Flood Coolant Loss Rate....

[SCzEngrgGroup]

I don't have a Tormach (yet! I'm considering buying one....), but I notice several folks here using flood coolant, and I'm curious how much "goes missing" in a full days work. I'm using KoolMist 77 on a knee mill. I have a large tray that catches all the chips and coolant, so nothing is being lost on the floor. It's all captured and recirculated. But, after a full 8-hour day of work, there will be 3-4 gallons of coolant just gone. I suspect much/most of it ends up clinging to the mountain of chips in the pans (I can make enough chips in a single day to more than fill a household garbage can), the evaporates from there.

Is this typical? Any ideas how to minimize the loss?

I've also been following the coolant pump discussions. I actually have two pumps in my system - A 600GPH pump pumps the coolant from the storage tank to the tool. The big trays catch all the chips and coolant, and it drains, by gravity, from there into the hollow base of the mill. I have a 900GPH sump pump inside the base that returns the coolant to the storage tank.

Regards,
Ray L.

[TXFred]

I see pretty high loss rates on my machine.

One problem is that the Tormach stand isn't sloped towards the drain, so a lot of your coolant pools underneath the mill where it can evaporate easily.

Scott M had a good idea, and used an epoxy to fill in the tray, creating a sloped surface. The only gotcha is that you have to remove the mill from the stand to do this.

If you're about to buy, I would suggest that you do this modification before you ever install the mill onto the stand. I wish I had done so!

Details here.
http://www.cnczone.com/forums/tormac...ce_lift-2.html

Frederic

[SCzEngrgGroup]

I built my tray sloped to the back (it's 2" higher at the front), so drainage is not a problem.

It's kinda funny - I've seen/heard so many people over the years that used flood coolant, and wouldn't consider using mist, because they "didn't want to breathe that stuff". On my hardest day using mist, I'd go through a gallon of mix. At the end of my first hour using flood, I noticed the humidity in the shop was dramatically higher than ever before.

Regards,
Ray L.

[TXFred]

It's kinda funny - I've seen/heard so many people over the years that used flood coolant, and wouldn't consider using mist, because they "didn't want to breathe that stuff". On my hardest day using mist, I'd go through a gallon of mix. At the end of my first hour using flood, I noticed the humidity in the shop was dramatically higher than ever before.

No kidding. An end mill at 4000 RPM does a fine job of making flood coolant into mist coolant.

I use Liquid Ice now, which is pretty harmless stuff. Before, I used some blue stuff, SynCool I think it was called. After 30 minutes, my eyes were watering and my throat was burning.

Frederic

[SCzEngrgGroup]

I don't notice any effects whatsoever from the KoolMist. Seems pretty darned benign.

Regards,
Ray L.

[Gundawg]

If you make a lot of swarf get an old washing machine and use the basket to spin the chips in the spin cycle mode the centrifugal force will get your coolant back. They make commercial models of this simple machine.

Mike

[Don Clement]

I don't notice any effects whatsoever from the KoolMist. Seems pretty darned benign.

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