O/T Spider Cool

[chris m]

I have been coveting these things [programmable coolant nozzle, if you don't know] for years now and I'm thinking hard about trying to get a couple on order; anybody out here running one?

 

www.spidercool.com

 

C

[Guest]

chris,

 

looks quite similar to the programmable coolant that comes on HAAS machines.

 

That setup was one of the few things I actually liked about HAAS

[chris m]

I'm pretty sure that it is a Haas P-COOL ripoff; it seems like a nice system but I'd like to hear about it from someone other than their 'testimonials' online.

[Kevangel]

I am curious about what it costs? All that info, cost studies, etc. and I did not see a price.

[billystein]

the one from haas is $1500. I wish I would have ordered it on mine. I did get one recently and am going to install it soon. I recently used one at the day job and I love it. I turned off the 3 nozzles and use only the pcool.

can't wait to get mine working.

[chris m]

This thing is around 3 grand installed

[Chris Rizzo]

I have a completely different opinion of the haas p-cool. I'd call it the "piece of $hit kool". if spider is truly similar, I'd think twice.

 

-Small passage ways, gets clogged with chips. then you've got no cool.

 

-it zero's out at a power up restart, and occasionally would get hung up on the limit switch and alarm the machine. there after would randomly alarm the machine during cycles

 

-move the nozzle (cleaning), and ALL the programmend locations are off.

 

-worst of all it takes up alot of usable real estate, esp with 4th axis and various fixtures. even setting tool offsets it's real easy to bump.

 

we've just taken ours off and eliminated all sorts of headaches.

 

m2c's

[Steve Biehl - Cimquest Inc]

Chris,

I think Peter Martin from Preci in VT has some of these. He is PeterM here and his email is [email protected]

[chris m]

Thanks, Steve, I'll reach out to him

[heavychevy2155]

Chris if you go to the CNC-Zone's forum then go to the Miltronics section, their is a review of the SpiderCool unit installed on a VM16. It has video's that show installation, operation, and general info on form and function. It is pretty well put together, and if you mention that review on CNC-Zone you get 10% off. Check it out, it is worth a look.

[PeterM]

We have four spider-cools here, they work just fine, but they are about as likely to clog as a haas p-cool(keep the filters clean) the new ones have a sweep feature that will oscillate the coolant nozzle between two limits. The only other issue that we have is the location of the unit is sometimes interfering with the setup if running an indexer job, mounted on the right hand side of the table.

[chris m]

Thanks for the info guys. Peter, they show the SpiderCool mounted on the front of the spindle sheetmetal as a 'fix' for the rotab clearance problem; do you have any like that? I'm concerned about the thing interfering with my spindle probe signals or getting cleaned off by the umbrella-style toolchangers as well. I've always liked the P-Cool on the Haas and I've seen / run many VF-series mills with it; just don't know if I'm ready to throw down enough money to retrofit a bunch of machines and I don't want the operators b!tching that one guy got one and another guy didn't. If I buy a new VMC I'd try to negotiate that baby into the deal and try it out that way.

 

C

[PeterM]

Chris,

No we haven't moved any of our spider cools, yet, it's not a big enough problem.