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Water for mixing coolant?

bellinoracing

Hot Rolled
Joined
Aug 27, 2009
Location
Arizona USA
Well I am getting ready to mix some coolant for my first VMC and I am not sure if I should just use tap water or go buy some distilled water. I bought some Hocut 795 B coolant which is advertised to mix with hard or soft water. I do know our tap water has left some decent lime and calcium deposits in our water heater over the years but I dont know if that would bother coolant or not. I am only dealing with 10 gallons of coolant so using distilled water would be a possibility. I just dont want to do it if its not nescessary.

Thanks
 
At 10 gallons, you can really go either way. You'll have to recharge your coolant tank pretty frequently, so if you can get away with tap water, it will be much more convenient. If you have problems with coolant de-emulsifying, mix a new batch with distilled water. Not much money lost.

Our water is very hard... tastes like crap and is more or less undrinkable. We use an RO system on alll our tanks, ranging from 25 to 300 gallons.
 
My first batch of coolant was made up from tap water and I think it lasted 6 mos or so before it went bad, like things began to rust and it no longer smelled fresh. The next batch that I mixed, I used distilled water and I am convinced that it made a big difference. You gotta know that every time you add more make-up solution, your increasing the amount of dissolved minerals. Like a swimming pool I guess.

I'd vote for distilled water.

Tim in D
 
We have hard water here. Lots of iron - as our shower will attest to.

Never used enything other than hard water.

I am sure that the amount of dissolved minerals gits more and more as time goes by in my tanks too. Iron, Nickle, Chrome, alum, Moly, Sulpher, Manganees, even a bit of Ti maybe? ;)

You can start with iron free water, but I hope for your sake it doesn't stay that way for long! :eek:


------------------

Think Snow Eh!
Ox
 
don't bother with distilled. Our water here is like a rock....very hard & we have never had a problem with Hocut.
 
I'd recommend RO or distilled for the simple reason that droplets and mist dry up, depositing the minerals on your parts or in your machine. And it can be annoying polishing parts just because they have water spots all over.

I think the solubility in water of the common metals we're cutting is very low, and nothing approaching the amount of calcium that the water can hold.
 
I've always used filtered water (RO?) out of the dispenser machines at the grocery store. Cheaper than distilled, and coolant charge seems to last forever with way too little machine activity.)
 
I vote for tap water.

I've always used filtered water (RO?) out of the dispenser machines at the grocery store. Cheaper than distilled, and coolant charge seems to last forever with way too little machine activity.)

(RO)Reverse Osmosis, like through a watersoftener.
Be sure to mix the coolant into the water, not the water into the coolant.

Steve:codger:
 
I think distilled is an improvement. Well worth it.

WHy not take it a step further?...

Go down to your local boat yard and pick up some used Zinks. Clean them up and set the in your tank. Stop any possible tank corrosion with less noble metal.
 
I would go with distilled, we had several coolant makers in our shop over the years talking about thier products and all of them claim that alot of collant problems people have, are indeed water problems instead.
 
I've always done it that way too as that's what I was told.

But logically how does the water or the coolant know which is getting mixed into itself?

Ive always wondering that as well. And to think I thought coolant would be a simple part of setting this machine up, but come to think of it there is nothing simple about this mill.
 
Here is the perfect example...

Say you want a glass of grape juice, but the juice is way to strong, so you like to dilute your drink with water.

If you pour the juice first, then the water- the water stays on top pretty much and you have to stir it.

BUT if you pour your water first, then add your juice- shazzamm... perfectly mixed with no stir.

I showed that to my 94 year old grandmother, and she truly thought she had seen it all ...:D
 
I think the mix sequence (concentrate into diluter) is to prevent upside down emulsions, where the concentrate surrounds a microdrop of water instead of the water surrounding a microdrop of concentrate. I don't know how easily this happens, or whether there are some mixtures that are very prone to this phenomena and some others, not so much.
 
Well I am getting ready to mix some coolant for my first VMC and I am not sure if I should just use tap water or go buy some distilled water. I bought some Hocut 795 B coolant which is advertised to mix with hard or soft water. I do know our tap water has left some decent lime and calcium deposits in our water heater over the years but I dont know if that would bother coolant or not. I am only dealing with 10 gallons of coolant so using distilled water would be a possibility. I just dont want to do it if its not nescessary.

Thanks

If you must do something, try a de-ionizer for your water. But at 10 gallons, I'd try just plain ta[ water first, unless you have horribly hard water. Our's comes out of a lake, so it's not too bad. Wells are usually harder than lakes.
 
Dung's...

I think the mix sequence (concentrate into diluter) is to prevent upside down emulsions, where the concentrate surrounds a microdrop of water instead of the water surrounding a microdrop of concentrate. I don't know how easily this happens, or whether there are some mixtures that are very prone to this phenomena and some others, not so much.

...flung the dung again!!:D:stirthepot:

I couldn't have said it better. This will, along with, good housekeeping, will extend the coolant life a lot also. That's why some have trouble with good coolant life.

Steve:codger:
 
Are you sure about that? I'd thought water softeners just substitute sodium (from the salt pellets or blocks you add) for the calcium and magnesium minerals whereas RO filters out nearly all the salts.

Mike

(RO)Reverse Osmosis, like through a watersoftener.
Be sure to mix the coolant into the water, not the water into the coolant.

Steve:codger:
 








 
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