to run the coolant at a high enough pressure to blast the chips out of the cut which is pretty important. You are talking 250-1000 psi coolant systems on industrial CNC machines. Even at modest coolant pressures, steady stream not capable of blasting chips coolant will fling up and out the top of the machine all over the floor. You will become one with a floor mop. Your coolant drains will plug up with chips. Cleaning up the wet chips isn't a pleasant task. Your coolant will go rancid. Even with the best full synthetic coolant, aerator, and oil skimmer. It will stink and colonies of god knows what will grow and plug up the pump and hoses. Its a nasty business. At proper concentrations you won't have a rust issue with water based coolants except under a vise this area always seems to rust. The coolant leaves a sticky film on everything including your parts, that's the rust preventative.

Micro-Drop Coolant - I have an Accu-lube system. Pro's are 1 gallon of lubricant will last pretty much forever. The Accu-lube system delivers a tiny spritz of coolant droplets onto the tool and part via air, this is NOT a mist system. Air does the cooling and blasts the chips out of the way, the lubricant does the lubricating. Will never go rancid. Properly adjusted your chips will be mostly dry so easy clean up. No risk of rust ever as there is no water. The lubricant is fairly thin, it doesn't get sticky or build up. Con's include you need air and dry air no less, you don't want to be blasting your machine with water droplets. Long story short I settled on a California Air compressor, 10cfm with air drying system. Its a LOT quieter than pretty much any other type of compressor short of a rotary screw, 60-70 decibel range but noise is noise. The compressor will cycle on every few minutes during use. But if you are talking your average gear head mill I doubt you will hear the compressor over the blasting noise the mill makes.
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Coolidge, You just nailed it in two paragraphs! I have also been down the same path. The rancid smell of coolant was the last straw for me! Anybody reading your post can save a lot of grief!!!!!! You did excellent!...Dave.
 
The whole coolant issue is turning this into a different beast altogether. I wish I had thought and asked about it at the beginning rather than the end of this.

The idea of flood cooling is disgusting. I can just imagine dealing with it. Everything, including the machine covered with sticky goo, piles of wet gloppy swarf to shovel up, clogged filters and drains, science experiments of rotting coolant sitting around effusing invidious effluvia, all whilst threatening to escape confinement (think the movie- The Blob), rust, and constant cleanup. I couldn't stand to let a mess like that sit around. I'd be spending more time in damage control than having fun.

Mist systems; somewhat the same, only somewhat less, with the added benefit of fine, oily mist filling the air and coating the entire basement with filmy slime, and the joy of spending quiet time happily machining away... next to a compressor.

MQL-Mico drop; Much better! Especially considering I'm already over budget on what I envisioned as a hobby. MQL + a small, quiet compressor would bloat the cost another $800-$1,000. I have a portable compressor I could use, but you have to shout to be heard over the thing- not appealing, and it would still cost $800 sans compressor.

I'm feeling a bit flummoxed and lugubrious about the whole thing.
 
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Ahhhhhh, the joys of CNC. :eek: It's really not as bad as it seems on the surface. :) It took me about 2 years to implement everything. I just built stuff as I needed it.
 
Well, you could start work with plastics, wood, other materials to start with that do not require coolant. That would give you valuable experience working with the machine and basic procedures. My first items were small wooden boxes before I moved up to Aluminum, You could also fabricate a reverse-engineered variant of the Trico, Acculube, or Fogbuster systems; trade-off in time cost vs. cash cost.

Edit: I second Jim. I increased my forearm muscles the "other" way; standing sentinel with a spritzer bottle.

Here are some links to DIY:

http://www.cnczone.com/forums/uncat...nes/102934-built-fog-less-coolant-mister.html
http://www.machinistblog.com/zero-fog-mister/

http://www.cnczone.com/forums/general-metalwork-discussion/87439-cooling-hvlp-mist-producer.html
 
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JimDawson said:
It took me about 2 years to implement everything. I just built stuff as I needed it.
Click to expand...

A coolant system does not seem to be something I could put off. I originally thought I could get into this for about $1K- the cost of a mill. Then I knew I had to go CNC, Bump- $2K. Bump again- $2.5K. I expect and plan on cost overruns, that's always a given, but now I'm looking at 3X what I planned on- $3.5K. Rather difficult for me to justify for my simple hobby use.

Any opinion on Fog Buster? It's about 1/2 the cost of Accu-Lube and it's ilk. From vids I've seen on it working, it appears waaay less messy. A less expensive micro drop system. It looks like I could just put a fan on it when finished and things would dry up in a couple of hours.

I don't know fluid dynamics and would not know how to design the mixing block; hole sizes, needle valve, etc. I wonder if just that part is for sale. Other than the mixing block it's just a whole house water filter, some tubing and a pressure gauge. $375 seems a little pricey for that. But then it probably just works well right out of the box.

Al-Hala said:
Well, you could start work with plastics, wood, other materials to start with that do not require coolant. That would give you valuable experience working with the machine and basic procedures. My first items were small wooden boxes before I moved up to Aluminum, You could also fabricate a reverse-engineered variant of the Trico, Acculube, or Fogbuster systems; trade-off in time cost vs. cash cost.
Click to expand...

You do have a point there. Learning on wood, plastic, etc., would have some value. Save $$ on cutters whilst learning. :) In a lot of ways, that is not a bad idea. I could probably spend a lot of time with that and be better off for it.

But... it's putting off the inevitable. I have little use for, nor interest in wooden stuff. Not into Amish toys, model Conestoga wagons or ships in bottles, etc.
 
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Heh. Wholly agree. The boxes were purely functional; they hold tooling. I'd used wood router carbide tooling to make them.
 
Al-Hala, thanks for the links. You posted while I was typing. Could it be that I can keep this thing under $3K? :cautious: :rolleyes:
 
I built my original micro drop system for about $100 in parts if you buy everything new. It does not need to be fancy. Take my digital pump system, eliminate the pump, and it works just fine. I'm using my system without the pump right now, I need to make some pump modifications. No fancy mixing valves needed, just standard hardware items. But yes, you still need an air compressor.
 
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