Royal Filtermist experience

[MarcParnes]

For the last few years I've been using a high capacity ventilation system strategically situated over my enclosed Lagun/Metosa CNC lathe in order to get rid of the coolant mist. It always seemed like it was doing the job but I did find myself clearing my throat a lot and there is always a bit of a coating on the machines, etc. Last summer I had a through-the-wall air conditioner installed and lately I've noticed a weird smell when first starting it up in the morning. I decided to check out the filter so I pulled it out and was shocked by what I found. It was totally coated with coolant. Actually soaking wet. Obviously my ventilation system wasn't up to the task at all based on what the a/c picked up. The other problem is that the vent system not only vents the mist but also vents the cool air from the a/c. I started looking into alternatives. I happened upon the Royal Filtermist unit from a catalog I picked up at Westec. I went ahead and bought one and installed it last week. I mounted it directly on top of the machine enclosure at the tailstock end. It was a simple process of cutting a 6" hole in the enclosure top along with 4 3/8" holes for the mounts.

This thing actually works! A few observations:

When opening up the door of the lathe the air inside the enclosure is completely clear where it was always misty before.

The air in the shop is definitely clearer.

While the lathe is running I can look through the window and watch the mist move toward the filter like there was a hurricane inside.

As the lathe works I can watch the coolant running down the separator hose back into the sump which is a whole lot better than watching it drip out of the vent system :-)

Most importantly I'm not clearing my throat as much.

It's pretty loud, though. On the level of a small shop vac running all the time. Hopefully I'll get used to the noise after a while. My vent system has two big mufflers on it which made it about half as loud as this setup. So far I'm really satisfied with the Filtermist. If you're interested in cleaning up the air in your shop it might be something worthwhile looking into. They make various sizes for individual machines and multiple machine setups as well as various ways of hooking it up.

Marc

[Kool Parts]

Sorry I did not see this sooner. You are right I have one on a mill and it works great. I need to mount it a little different as it vibrates (on the contraption I had to build to get around the side mount tool changer). A little loud but I have seen a lot worse. But compared to the old air quality not bad at all.
Gary

[ToddF]

Currently we have an S56 that we use for electrode manufactuing as well as cutting steel etc. We have a vacume system plumbed into the machine for graphite removal. We also added a oil mister unit recently. As you can imagine at times it creates a fog in the shop. I was wandering if you could place a oil catching filter in line of the vacume system between the 2 machines? That way I could use our current vacume system for both applications. Any ideas?