Mister or Flood

Now, just be careful of inhaling the moisture/solution that might be in the air from the mister. I've heard people talk about this too. Ray, please share your thoughts & results on it if/when you can. I hear they work pretty well & don't require a lot of air but I never got around to trying one.

I can tell you first hand as the cool mister was what we used in the last shop I worked in & it was bad on the lungs & eyes.
The fog buster puts out small drops o0f fluid but NO!! mist in the air and it can be portable to move to more than one machine and use cool mist coolant so no rust!!
 
All good thoughts and feedback and I appreciate it. Today was another smokey day of cutting oil and even with the overhead door cracked, there's a constant haze. I'll just try another poison for a while.

... Been thinking about this for a while and have already thought about making different nozzles to achieve different atomizations. I'm not too crazy about compressed air around my ways etc. One thought I had was to make an ultra fine nozzle that blows a miniscule amount of vapor that would be strong within a tiny, directed area but not enough volume to carry more than a few inches. Other ideas too so, I'll kick them around. I went into this with experimentation in mind. We'll see how it goes and at worst, I'll be out 120 bucks.


Ray
 
Ray, a word of caution, DO NOT use a standard soluble oil in your Kool Mist system. USE ONLY coolant intended for this use. Many common coolants are chlorinated, and are definitely unhealthy to breathe. The Kool Mist is designed for this use and although if concentrated by overuse can be a slight irritant. It's possible that there is a personal aspect to this, however. Some people simply may be more sensitive to it, or in especially small areas, the mist may fog up if used heavily. The nozzle is adjustable, and can be set to emit quite little mist. I use mine frequently on the mill, because I like the cooling, plus the air blows the chips out of the way while using an end mill. I find it useless on the lathe, in favor of flood, but the lathe is built for it.
 
Thanks Tony...

A quick question... When you say "standard soluble", do you mean coolants other than Kool Mist (or others designed for these atomizing units)? The kit I ordered comes with some Kool Mist but, I have some other stuff (called Rust Lick) around.


Ray


Ray, a word of caution, DO NOT use a standard soluble oil in your Kool Mist system. USE ONLY coolant intended for this use. Many common coolants are chlorinated, and are definitely unhealthy to breathe. The Kool Mist is designed for this use and although if concentrated by overuse can be a slight irritant. It's possible that there is a personal aspect to this, however. Some people simply may be more sensitive to it, or in especially small areas, the mist may fog up if used heavily. The nozzle is adjustable, and can be set to emit quite little mist. I use mine frequently on the mill, because I like the cooling, plus the air blows the chips out of the way while using an end mill. I find it useless on the lathe, in favor of flood, but the lathe is built for it.
 
Exactly what I mean.....if the coolant is not designed to be used in a mist system, it will be pretty rough on the lungs and sinuses. I have used a Rust Lick product before, but not anything for mist units. I pretty much stick with Kool Mist. Never had problems with it except when I got too carried away and was misting way too heavily. Makes the a/c filter get oily and trap dust better though.
 
First... -Thanks, Tony for the info and heads-up!

Update: The unit arrived today... amazing since it was ordered yesterday with standard delivery service. I quickly discovered that if the supply bottle is placed on the ground, the air pressure setting must be kept very high to create enough venturi vacuum to overcome gravity and pull the solution up the tube. Hmmm, Mondo think gravity bad... I placed the supply bottle on the shelf behind the lathe which is approximately level with the spray outlet. In that case, the unit produced a very fine spray at an extremely low air pressure setting. Even at the low pressure setting, the evaporative action makes a darn cold spot on the palm of your hand and emits a much reduced but seemingly adequate liquid volume. This is looking good so far...

Can't try it out yet. The lathe is tied up with a critical piece and I'm waiting for some inserts to arrive. Could be a couple days before I test it on the lathe but might try the mill or surface grinder in the mean time.

Ray
 
Right, it makes a huge difference in how much air is required to draw the coolant into the nozzle. I have one mounted to the mill on a little shelf bracketed to the side, about a foot below the average table elevation. If I want extra fine mist or want a heavier mixture, I use a second unit I have that just draws from a gallon jug. I sit it on the mill table, so there is very little suction effort needed to draw the coolant. Yours has the mixture control style nozzle, I take it? I haven't looked in a long time at what they offer now. No reason to change it I suppose, it works fine. If you want just a little mist, close it off at the nozzle and up the air pressure. And the other way around too. If you want bigger droplets, that don't tend to float all around the shop, open the nozzle and lower the air, but then make sure the jug is even with the nozzle.
 
Tony,

Venture if you can to give a ballpark guestimate of how long some given quantity of (diluted) solution will last. i.e. do you go through it like crazy? -I'm just curious...

TIA...

EDIT: The unit I have is this one:

mhVt5llupByY-pQNp9WLsNQ.jpg


Ray


Right, it makes a huge difference in how much air is required to draw the coolant into the nozzle. I have one mounted to the mill on a little shelf bracketed to the side, about a foot below the average table elevation. If I want extra fine mist or want a heavier mixture, I use a second unit I have that just draws from a gallon jug. I sit it on the mill table, so there is very little suction effort needed to draw the coolant. Yours has the mixture control style nozzle, I take it? I haven't looked in a long time at what they offer now. No reason to change it I suppose, it works fine. If you want just a little mist, close it off at the nozzle and up the air pressure. And the other way around too. If you want bigger droplets, that don't tend to float all around the shop, open the nozzle and lower the air, but then make sure the jug is even with the nozzle.

mhVt5llupByY-pQNp9WLsNQ.jpg


mhVt5llupByY-pQNp9WLsNQ.jpg
 
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Naturally, it will depend on how rich you mix it, and how heavy a mist you are generating. So it's hard to say exactly. It will last longer than you probably think. And on your mill, if the table has coolant returns, you can capture it if you have enough use to drain off. Of course, it goes without saying that if you do choose to reclaim it, it needs to be filtered, because the nozzle passages are rather small and should be protected. The pickup tube has a strainer on it, but I try to keep the source very clean. That gallon will last you a long time.

Don't try to mix it much leaner than the instructions say. It will cause rust to spot any clean metal. Normal mix will leave enough oil behind not to do that. I really haven't used it much on the lathe, having flood set up, but on the bp clone, exclusively over flood. I once planned on making a pan to sit the clone in and do a flood system, but the mist does all the cooling I need. I use it frequently. I may pan it someday for other reasons, but no hurry.
 
I second Tony on sticking with Cool Mist product for your spray mister.

I've tired one of the other products years back, it messed up one mister to the point we could not get it unplugged. On the mills we were running, we plugged the hole on the table trough, and when it filled, we took a turkey baster and sucked up the spent mister coolant we could and recycled it. When we recycled it, we sucked up the good coolant below the stuff that collected on top with the turkey baster. We generally got one maybe two cycles before the coolant got cruded up enough that we tossed it out. Most of the time, it evaporated before we could reuse it. I don't run my mill enough now days to get full benefit of the mister, so I just mix it and use as I need it.
 
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