In my opinion yes, in fact I would say its required in my case. Some of my parts run 2.5 hours non-stop, thats asking a lot of this type of mill. The flood not only cools the part and end mill, but also draws some of the heat out of the spindal. I have performed some dry manual machining with this mill and the quality of cut is not nearly as nice, the chips pile up fast without the flood coolant to blast them out of the way, and the heat builds up fast. Plus I can't even see whats going on as the part quickly becomes buried in chips.
I have high hopes the new coolant will not go bad, some other guys have reported using it for months with no problems. Note I did not run a bubbler (cheap fish tank air pump and bubble stone) in the tank that went rancid, that seems to be the key to keeping the coolant fresh as the bacteria that cause the problems prefer a low oxigen environment. Also I don't run my mill every day which also contributed to the last batch going bad, the bubbler keeps it moving and full of oxigen during 24/7.
The downside is you need to contain the coolant hence the large footprint of the enclosure. If you get a twisty chip wrapped around the end mill it can fling the coolant a good distance.  |