It looks pretty but...here's my two cents worth after running flood coolant on my IH converted mill for the past two years.
Coolant Tank - My first fancy commercial 5 gallon coolant tank is lying in a landfill somewhere, it was pitifully too small. So is a 10, 15 gallon is acceptable.
Chip Management - I machine aluminum and plastics and the chips head straight for the coolant drain screen and plug it up. If you place some screens around the drain to keep that from happening they just dam up around those. Coolant then begins backing up in your enclosure. Chips make a surprisingly good dam, with my coolant at about 50% flow its quite easy to back up a few gallons of coolant within my enclosure. Therefore locating your coolant drain front and center where its easy to get at and clean is a good idea. I have raised areas left and right of my drain, I push the chips up onto these slopes where they can drain. I use double screens, at the drain another on the coolant tank itself. Both should be easily accessable.
Coolant System Maint - Coolant goes bad sooner or later, it either gets nasty from contamination or the bacteria get a foothold. The coolant I'm using now last about a 9 months which is pretty good. But sooner or later you will need to take your coolant system apart for a good cleaning so it should be easily accessable.
The Enclosure - When deciding how high to make the enclosure walls to contain the coolant take into consideration that when you plunge into the stock the stringers of material climb up the end mill and fling the dang coolant off in all directions. Even a 1.5 inch face mill will fling it a good 10 feet.
One thing I did which I am grateful for on a frequent basis is this, the base of my enclosure is only slightly larger than the base of the mill. About 6 inches wider left to right and deep enough front to rear to cover the mill and all the cnc mechanicals hanging off the front. Around the back of the mill I have a tall guard. I then have left and right enclosures that hang off base enclosure and drain into that. These are 2 feet taller than the mill table. Now here's the thing, the left and right enclosures both fold back onto the floor out of my way during setups, cleaning, or when machining long stock and for mill maint they remove completely in just a few minutes which gives me easy access to the entire mill. To fully enclose these mills requires a pretty good size enclosure. Trying to reach over them to get at the mill isn't much fun.
Just my two cents worth  |