Coolant Sump Cleaner

[Chris Rizzo]

Does anybody recommend a coolant filtration unit? Pluses and minuses? I was looking at these ones from Keller. Relatively affordable 3-4k, air driven, pretty simple design.

[Clarence L Cook]

We purchased the model 315 about 3 years ago. It seems to do a reasonable job on keeping the coolant clean and the oil out of it.

 

We have 8 machines that we move the unit around to and the biggest hassle is setting it up at each machine. Getting the unit to pick up the coolant from the top is a must. Our model 315 gets really messy due to spillage and some loose connections that we found.

 

If I were to do it over again, I would purchase the individual sump units so that we wouldn't have to move it. At the time the individual sump units were about $800 each and the model 315 was about $2500 if memory serves.

 

If you go with the Keller units, be sure and get extra filters. You can get the diposable 25 micro filters and I have used a reusable 100 micro mess filter (we did a bunch of Macor ceramic and the 100 micro worked very well).

 

If you have any questions about our model 315, just ask.

 

Clarence Cook

[Joe788]

We've had a Keller 455 for about 7 years and it works well. It's out of commission at the moment due to a leak though. The biggest problem is getting it to suck from the top of the sump. We had two different Keller floating inlets, and both were garbage. We ended up removing all of the crap from the end of the inlet, and just zip tying the straight hose to whatever is nearby, and manually adjusting the height.

 

If you start sucking air, the tramp oil reservoir will bubble over in a matter of minutes. The tramp oil is all on the top, so that's the first thing to ooze all over the unit and all over the floor.

 

At some point I'll take the Keller pump + filter housing, xxxxcan their junk rolling cart and way-too-easy-to-overflow reservoir, and re-built the unit with a proper rolling base and decent hoses, hardware, and a reservoir who's top is about twice as high as the coolant return outlet.

 

A guy over on practicalmachinist.com just bought a much fancier unit yesterday, with a centrifuge and everything. Sounds pretty cool: http://www.practicalmachinist.com/vb/cnc-machining/whohooo-no-more-nasty-coolant-shop-240094/