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Quick Change Drum Filter?

BenL

Plastic
Joined
Jan 2, 2014
Location
Missouri
Hi all, I'm new to this forum and to many aspects of machining. In my role I lead the Lean efforts for our company, and I need to research some info regarding a question one of our operators brought to me.

We use almost exclusively Makino A51/A61 CNCs. One of the big sources of downtime is changing the drum filter. Even when planned, it takes quite a while to get in, swap out the individual plates, and get back out. We run 3 shifts in most areas, so any time saved is quite valuable. Is anyone aware of a quick change option available from Makino or a 3rd party? In my head I'm imagining a full drum filter subassembly that could be pre-built and swapped out when needed.

Thanks in advance!
 
This is a bit interesting. I'm sure one could get a spare drum and have it assembled with new screens. That would save some time but not loads. My experience with the screens on Makino A55Es and A82Ms is once they tear then chips get past them and contaminate the rest of the tank which then needs to be drained and cleaned. Keeping them from getting torn prematurely and then an annual change is how we managed ours.

Preventing tears was accomplished by requiring programming to cut all excess material into chips. Do not cut slugs or chunks off the part to fall into the conveyor. Then trained the setup people to immediately turn off the conveyor if they dropped a screw or wrench or any foreign object in the conveyor. Also made sure that chip bins were not allowed to get too full where the conveyor could drag chips back from the bin down into the drum area.

Once those steps were in place we rarely had to change the drum outside of the annual PM change. This was in a cell type environment with 16 to 20 hours a day running. Aluminum in the A55s and mixed hard metals (Stainless, TI, HT alloys) in the A82s
 
Thanks! We've been investigating some more, and finally came to the same sort of conclusion. After working through that, now what we are finding is that the chips can fall off the chip conveyor with the excess coolant. When they drop on top of the drum filter, the filter can tear. Makino offered / quoted us a 2-stage chip conveyor, but much more expensive and requires a much larger coolant tank. Are there any other good chip conveyors out there that would do the same thing?
 








 
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