scudzuki
Stainless
- Joined
- Aug 6, 2008
- Location
- SouthEastern Pennsylvania
I have a 20 year old Arrow 500 that I use maybe half a dozen times a year in my home workshop.
I've had the same batch of Trim Sol E206 in the sumps for 8 years since I built my detached shop and moved the machine in.
When I filled the sumps I put in a large aquarium air pump running one airstone in each of the 2 sumps with a big machine nut looped onto each line to keep the airstone submerged.
Over the years I've had to add water to replace the evaporate at least once a year. I mixed the replacement water in a bucket with fluid from the sumps. The coolant never got rancid or smelled so I thought it was okay for the few times a year I fired up the machine to make parts for my other hobbies.
I recently drained the sumps and found an 1/8" coating of something with the consistency of grease on the side walls and more on the bottom. The consistency of the goo is grease like, and thankfully it plugged the hole that developed on the bottom of the right sump. Whether the goo is oil separated from the coolant or tramp grease from the way lube system or a combination of both is immaterial; it's a mess and difficult to clean off in the cramped space of my packed to capacity 500 square foot shop. Were I to fix the hole(s), I'd want to do it right, which would not be cheap; stripping and welding then completely refinishing both sumps CORRECTLY is beyond my capabilities. On a side note, I believe the hole in the right sump to be a result of the machine nut I put on the air line to hold the airstone down... whoops.
I'd like to avoid the mistakes of the past, so I think that for my low production needs, either a mist coolant or micro drop lube system makes more sense than fixing the leak(s) in the sumps, then dealing with maintenance and disposal of 40 gallons of flood coolant (on a more frequent timeline) to me. Another benefit is the mist or micro drop system could be moved to my manual lathe or mill if needed.
I've used both micro drop and mist cooling systems in the past. Mist would be cheaper to get into but I'm not really into huffing the fog that it creates and getting a vacuum hood drives the cost and noise factor up considerably.
I've only been able to find micro drop systems made by Trico and they're pretty expensive, but they are much easier on the respiratory system than mist systems in my 20 year old recollection of using both.
Any relevant experience PM members can provide to help me decide which way to go would be helpful.
Thanks.
Joe
I've had the same batch of Trim Sol E206 in the sumps for 8 years since I built my detached shop and moved the machine in.
When I filled the sumps I put in a large aquarium air pump running one airstone in each of the 2 sumps with a big machine nut looped onto each line to keep the airstone submerged.
Over the years I've had to add water to replace the evaporate at least once a year. I mixed the replacement water in a bucket with fluid from the sumps. The coolant never got rancid or smelled so I thought it was okay for the few times a year I fired up the machine to make parts for my other hobbies.
I recently drained the sumps and found an 1/8" coating of something with the consistency of grease on the side walls and more on the bottom. The consistency of the goo is grease like, and thankfully it plugged the hole that developed on the bottom of the right sump. Whether the goo is oil separated from the coolant or tramp grease from the way lube system or a combination of both is immaterial; it's a mess and difficult to clean off in the cramped space of my packed to capacity 500 square foot shop. Were I to fix the hole(s), I'd want to do it right, which would not be cheap; stripping and welding then completely refinishing both sumps CORRECTLY is beyond my capabilities. On a side note, I believe the hole in the right sump to be a result of the machine nut I put on the air line to hold the airstone down... whoops.
I'd like to avoid the mistakes of the past, so I think that for my low production needs, either a mist coolant or micro drop lube system makes more sense than fixing the leak(s) in the sumps, then dealing with maintenance and disposal of 40 gallons of flood coolant (on a more frequent timeline) to me. Another benefit is the mist or micro drop system could be moved to my manual lathe or mill if needed.
I've used both micro drop and mist cooling systems in the past. Mist would be cheaper to get into but I'm not really into huffing the fog that it creates and getting a vacuum hood drives the cost and noise factor up considerably.
I've only been able to find micro drop systems made by Trico and they're pretty expensive, but they are much easier on the respiratory system than mist systems in my 20 year old recollection of using both.
Any relevant experience PM members can provide to help me decide which way to go would be helpful.
Thanks.
Joe