Filtermist F-1200 (older unit) not capturing coolant, can't find out why.

I have a recently acquired Royal Filtermist F-1200.

In maybe 100+hours of running it’s collected at best ½ cup of coolant.

The only time it worked to collect coolant was when a ½ drill got coverd in swarf, and
turned the coolant to mist inside the machine. That happened once.

I have tried to replicate that condition unsuccessfully. I have let the machine run with a drill
covered in swarf, with coolant spraying on it for 15-20 minutes, the outlet hose is dry,
no captured coolant.

If I spray coolant at the inlet it will pull the coolant into the unit, and expel it out thru the spigot outlet. That suggests that coolant channel around in the interior isn't blocked.

It appears to have new foam pads inside the drum, their clean no debris or heavy deposits.
The way their die-cut suggests their correct for the drum. The foam inserts that go into the exhaust outlets appear to be new as well.

The seal at the bottom is good, and doesn’t leak.

I talked to support at Royal, they suggested try removing the drum foam inserts, tried that, no effect, just got noisier.

I get approx. 6A on each leg of the 208V supply, the nameplate says 7.5A so I’m in the ball park.

Rotation is in the correct direction.

The unit is mounted in the top far right hand corner of a Fadal 4020. I’ve coverd the top opening of the machine opening with Lexan plates that I had left over. The gap between the head and the ATC isn’t coverd, so there’s still plenty of area for the air to get in.

I’ve even had an 8 8” hose going down to the area of the drill, that didn’t work.

I can see the heavy droplets thrown out by the spinning toll not being captured, but the mist doesn’t seem to be captured, if it was it would be expelled out of the spigot.

What have other peoples experiences been with the older Royal F-1200? I've read mixed reviews, but not sure if I've seen one where somebody had said it plain didn't work.




Even having the hose down at the level of the tool didn't seem to help (only temporary)

Sorry about that picture, turn your head 90 deg CW for correct orientation


Last resort is to get get some smooth bore tubing, and run the inlet inside the machine close to the head. That's $60 of tubing I don't want to spend if it's not going to work

Your expecting it to do something that it is not designed to do.

These types of filters are basically coalescers meaning it will remove true mist. You are confusing coolant mist and coolant droplets.

Coolant droplets are not usually a problem as they precipitate out very rapidly. The small micro sized droplets which exhibit Brownian movement do not precipate out and are the ones that your mist collector will capture.

I suspect that the machining processes you use does not actually produce much mist and that is why you are not getting much coolant out of the mist collector discharge.

Ziggy2 said:

Your expecting it to do something that it is not designed to do.

These types of filters are basically coalescers meaning it will remove true mist. You are confusing coolant mist and coolant droplets.

Coolant droplets are not usually a problem as they precipitate out very rapidly. The small micro sized droplets which exhibit Brownian movement do not precipate out and are the ones that your mist collector will capture.

I suspect that the machining processes you use does not actually produce much mist and that is why you are not getting much coolant out of the mist collector discharge.

Click to expand...

That's basically the conclusion I've come too as well, even so it's not even collecting the very fine mist that's produced. My coolant consumption is probably 1 gallon/hour, and hasn't changed since I installed it.

There's mist in the machine when you open the doors after the coolant and tool has stopped, it doesn't capture any of that. The large drops end up on the sides of the machine and table and drain away.

You are misapplying this mist collector.

Mist collectors are not going to prevent coolant getting on the compartment sidewalls. Their purpose is to remove the very small droplets from the air. These are the ones that cause the health issues.

To get a mist collector to work optimally you need to have proper air flow. That means the machine cabinet needs to have a properly sized inlet opening and the hose and duct going to the mist collector itself needs to be as short as possible.

That duct hose in the cabinet is the wrong thing to do. You need air velocity for this to work and your current approach is to choke everything off.

Remember, the purpose of the mist collector is to keep the coolant mist in the machine cabinet and not in the shop air.

Do you know what the actual coolant lose is vs the evaporative loses. Real coolant lose requires coolant concentrate and water. Evaporative loses require only make up water. You need to know the difference to prevent allowing the coolant concentration to get too high.

You are misapplying this mist collector.

Mist collectors are not going to prevent coolant getting on the compartment sidewalls. Their purpose is to remove the very small droplets from the air. These are the ones that cause the health issues.

To get a mist collector to work optimally you need to have proper air flow. That means the machine cabinet needs to have a properly sized inlet opening and the hose and duct going to the mist collector itself needs to be as short as possible.

That duct hose in the cabinet is the wrong thing to do. You need air velocity for this to work and your current approach is to choke everything off.

Remember, the purpose of the mist collector is to keep the coolant mist in the machine cabinet and not in the shop air.

Do you know what the actual coolant lose is vs the evaporative loses. Real coolant lose requires coolant concentrate and water. Evaporative loses require only make up water. You need to know the difference to prevent allowing the coolant concentration to get too high.

Ziggy2 said:

You are misapplying this mist collector.
Mist collectors are not going to prevent coolant getting on the compartment sidewalls. Their purpose is to remove the very small droplets from the air. These are the ones that cause the health issues. .

Click to expand...

I know that, it’s obvious it’s not going to collect the large droplets. It’s the mist that’s created that it isn’t collecting. I can see the mist after the machine has stopped that’s the problem that’s not being addressed by the unit.

Ziggy2 said:

To get a mist collector to work optimally you need to have proper air flow. That means the machine cabinet needs to have a properly sized inlet opening and the hose and duct going to the mist collector itself needs to be as short as possible.
That duct hose in the cabinet is the wrong thing to do. You need air velocity for this to work and your current approach is to choke everything off. .

Click to expand...

That duct was added to see if moving the inlet close to the tool made any difference, it didn’t.

There’s nothing in the Royal/Mistaway etc brochures/manuals literature about the proper way of designing inlet openings, or where to place them.

I have the largest opening (about 2 sq ft)on the other side of the tool from the Filtermist, so it’s drawing air past the tool and coolant nozzles, still doesn’t work.

Ziggy2 said:

Remember, the purpose of the mist collector is to keep the coolant mist in the machine cabinet and not in the shop air. .

Click to expand...

That’s fairly obvious, I didn’t buy it because it looked pretty.

Ziggy2 said:

Do you know what the actual coolant lose is vs the evaporative loses. Real coolant lose requires coolant concentrate and water. Evaporative loses require only make up water. You need to know the difference to prevent allowing the coolant concentration to get too high.

Click to expand...

I monitor concentration with a refractometer.

A long day may mean I have to add 10-15 gallons at 50% of the usual concentration, so some evaporation, some coolant loss.
I don’t lose coolant on parts when coming out of the machine. I either blow the coolant off, into the machine. Or rinse the part into a 5 gallon bucket of water, that then has coolant added and put back into the machine.

Did you check to see that the Fltermist is set up for the correct voltage? Could it be spinning too slow?

When I installed mine, it came from the factory wired for 480v 3ph (that’s how I ordered it). But there are bus bars you can move around to tap for different voltage settings... Maybe yours is set up for 480v and you’re only feeding it 208v?

Mooner said:

Did you check to see that the Fltermist is set up for the correct voltage? Could it be spinning too slow?

When I installed mine, it came from the factory wired for 480v 3ph (that’s how I ordered it). But there are bus bars you can move around to tap for different voltage settings... Maybe yours is set up for 480v and you’re only feeding it 208v?

Click to expand...

It's wired for 208/230V per the nameplate wiring schematic. I'm also getting 6A on each leg, which is in the ball park of the nameplate current of 7.5A.

I'm not sure that it matters (I have one of these on the shelf, but haven't worked with it much), but is it running in the right direction? How much suction is there?

It seems like your checking everything you should. Kinda weird that it doesn't seem to be doing anything. The 1200 is a big unit.I have Aercology centrifugal filters on most of my Fadals. They are much smaller at 500 cfm but do a pretty good job at mist reduction. Althought, they don't produce as much condensed coolant as I thought they would. I have found that the inlet doesn't need to be right next to the work. Maybe try moving your suction tube to different areas. Just my 2 cents

Have you checked the air pressure drop across the filter.

The 6A motor current vs the 7.8A suggest that the fan is restricted.

Your unit is oversized for the cabinet so if it has set up properly it should be moving a lot of air.

Either you have the wrong element causing a large static pressure differential or else there is an adjustable exhaust restrictor that is incorrectly adjusted.

gregormarwick said:

I'm not sure that it matters (I have one of these on the shelf, but haven't worked with it much), but is it running in the right direction? How much suction is there?

Click to expand...

It's running in the right direction.

There's plenty of suction, although it's hard to quantify. Right by the inlet you can feel strong airflow, 12" away practically nothing. Unfortuantly I don't have another F-1200/FX-1200 to compare it too.

Tedger said:

It seems like your checking everything you should. Kinda weird that it doesn't seem to be doing anything. The 1200 is a big unit.I have Aercology centrifugal filters on most of my Fadals. They are much smaller at 500 cfm but do a pretty good job at mist reduction. Althought, they don't produce as much condensed coolant as I thought they would. I have found that the inlet doesn't need to be right next to the work. Maybe try moving your suction tube to different areas. Just my 2 cents

Click to expand...

The duct in the image that is by the tool was to see if it made any difference putting the inlet close to the tool, no difference. I've tried various lengths of duct hanging straight down from the inlet. there is no difference to mist collection regardless of length/position etc

Ziggy2 said:

Have you checked the air pressure drop across the filter.

The 6A motor current vs the 7.8A suggest that the fan is restricted.

Your unit is oversized for the cabinet so if it has set up properly it should be moving a lot of air.

Either you have the wrong element causing a large static pressure differential or else there is an adjustable exhaust restrictor that is incorrectly adjusted.

Click to expand...

There is no adjustability in this unit. All the pads/exhaust foam appear to be new, I don't think there are any restrictions.

Something is wrong.

Have you tried running the fan without the pads and filter? Measure the motor current then and see if it is a lot closer to the 7.8A

Are you also extra sure that the fan motor is wired correctly for 230VAC. The behavior that you are seeing suggests that if there is no issue with the media then the motor voltage is wired for 480V and preventing the fan from reaching full rpm. Centrifugal fans vary with the square of the rpm so a small chnge in run speed will have a huge effect on operation.