Minimum Oil Machining

[cts maker]

We are in the process of buying a VF-4 and the salesman had recommended the MOM feature as we have post processing steps that would not accept heavily oiled parts. They now tell me that I have to order the Programmable Coolant Nozzle option to get the MOM.

We will mainly be using the VF-4 to drill aluminum extrusions (nothing too complicated).

What are the real benefits of MOM versus standard nozzles?

[SeymourDumore]

If you don't want to or just can't flood cool the parts, then MOM is the way to go, IF you can get away with oil-only that is.
For me though, MOM is the cat's meow for tapping anything. Oil is usually much better at lubricating taps, and with the MOM there is no more M00 to hand-lube every hole. Just program it and you'll get a squirt every time the tool hits the R-plane.
The reason for the P-COOL option is that the MOM nozzle is attached to the same moving assembly so you can program it to aim right at the tooltip.

[Ican]

I don't know much about MOM... but we drill and tap a minimum of 700 - 800 holes a day with our Mini Mill in aluminum and simply run flood coolant. We do have the larger pump on ours... works like a dream. We usually get around 800 to 1000 holes out of a tap. I'd be interested in knowing if MOM can extend the tool life by much. Hope this can help you out.

[M_D]

We machine a lot of aluminum, and drill and tap lots of holes using flood coolant (we typically get 5-20,000 holes on a tap). I personally doubt the MOM would be a good choice for that, especially the drilling, as getting enough oil down in the hole with the drill would require a lot of oil. In aluminum the flood coolant helps in at least three ways: it cools the tools, it lubricates the tools, and last but not least it washes chips away or in the case of holes it helps keep the chips loose so they don't pack and break drills and taps.

As far as oil causing problems with processes after being machined, water soluble oil used for flooding is easily washed off with water, unlike any sort of petroleum oil, and water soluble oil rarely will cause problems if the parts are to be anodized.

[SeymourDumore]

First off, not everyone machines aluminum for a living. In my case it is less than 5%.
Stainless, Ti and nickel based stuff makes up the remaining 95%.
2nd. Tapping AL is relatively easy as long as you obey the laws of physics. IOW you have a through hole to be tapped and have a good tap, you'll probably see a lifetime's useage out of it.
OTOH you have a spiral, plug or bottom tap for a non-through hole and you need to go to the last 1 pitch worth of distance ( which is inevitable with todays genius engineers and their infinite wishdom ) you'll realize the incredible advantage threadformer taps have. Those taps however are much much happier with real lubrication.

3rd: Start to tap some 410 or 416 stainless in pre-hard form or some nice 304, 316 etc common materials with coolant-only, you will again realize the benefits of oil. The nastier the material, the more the benefits.
I went from 30 parts/tap to 300+ in TI 6AL4V. 1/4-28 x .750 min. depth using oil and Greenfield EM-TI tap.

4th: The oil used in the MOM container, or in fact generally in machinning nowadays, is usually a vegetable oil which is:
a: easily absorbed by the coolant
b: negligibly small in volume compared to the coolant

5th: I don't think using oil over flood coolant is advantageous in drilling anything. Sometimes however flood is not possible, for example when modification to an electrical motor's housing is required or when the part is part of an already assembled thing with non-immerseable components.

So again, the relatively minimal cost of the option is far outweighed by the benefits when the right part comes around.

[M_D]

I know that typical flood coolant is not always adequate for some of the tougher machining metals. In that case MOM could be invaluable. We typically run our coolant richer than normal because that helps with the tapping, otherwise, for most of our drilling and milling it could be leaner. I wonder how using straight (undiluted) coolant concentrate would work with the MOM?

My point originally was cts maker would probably find flood coolant to be the best method for drilling the aluminum extrusions. The programable coolant nozzle is really nice in my opinion, with or without MOM I consider it to be an option well worth having.

[SeymourDumore]

MD

Not sure about the contrentate. The oil supplied with the HAAS is a coolmist vegetable oil with wicked low, near water viscosity, and as such it can be dispensed with ease.
Not sure if the pump can handle the concentrate and spray it with the same amount of force.

[fpworks]

SeymourDumore,
Any recommendations on the oil you use?


Flood rules for aluminum, unless you're drilling, then through spindle coolant rules (most of the time). We have a workpiece air/oil mist system on our Mazak, but it is worthless for aluminum.

And I really tried to use it...the cost savings could be tremendous.

[SeymourDumore]

fp

Coolmist CoolLube1000 in the MOM. Pretty nice stuff and does not stain.
There is a marginally better product, Acculube LB3000. It is better for tapping SST and the tougher things. I use it on the Bridgeport and the manual Hardinge. Works nice but leaves an ungodly gummy residue over everything and requires nothing less than atomics to remove. It is also thicker than the Coolube, so I won't even try it in the Haas.