oil coolant with CTS ?

I've got Brother Speedio with CTS. For various reasons (intermittent use, don't want hassle of managing water based coolant) I'll be using Blaser Vascomill 10 oil as coolant. I've been told that using CTS would be problematic due to oil causing too much pressure through spindle and tooling. I was wondering whether anyone has any experience with using oil for CTS and if so whether this would be totally ill-advised?

The greater viscosity of the oil will raise the pressure. The CTS relief valve should handle this but you will have less coolant coming out of the tool orifice. Oil also absorbs significantly less heat but does have significantly more lubricity.

One thing that might make you change your mind is that the oil mist in the cabinet is highly flammable and unless you have a properly sized mist collector and machine fire suppression system, you are just asking for a significant fire.

At least any issues with part rust go away.

Oil has many advantages but it also has many issues that need to be addressed to safely use it.

I've got a mist collector and will install fire suppression, but thx for the warning.

Not related to the CTS and oil question, but be aware that there is a lot of oil carried out with the chips. Shops that run straight oil often use centrifuge type equipment to remove oil from the chips.

If you have a warranty, you might note the enormous.... comical... amount of times the User Manual says FOR THE LOVE OF ALL THAT IS HOLY DO NOT USE STRAIGHT OIL IN YOUR MACHINE. I feel like that was in every other friggin line in the manual and stamped into the machine in 15 different places. Like, they REALLY did not want you to run straight oil in these machines.

Yamazen has blessed the particular oil I will be using.

drcoelho said:

Yamazen has blessed the particular oil I will be using.

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What makes the oil you're using acceptable? Viscosity? Flammability limits?

What materials will you be running? What size tools? CTS is particularly helpful drilling deep holes (> 4xD) but really not necessary unless you are drilling many deep holes in a production setting and trying to save time and control the process more IMO. Some drawbacks with oil are oil clinging to parts and chips that you will need to deal with and smoking if you try to cut at high surface speeds say in Aluminum. Oil slows down the flow from the pumps compared to water based coolant so chip wash down is not as good. Pros are oil is great for the machine life and tool life/finishes can be better in some instances (cutting Stainless or Ti at slower speeds). That being said, machines and processes do just fine with quality water based coolants and reasonable maintenance. If you are running small drills (under 5ish mm ?) with tiny coolant holes, you would need higher pressure with oil than the Speedio 435 PSI I think. Not knowing your applications, it is difficult to say whether or not CTS will be a benefit.

We run Oemeta Hycut. We got evacuated for 3 months with no warning, no prep, just shut everything off and leave. Coolant was totally fine when we fired back up, only changing it in an abundance of caution.

BROTHERFRANK said:

What materials will you be running? What size tools? CTS is particularly helpful drilling deep holes (> 4xD) but really not necessary unless you are drilling many deep holes in a production setting and trying to save time and control the process more IMO. Some drawbacks with oil are oil clinging to parts and chips that you will need to deal with and smoking if you try to cut at high surface speeds say in Aluminum. Oil slows down the flow from the pumps compared to water based coolant so chip wash down is not as good. Pros are oil is great for the machine life and tool life/finishes can be better in some instances (cutting Stainless or Ti at slower speeds). That being said, machines and processes do just fine with quality water based coolants and reasonable maintenance. If you are running small drills (under 5ish mm ?) with tiny coolant holes, you would need higher pressure with oil than the Speedio 435 PSI I think. Not knowing your applications, it is difficult to say whether or not CTS will be a benefit.

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Not doing production runs of lots of deep holes, and can live with pecking, so looks like CTS might not be needed at all ?

drcoelho said:

Not doing production runs of lots of deep holes, and can live with pecking, so looks like CTS might not be needed at all ?

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For small quantities, nothing wrong with a plain old HSS jobber or parabolic.

Since I am the one recommending the light Blaser plant based oil, I guess I should pipe in.

The client is buying a machine for very intermittent use. It is a substantial investment and could be sitting for weeks if not months at a time. I recommended the Blaser based on the ability of the oil to last a very long time in inactive machine storage, the health of the machine over time and the ability to dispose of it if needed much easier than with a water soluble coolant. I did not recommend CTS. In fact discouraged it. I probably would have him change coolant if he went to CTS. Non CTS should not need any fire suppression. In 30 years and overseeing thousands of machine purchases, visiting thousands of shops,I have seen half a dozen fires. Four were Swiss machines running untended with heavier less high flash point oils. The two mills were running magnesium. One caused the death of an operator.

I owned a Swiss shop and if I did that again, I would add fire suppression on machines that were running certain materials, like high carbon steels and titanium. Otherwise, I would not add it.

Just my less than humble opinion.


Andy

I run Motorex Ortho NFX 10 in my Haas super mini mill. (link is to NFX 15, as it appears that they may no longer sell the NFX 10).

The machine is in my garage. I do primarily prototype work, and once in a great while it might be a small lot of parts. I'm semi-retired, so I am most definitely NOT a production shop (or even a "job shop").

In this scenario, I'm extremely happy running oil. The machine looks great, and all my tools, holders, and vises look brand new, despite having been used for around 3 or 3.5 years now. Surface finish on just about any material I've cut is terrific, and drilling, tapping, and form tapping all work better than with coolant. And of course... I can shut the machine down, not run it for a month or more, and everything is still as it was... no evaporation, a barely noticeable amount of oil on all surfaces, so nothing rust or even gets stained.

If I was running production work, there is no question I'd be running coolant, but for what I'm doing, oil wins hands down.

PS: I have a big halon extinguisher sitting right at the machine, and I never run unattended. Of course I never push the machine hard either, as I'm rarely ever in a hurry.

PS #2: After my experience on this machine with oil, I think if I had a production shop with numerous machines, I'd always keep one machine with oil in it for certain/difficult jobs.

PM

drcoelho said:

Not doing production runs of lots of deep holes, and can live with pecking, so looks like CTS might not be needed at all ?

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In my experience, CTS is rarely a NEED. Sounds like you won't need it. Oil will be great for your applications. Enjoy your new Speedio. They are remarkable.

2outof3 said:

I owned a Swiss shop and if I did that again, I would add fire suppression on machines that were running certain materials, like high carbon steels and titanium. Otherwise, I would not add it.

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Slightly OT, but why on the high-carbon steel? Is high-carbon more likely to start a fire than regular steel?