Supercharging my HAAS coolant nozzles

I've been meaning to post this once I had some pictures, Gismo's post prompted me to do it anyway.

My Haas VF0 always had lackluster coolant pressure, not enough to blast the chips away. I thought there must have been crud in the manifold, because it would seem to be an extreme oversight otherwise.

So I pulled the coolant manifold off the machine and inspected it, what I found was the loc-line nozzles were protruding so far into the manifold that the first nozzle was obstructing the galley to the others. I trimmed the threaded portion back to eliminate this obstruction, it improved the flow, but I thought it could be improved.

I examined the copper coolant hose that feeds the compression fitting on the coolant manifold and found it to be 3/8 ID. The compression fitting and manifold galley were no bigger than 11/32, which seemed to be a waste.

So, I grabbed a 23/64 and 3/8 reamer and reamed the fitting and manifold to 23/64 first, then 3/8 final. Now the fitting and manifold have the same area as the line feeding the coolant manifold, and boy does it work!

I've got 4 coolant lines with 3/16 holes drilled in the orifices and it sure blasts the chips away, no problems with coolant flow and chip re-cutting anymore! I'll try to put up some pictures and maybe a short video to illustrate the improvement.

Today I was running a bunch of 7075 parts, turning most of an 8.25lb block into chips, and they were all washing down off the table without any problems!

Pictures and Videos

Hi,

Thanks for sharing the information. Looking forward to seeing any pictures and videos on your modifications.

John

Hi Perry......post up those pics!! I want to change my VF-0 as well, because I suffer the same lack of coolant pressure as you describe.

A change of 1/32" caused that much improvement? Wow. Maybe there was some old residues in the manifold as well?

At first I thought it was due to crud in the manifold, but the problem was a combination of restrictive manifold and the loc-line threads going too deep into the manifold. These are really HAAS' fault for not making the manifold tall enough to accept a full 1/4NPT and for making the galley smaller than the copper tube running to it.

Here's a cellphone video facing a part with a 2 flute 1.25" shear hog.

YouTube - HAAS facing 7075 with supercharged coolant manifold

Another potential cause is the collapse of the main feed hose. On my 1994 machine my coolant flow seemed punny so I put a bigger pump on it. There was little improvement. Then I changed the 5/8 ID hose out to a fresh piece of 3/4 hose and now the P cool can hit the far wall with high force with the small pump.