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Mist solutions due to cutting fluids going up in the air

R

Retal

Plastic
Joined
May 18, 2007
Location
Israel
Hello,

We have 5 Lathes and 11 Vertical machines and We have a problem which exists for years: Mist in the air that makes air conditioners full of oil and making our floor and everything around it full of oil.

Putting 16 Mist collectors looks like an expensive solution to us: electricity-wise and maintenance-wise

The floor size is around 550m2 (6000 sq/ft), We were thinking about putting big ventilators but that would be ineffective during the summer season due to replacing cold air circulation with a hot one.

I would be happy to hear some of your opinions

Regards
Liran
 
Retal said:
Hello,

We have 5 Lathes and 11 Vertical machines and We have a problem which exists for years: Mist in the air that makes air conditioners full of oil and making our floor and everything around it full of oil.

Putting 16 Mist collectors looks like an expensive solution to us: electricity-wise and maintenance-wise

The floor size is around 550m2 (6000 sq/ft), We were thinking about putting big ventilators but that would be ineffective during the summer season due to replacing cold air circulation with a hot one.

I would be happy to hear some of your opinions

Regards
Liran
Click to expand...

You are stating a known health hazard in your facility, what do you think you and your employees lungs look like if the ac unit is full of oil, I am guessing you and your employees are closer than the ac returns.
Those mist collectors are cheap compared to the legal claims for lung damage by your employees.
Cheap and easy turns into costly most of the time.
At this point my advice is check with very competent legal council, advise your employees of health hazard, have them seek medical evaluation and turn off the misters.
As a business owner, I have to say this post sent a shiver down my back.
 
McClure Machine said:
You are stating a known health hazard in your facility, what do you think you and your employees lungs look like if the ac unit is full of oil, I am guessing you and your employees are closer than the ac returns.
Those mist collectors are cheap compared to the legal claims for lung damage by your employees.
Cheap and easy turns into costly most of the time.
At this point my advice is check with very competent legal council, advise your employees of health hazard, have them seek medical evaluation and turn off the misters.
As a business owner, I have to say this post sent a shiver down my back.
Click to expand...

Thank you for your legal advice, but this thread is not intended for legal advice seeking.
I'm trying to find solutions, as this problem escalated in the last month due to the the entrance of more machines.
The AC units takes 1 year to get clogged from oil. not 2 days, also there are machines beneath the AC units so the mist is going directly upward them.
 
Retal said:
Thank you for your legal advice, but this thread is not intended for legal advice seeking.
I'm trying to find solutions, as this problem escalated due to the the entrance of more machines.
Click to expand...

They make an item just for this, it collects the mist off the top of the machine, and prevents it from getting into the air and your lungs...
 
We had a single large unit that sat in the corner and was ducted into the top of every machine. Don't recall the name of the unit, but it stood on a platform and had a 55 gallon drum under to catch the oil it pulled out of the air. Always had issues with teh coolant dripping out of the ducts because the HVAC guys installed them and didn't put any rise to let it flow back to the machine in.

Edit: Found this pretty quick
Mist Collection System Design | Donaldson Industrial Dust, Fume & Mist
 
The best method would be to enclose each machine in its own sealed room. Then it would be easy to control air flow. Look into laminar flow systems. Install lockout controls to shut off all power to the machine on entry.
 
Winterfalke said:
We had a single large unit that sat in the corner and was ducted into the top of every machine. Don't recall the name of the unit, but it stood on a platform and had a 55 gallon drum under to catch the oil it pulled out of the air. Always had issues with teh coolant dripping out of the ducts because the HVAC guys installed them and didn't put any rise to let it flow back to the machine in.
Click to expand...

That sounds like a great solution, I just need some vendors names to know where to start from
 
Not giving you legal advice in fact just the opposite told you, you might want to seek it.
Also trying to point out to others on here.
You said you are having air quality problems, you know best practice, mist collectors, or ventilation, but because of cost you don't correct the problem.
You probably should check with your business insurance underwriters also.
I don't know if you are here in the USA but like a welding shop 10 miles from me found, not providing venation or smoke removing ( best practice) equipment even though they new it existed because of cost, terminated their insurance and the bankruptcy auction sold everything the guy owned including his house cars etc. Insurance didn't cover any of the claims.
This is supposed to be a forum to learn from in business making chips, a lot of time the smallest part of a machine shop.
 
McClure Machine said:
Not giving you legal advice in fact just the opposite told you, you might want to seek it.
Also trying to point out to others on here.
You said you are having air quality problems, you know best practice, mist collectors, or ventilation, but because of cost you don't correct the problem.
You probably should check with your business insurance underwriters also.
I don't know if you are here in the USA but like a welding shop 10 miles from me found, not providing venation or smoke removing ( best practice) equipment even though they new it existed because of cost, terminated their insurance and the bankruptcy auction sold everything the guy owned including his house cars etc. Insurance didn't cover any of the claims.
This is supposed to be a forum to learn from in business making chips, a lot of time the smallest part of a machine shop.
Click to expand...

Our situation wasn't severe until not long ago, entering new machining centres to our facility, therefore I'm trying to find the right solution.
We have windows at 4 directions, so there is a flow of air, and all of our employees work near windows.
We have full insurance for the last 15 years so I'm not worried about it, I just seek to find the right solution. there are many solutions, not all are the right one.
 
I have a centrally mounted 500 cfm mist collector with ducting to the machines. It seems that well over half of the mist is collected in the ducts. If I had more machines I would install 6"-8" centrifugal duct fans at the machines with restricted inlets to capture most of the mist before going to the ducts to the central mist collector, then to the air to air heat exchanger, then outside, but that is just me. The sub $200 duct fans are just cheap versions of the Royal centrifugal mist collectors.
 
Pathogen said:
The best method would be to enclose each machine in its own sealed room. Then it would be easy to control air flow. Look into laminar flow systems. Install lockout controls to shut off all power to the machine on entry.
Click to expand...

I've never seen that. If you make sure the openings are adequately sealed on a machine (lexan/plywood/sawzall + 2-3 hours of work) then use a mist collector, or centralised sysyem you don't have to fully enclose a machine. Fully enclosing a machine is almost ludicrous
 
There's plenty of threads were somebody has used a mist collector like a Royal 1200cfm unit and had ducting going to a multitude of machines. You have to do a good job of minimizing openings, plus you want the air to flow across the workpiece towards the duct in the machine.

Donaldson have something on their site how to get the most out of a mist extractor. There's more too it than just slapping a unit on a machine and hoping for the best.
 
triumph406 said:
I've never seen that. If you make sure the openings are adequately sealed on a machine (lexan/plywood/sawzall + 2-3 hours of work) then use a mist collector, or centralised sysyem you don't have to fully enclose a machine. Fully enclosing a machine is almost ludicrous
Click to expand...

Pssst... I think he was being facetious...
 
Ducting to all your machines connected to a central unit seems cumbersome and inefficient. I think the best solution is a small unit mounted on each machine. Cheap, no. We have this set up on all of our high production machines and even on some of the less used machines. Maintenance is not excessive. We have some units with filters, some without filters (centrifugal). The centrifugal units are less effective, but fine for a machine that does not create tons of smoke or mist. They are mounted to the top of the machine, or hung above the machines, taking up zero floor space.
 
I was at a shop with 60+swiss lathes all high pressure capable. All the machines had an individual sucker unit. I thought they did all right. My new(place) shop has 2 big units that suck better than those individual suckers. They feed hoses thru all the machine openings like how manual grinder areas are set up.
 
I have also been underwhelmed with individual mist collectors, which only seem to capture 75% - 90% of the fog.

Is anyone pumping the smog out of the building? I know one shop locally that has a system that pulls most of oil out of the mist before venting the hot air outside, and it appears to work much better than individual mist collectors.

In a previous shop we had a cell of 4 German verticals with factory optioned individual mist collectors. If all four were roughing aluminum, they would fill the ~10,000 sqft highbay with visible mist in a couple of hours.
 
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