O/T Coolant

[Nominal]

Anybody adding things to the coolant to reduce the odor? What coolant do you find lasts the longest before it becomes foul? Thanks.

[Neal Z]

We're using the product Blasercut by Swisslube in all are CNC's with good results.

[McRae]

We have several coolant related threads here in the knowledge base.

 

The single largest contributing factor to sump life is to keep the coolant sump clean of chips, sludge, dirt, grime, and biologicals. A disc skimmer to keep the tramp oils off the top of the coolant will save disposal costs as well. For $200 that will be one of the better investments you can make. (just think if you can avaoid one recharge of the coolant tank how much that would cost...)

 

Coolants are a commodity item and they each will spin things their own way - it is the process that they are in and how they are maintained that will determine their life. Machining Nodular Iron will foul coolant quicker than Machining Stainless - so wade thru the speculation of cooant slaesmen - I used to be one...

 

[ 10-10-2003, 10:52 AM: Message edited by: Andrew McRae ]

[robk]

We're using Castrol Safety Cool 995. The horizontals hold about 300 gals. The coolant I belive might be all synthetic, so no foul smell at all. We drain the machines once a year just to clean them thoroughly.

I see you're in CT also... We buy it from K.B. Page(413)737-3912 @ about $650 per 55 gal. drum. Good stuff.

 

Rob

[jbel]

Blasocut by Swisslube is the best we've ever used. Lasts nearly forever but even better if you use an oil skimmer to keep it from getting funky.

[Harryman]

Hamikut 9124-HD coolant.

 

Grotan Biocide

 

Keller #351 skimmer

 

Purgital cleaner

 

I add about 6oz of Grotan / week to control bugs in 45 gal sump. Vacuum oil out of skimmer weekly, and add enough purgitol to keep things from getting greasy feeling. I just add water 60% of the time to make up lost volume, and fortify the make up with a stout coolant mix as required. Machining stainless and Ti, coolant is lasting >1 year with NO odor. I think the skimmer is a key to coolant life by preventing the suffocating oil layer. Last place I worked stunk worse than Bubba's gym socks. Here, I had the coolant skimmer going from day 1 and there is no smell at all.

[crazy^millman]

+100 Swiss Lube by Blasercut. You can also get a fish aquairm oxygen maker and ru nthe tube to your tank will keep the smell down also.

 

 

Crazy Millman

[Neal Z]

We're using the product Blasercut by Swisslube in all are CNC's with good results.

 

I should of added, we have skimmers setup on timers to run on off shifts. And fish aquairm (sp)

bubblers to add oxygen. We recharge the coolant tanks with new every year reguardless.

[Bocho]

We use The Cooler by Spartan in all our mills to cut Aluminum. Has a nice smell, cuts nice and stays decent for a while. we suck the top oil layer off in Mon A.M. We use a shop-vac, which if you do it right sucks the oil globs off nicely without taking much good coolant at all. Doesn't foam much either. We do aluminum mold work though with little large part count runs.

Tim

[J Coulston]

Blaser Swisslube. We also have a coalescer that we move between machines to skim off the tramp oil.

 

John

[Marty A]

we use tech cool 3500. we have a gauge we use to keep the mixture of water and tech cool just right. we haven't had any bad smells. it cost around $45.00 for 5 gallons.

 

marty

[McRae]

The use of Biocide will give you a rash as well as the stuff living in your coolant.

 

Grotan - that is some nasty stuff, read the MSDS before you decid to use it and take the neccessary precautions.

[chris m]

Grotan is useless in our machines and not very nice to Aluminum.

 

 

Hey robk; Lisa Fitzpatrick still the rep for KB Page?

 

C

 

[ 10-10-2003, 12:53 PM: Message edited by: chris m ]

[Noel]

We use hangsterfers s-500-cf its supposed to be the same as blazer.Ive used both and found no difference.The hardest part is trying to get the opperators to keep the sumps clean.

 

 

Noel

[robk]

quote:

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Hey robk; Lisa Fitzgerald still the rep for KB Page?

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I have no idea... This is the only product we order from them, so I don't deal with them often enough to remember names.

 

Rob

[mmonica]

We have always used Trim-Sol, we machine mainly 356 and 319 aluminum cast alloys. We went through a lot of trials to extend coolant life and the one thing that made a huge difference is using ultra pure water. Bacteria will grow on minerals in the water, the harder the water, the more bacteria, more smell. We had US Filter install water pureification systems to produce dionized water for mixing with the Trim-sol.

We also installed 10 micron filters on all water based coolant machines (50 micron for oil). This eliminated aluminum fines from contaminating the coolant. This also improved tool life, we found the hi-pressure and standard coolant systems were flooding the cut zone with coolant with suspended fines. Oil skimmers on all water based coolant machined is a must. Our coolant purshases are a mere fraction of what they were before these changes, It sounds expensive, but the system had a very short payback.

On a side note, we also purchased a splitter to seperate the oil and water from the old coolant, this saved money on disposal cost.

Good luck,

Mark Monica

[TREV]

quote:

What coolant do you find lasts the longest before it becomes foul?

_________________________________________________-

 

air blast seems to hold up the best

seriously tho we use chemsafe 39339,mixed at 5%.this holds up really well .we mostly cut h-13,s-7,and p-20.if you are milling alot of exotics or alluminum not sure how it will do.

trevor

[robk]

quote:

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air blast seems to hold up the best

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Very true. With the tools and coatings these days being as good as they are, air is the choice for milling (stainless in here). The biggest reason for using coolant in here is mostly for chip evacuation.

 

Rob

[Harryman]

quote:

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Grotan - that is some nasty stuff

Grotan is useless in our machines

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Please offer an alternative. It's been getting hard to find anyway. It's been effective here, and hasn't caused any problems so far. I do get a white goo growing on things without treatment.

[McRae]

Sump Cleanlyness and keeping the coolant free of contaminents. Our plant isn't the best for this either as our excange cycle is quite high...

 

As far as Grotan - no alternatives but to change out the coolant I'm afraid... If you haven't had any problems related to it then I guess you are using it the way it should be. My experience is based on a misapplication and in order to remove the potential failure from happening again, we stopped using the stuff.

 

[ 10-10-2003, 03:23 PM: Message edited by: Andrew McRae ]

[Andy]

Blaser and Skimmer for 4 years.

Trouble free.

[Eric S.]

I know I am hijacking but it is related to the coolant subject. I am interesred in what kind of skimmers you guys use as well? We had one that was flat disk that turned in the coolant then a wiper removed the oil from it. But it removed more coolant than oil. I use Valcool VNT 650 and it has worked well for the miling I do. As long as we keep on top of the trap oil it does not go rancid.

[robk]

quote:

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I am interesred in what kind of skimmers you guys use as well?

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Wayne Products Co.

 

Rob

[mayday]

check into phasep, works great runs with air

[chris m]

quote:

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I don't deal with them often enough to remember names

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You'd remember hers...

 

 

We use Abenaki (sp?) belt skimmers in most machines with the plastic belts; the metal don't work well for us.

 

C