Hello everyone,
I am new to this site and would like to gain some knowledge about Fadal VMC's. I have three Fadals, two 40 tapers and a 50 taper. They are all 2005 model year. I have experienced just a ton of problems with the thru spindle coolant systems that are on these machines. I have had to replace seals and belts every six months.
Has anyone else heard of this major problem?

yes,,get rid of that

Have you considered the new pneumatic designed coolant thru the spindle? It is a vast improvement over the original one.

Neal.

I did have all of the machines upgraded with the pneumatic system while they were still under warrenty and the problem seemed to get worse. What I found is that with the pneumatic system the seals are forced togather by air so they can run dry for a breif time if coolant is not to the seals before the spindle turns on. With the old system the seals were forced togather by the flow of the coolant thru so they could not run dry at all, but that system allowed a little bit of coolant to bypass the seals while they were coming togather.
Thank you for your reply!
How long do your seals last before they start to leak? Or in other words, how often do you replace the belts?

Easiest way to solve this that we found, was that when the foreman comes in in the morning (he's usually here a half hour before everyone else) he turns the machines on and runs our warm-up program for all our mills which turns on the thru coolant and lubricates all the seals. Some times the machines won't use thru tool for weeks at a time, and then the first time you turn it on it leaks everywhere. This way the seals get lubricated daily for roughly 1/2 an hour or so until the operators come in. We don't use the new air system either.

I have 2 mills with the new pressureized seal system. No problem so far.

I have found the older style will leak if not used on a regular basis.
Also don't let your coolant get below 8% or the lack of lube will damage
the o-rings and rust the drawbar.

I have 2 mills with the new pressureized seal system. No problem so far.

I have found the older style will leak if not used on a regular basis.
Also don't let your coolant get below 8% or the lack of lube will damage
the o-rings and rust the drawbar.

why 8%? we run ours between 5%-and 7%---we have three 3 axis fadal 4020.

I have found this is the ideal ratio for the coolant we use (Blaser 2000).
Tool life and rust problems also show up at 5%. I test once each week and adjust back to 8% .

You can say 5-7% but how much tramp oil do you think is in there?

Check out Lightning Cool. It's a retrofit done by the Fadal dealer.

We had the same problem with our 3016HT and just installed the Lightning Cool. It cost us $4800 installed.