I've added CTS to Fadals
I think I can offer some valuable insight on this topic. Our company has retrofitted a Deublin rotary union onto Fadals. We originally designed our systems as a replacement for the factory CTS system because we had that system on our machines and it doesn’t work very well. I will be the first person to tell you that putting a Deublin on a Fadal is not as easy as it seems.
One of the biggest challenges with through spindle coolant is that in order adapt a coolant hose to a rotating spindle it requires that by some means a static sealing surface must mate with a rotating seal surface. In order for this to be possible the seals must be made out of a material that is extremely brittle and the sealing surface must be perfectly flat with a mirror finish to ensure VERY little friction/wear occurs. I know that this is common knowledge but there is a catch, because of how hard and brittle the seals are they are very easily damaged by viberation and harmonics. If there is to much viberation (or run out) in the rotating seal it will chatter against the static seal and cause the surface to chip and deteriorate.
This is the reason that the factory Fadal system doesn’t work very well. Fadal mounts their rotating seal to the end of the drawbar which is not held concentric with the spindle and can wabble like crazy. So in the same manner a Deublin union will not do much better in those circumstances, that is why Deublin specifies that the union pilot must have no more than .0004 total indicator run out.
When we designed our system we needed to first create an accurate platform to ensure that we could achieve the required run out specs. As far as cost goes, our system is about the same price as buying the system from Fadal that doesn’t work very well. The reason that this type of retrofit costs as much as it does is because we supply everything from the orientation bridge plate up, we have to include all of these parts because they are all involved in the alignment process. Because we supply so many components with our systems we took the inishitive to make changes that cure other common problems and make our systems more valuable, (i.e. drawbar piston breaking, hydraulic reservoirs leaking oil onto belts, Bellville washers wearing out the drawbar.) When you are dealing with $538 coolant unions it is worth investing the money up front to ensure that you will not be replacing a union every six months. Our Lightning Cool systems are actually the only through spindle coolant system that Fadal is offering from the factory on most new machine models. We also offer our own pump package now that is available for far less than ordering the parts from the factory and the package includes all of the plumbing, hardware, electrical, and instructions to add the option seamlessly. We are also offering a 12% discount on our retrofit kits right now.
Our website has much more information and photos…
www.LightningCool.com
Sorry it is such a long post, I hope this helps.