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Brother Owners - Who skims their coolant?

The early (6.2015) Speedio were VactraNr2 like the Haas... I could have waited a bit or probably asked for one at the time, didn't know about it.
 
Mostly curious. I did not think anyone with a Brother had a coolant skimmer. One of the reasons I bought a Brother was no tramp oil. I overfilled my coolant tank for the first time since I have had it. Sent the coolant supplier this picture.6849F101-D376-4FA3-B869-A7F41C7C25F1.jpg

I say it is the coolant not re-emulsifying, they say it is oil from the grease and their recommendation was a $500 coolant skimmer.

I get puddles of brown goo on the table as the coolant in the tool changer dries out and drips on the table. The coolant, if it gets on your hands smells terrible, not like when a coolant tank goes rancid, but after washing your hands several times you can still smell it.
 
No need to skim.

Well maybe... if you don't have asshats running the machine and loading dirty parts. I think OP is a one man shop... I worked with a guy that would take crs bars and load them as is, oil dirt burrs, he could care less. :ack2: Thankfully (for me) he was the sole operator of that machine.
 
No tramp oil issue here.

I did have a major issue with lots of swarf getting into the tank. I think I may have gotten that solved. I bought some filter fabric from lowes, stuff that is used in landscaping. I put that in the and held it in with binder clips over the edges. Seems to really do a good job. The stuff is super cheap so I can just throw it away once it get messed up. Very little getting in there now.
 
Mostly curious. I did not think anyone with a Brother had a coolant skimmer. One of the reasons I bought a Brother was no tramp oil. I overfilled my coolant tank for the first time since I have had it. Sent the coolant supplier this picture.View attachment 262605

I say it is the coolant not re-emulsifying, they say it is oil from the grease and their recommendation was a $500 coolant skimmer.

I get puddles of brown goo on the table as the coolant in the tool changer dries out and drips on the table. The coolant, if it gets on your hands smells terrible, not like when a coolant tank goes rancid, but after washing your hands several times you can still smell it.

What brand/type of coolant are you using?
 
I have a grease lubed machine so very minimal lube gets into the coolant. I used to get a heavy brown goo layer on my coolant though and figured it was from my well water (hard and notable iron content) causing the coolant emulsion to breakdown. I have a water softener and filter system for the house to fix that, but it is too far to the shop to carry water for coolant make up. A <$200 RO water system for the shop water for my coolant and now have far less issue with it.
 
I'm using BC 940 and I don't have any issues on my S500. Regular tap water. It re-emulsifies no problem.
 
Ok, so what do I do? I am at a loss.

Blaser says it is the machine, the above experience with other Brother owners, says that the same coolant in the same machine is not an issue.

Blaser has previously taken water and coolant samples, they said my water was perfect except for Chloride and Sulfate. Chloride was fairly high 79ppm vs recommended 40ppm max, and sulfate 55ppm vs recommended 40ppm max. It is city water, so not much I can do other than install a RO system or a tramp oil system.

Or switch coolants.
 
Ok, so what do I do? I am at a loss.

Blaser says it is the machine, the above experience with other Brother owners, says that the same coolant in the same machine is not an issue.

Blaser has previously taken water and coolant samples, they said my water was perfect except for Chloride and Sulfate. Chloride was fairly high 79ppm vs recommended 40ppm max, and sulfate 55ppm vs recommended 40ppm max. It is city water, so not much I can do other than install a RO system or a tramp oil system.

Or switch coolants.

No experience with Brother, and not sure the machine would even make a difference... I ran a Haas umc750 for a few years (grease lube system) with Castrol hysol mb50 that we literally had the same coolant the entire time we owned it. We did the initial fill with tap water, but on top ups we only used dei water. Coolant did not smell, was not sticky, did not leave any weird residue on the parts, didn't irritate my skin, none of the bad things old coolant do. We mostly cut alum so no residual oils/dirt from steel, maybe that was the ticket?
 
Buy a cheap aerator ($20-$30) from the local pet supply store and toss that in the tank. That helped one of our Okuma mills with stanky coolant. It was really bad, but now it has no smell.

That might take care of the goo in the tank also.
 
Blasocut BC 940

I had the same problem with BC940. Blaser was blaming the quality of the water (which is very bad in my area). Even with RO water, I had the same problem.

I switched to Hangsterfers S-747 and it has been maintenance free for the last 10 months. I even have the original batch in the machine. I only top it off with a lower ratio mix made using drinking water from Walmart.
 
I have grease machines ( Haas) and clean out my tanks every 6 months or so and just fold over the bottom of the legs on a old pair of blue jeans and wrap then with wire .. then hang the jeans with the die cart over a clean trash can and put the little giant pump in a sock and put in the the tank ... I have the tube going to the top of the pants chocked down to were its a nice SLOW flow .. takes all night to pump about 30 gallons and in the morning you clean the sump and put the filtered coolant back in and top it off to 7% ...

I have found if I have crap floating on the top of a grease machine sump it just means there is crap at the bottom ... both need to be cleaned ...

FYI
I have tried a lot of filters and old pants works the best I have found ,,,
 
Ran a Makino years ago that had 3 screens vertically in the tank to catch the grease residue. They got cleaned once a month. Pain to clean but they worked.
 








 
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