Wet Cutting Solutions for Composites G10 /Carbon Plate

[CNCZONERAMICO]

My primary concerns with cutting Fiberglass composites and even Carbon plates are 2:

1) Eliminate the micro dust particles (Extremely important!)
2) Have a high quality cut and precision on the material.


Any suggestions to adapting a 4x4 ft CNC router to allow flat 1/16" thk fiberglass material to be cut under water? I am thinking making a custom pool bed the size of the router table from some plastic, or maybe purchase a large enough plastic tray, but have not just figured ut the way to attach the fg sheet to such setup without ruining the wet bed, since the cutters must go through the material all the way. MY other concern which is the least of my worries is moisture getting to the machine itself or the motor, maybe a way to deflect the air from the router motor away from the water bed. or using a dedicated spindle and keepi9ng the motor higher above the Z axis.

Any suggestion would greatly be appreciated, as I am in the middle of a job that at the moment I am wet cutting manually (Hand spray at hand) just to get the job finished.

[acidcustom]

how about flood cooling the same that is on most cnc mills
all you would need is a tub for the router to sit in with a drain to the coolant tank (eg. like a cut up 20 lt container) and a pump (I have used a 1000lt/hour pond pump with a head of 2.5 meters and some 1/2" irragation tube and smaller tube for the directional hose ) it pumps great for my Taig cnc mill plenty of flow would keep the dust down and would be easier to dispose of when the coolant is no good

[turmite]

Unless you are using a totally enclosed fan cooled motor......you had better keep the water away from the "electric" motor! Now on the other had there are servo motors that are designed to run in a wet environment that you might could use as your spindle motor. As far as holding the f/g under the water you will need to build a fixture to elevate the f/g off the bottom of the pool and use something else to to keep it weighted down.

Why don't you just use a good dust collection system? People cut these materials every day with a collection system. There are several type of filters that will trap down in the micron sizes.

Mike

[CNCZONERAMICO]

To my knowledge there is no vac system that will remove harmful dust particles, even at the micron level, there is no garantee that the dust will not get airborne somehow, part finish is greatly improved by cutting wet.

I figured out a way to make the pool and support the material under coolant, I am sure someone out there must have built something similar for the same application, but at the moment mine it is experimental and I have to build a much bigger pool container. I am thinking Water Jet machines must work under the same principles since they use water and must use a pool bed for it.

Unfortunately, I cannot run a tub under the machine, like most industrial high speed CNC centers use, because my CNC Router is not designed to be under coolant spray constanly. The pool bed seems more desireable, I built a small pool from a piece of cutting board plastic material I found at a dollar store , it is 1/2" thick and it is about 12"x16" , so I let the router machine a pocket 1/4" deep, enough to place a small sheet of G10 under it, with 4 small screws at the corners for support of this pool frame to the table sacrificial board, and 4 other smaller screws to support the material inside the pool bed, filled it with coolant, I also made a baffle for the Router motor so there is no water to motor splash or air form the motor fan spitting up the coolant. The motor's fan exhaust air hits the baffle and spreads the air horizontally instead of vertically, now. If I get a bit more elanborate, I could make a different baffle to have the air spill up on the side of the router motor, or simply replace the direct router motor with a waterproof spindle. Maybe later on.

Now I am going to build the bigger bed for this router.

I also have to think about how to filter the mud residue so that I can trap the mud in a bucket and recycle the coolant. Maybe build a series of mesh filters so that it works by gravity, since my roture sits up high I will need to pump the recycled coolant flow up and over the material inside the pool, so there is also constant movement of residue and this is not laying on the pool as the parts are being cut. Also the pool idea is more desireable from a perspective that I can still use the router multipurpose. Remove the pool when I want to use the router for other work.

Are there any specific pumps that might work for this application? Thanks for the thoughts and suggestions.

[leo.dearden]

For pumping coolant with chips/dust/etc in it you want a pump with a large clearance (between the bits that move in the fluid and the bits that don't). A pond pump will do, at least for a while, or you can get coolant specific pumps, which are often called suds pumps. I bought a 400gph into 6' head pump for GBP ~80.

Perhaps when you try it you'll prove me wrong, but I expect that, especially if you have a high speed spindle, your tool will fling loads of coolant out of the tub, so you need a way of dealing with that.

I'm part way through adding a flood coolant system to a K2 KG-3925-G CNC router. I want to cut aluminium alloys with it, but the coolant system would flush fibre composites just as well. Time will tell if the attempt is wise, but I think it is or I wouldn't be trying. I'll post about my efforts on the K2 forum soon.

IMHO, I think you'll be better off with a flood coolant system, since you'll need to solve all the attendant problems anyway (mostly to do with splashing), and a propper flood system is versatile.

Good luck with whatever you do, and please let us know how it goes?

Leo

[CNCZONERAMICO]

Leo thanks for that reply, I have made several improvements to my wet cutting bed by pure need of neccesity and not finding what I needed.

Here is a picture of my smaller setup, uses a shallow water bed fixture, the hardest thing in making such was making it with enought rigidity so that the parts would not move inside the tub. Also making it water tight. I tried plastic, metal trays of all sorts, but none gave me the rigidity required.

I decided it was best to cut one from scratch from aluminum. I found a fish tank pump that worked great...it is one that is driven magnetically so the pump is sealed.

[05fmtc]

You can waterjet carbon fiber w/ great results... The panels I've had done are appx. 1.5mm thick... As long as the punch through is off of the cut and lead in, you're good...

There's a gasket shop local to me that has cut them w/ strictly water, no abrasives...

[CNCZONERAMICO]

Originally Posted by 05fmtc You can waterjet carbon fiber w/ great results... The panels I've had done are appx. 1.5mm thick... As long as the punch through is off of the cut and lead in, you're good... There's a gasket shop local to me that has cut them w/ strictly water, no abrasives...

What shop would that be? and do they have a number?