Short gage length / stubby toolholders making coolant delivery difficult

pMetal · Dec 11, 2019

We primarily machine Stainless steel on our BT40 machines, and in the effort of improving tool life, we primarily use short-length toolholders. Our ER collet holders are all the shortest ones we can find, and we even have some of the "superigid" ones where the collet is recessed into the taper section.

I think this has helped tool life a bit, but we are struggling with chip evacuation because it is so difficult to get coolant to spray on the tools when they barely protrude from the spindle nose. And these coolant delivery issues are causing tool breakages when we can't flush the chips away well enough. All of which is eliminating the intended benefits of short gage length holders.

I see videos on youtube with people using very long toolholders and they seem to be fine... Am I making things more difficult for myself than necessary with using these stubby toolholders?

13engines · Dec 11, 2019

I totally get where you're coming from with keeping holders and tool lengths short, but I mostly worry about that on larger size cutters doing serious metal removal. Four inch of more gauge length will be completely fine on chamfering tools, drills and smaller (under 1/2") end mills. Stuff like that.

On another note, leaving your current short length regime in place, buy yourself a programmable coolant nozzle setup and mount it accordingly, and all your coolant troubles will disappear. They're expensive, but you'll forget all about that and never look back the minute you start using it. I have them on all my machines and can't imagine living without.

Dave

TeachMePlease · Dec 11, 2019

I haven't used it, but I had a rep show me this recently, maybe it can help you? Looks to be a step above standard loc line.

Cooling Line

Mud · Dec 11, 2019

Or use a coolant ring with eyeballs pointing everywhere, some for short tools and some for long tools. It will flood the area with more coolant than needed but it eliminates the need for re-aiming them.

Ianagos · Dec 11, 2019

Do you have coolant through the spindle? Could try just flushing through the collet.

13engines · Dec 11, 2019

Ianagos said:
Do you have coolant through the spindle? Could try just flushing through the collet.

Mostly if it is meant as a SOP for all tools, I would have to suggest against this idea. Three reasons.

One is the rotary joint that allows a through coolant system to even function are wear items, and are costly to buy and replace.

Two - running your high pressure pump which typically supplies the through spindle coolant system is a noisy, power hungry wear item. For everyday all day all tools use is unnecessary, and uses up a lot of system life and energy for little gain. Add in the demister that generally runs with it and you're talking even more power, wear and maintenance.

Third - thru spindle coolant systems have been known to leak over time and kill built in spindles. Sure.. use it or lose it is certainly relevant here, so if needed I would never-ever hesitate, but in my experience there are a couple three-four tools on any part that need full on chip removal help that could be provided by high pressure through spindle coolant functionality, but the rest not so much.

Just 2, make that 3 cents on the idea.

Dave

litlerob1 · Dec 11, 2019

TeachMePlease said:
I haven't used it, but I had a rep show me this recently, maybe it can help you? Looks to be a step above standard loc line.

Cooling Line

Looks nice!!

Only caveat is line-loc gets pinched, smashed, pulled apart, etc. Makes me wonder what would happen if it couldn't.

R

fmari --MariTool- · Dec 11, 2019

TeachMePlease said:
I haven't used it, but I had a rep show me this recently, maybe it can help you? Looks to be a step above standard loc line.

Cooling Line

I see this getting clogged up really quick in real world use.

Mud · Dec 11, 2019

13engines said:
Just 2, make that 3 cents on the idea.

Dave

#4, at speed the coolant leaves the collet and makes a 90° turn, rinsing the enclosure but not making it to the tool or workpiece. At least that's how it works for me.

Mtndew · Dec 11, 2019

Maybe something from these guys will help?
They have a ton of different solutions.
QPM Products coolant nozzles
I've used the CapJet style, they're pretty well built.

TeachMePlease · Dec 11, 2019

fmari --MariTool- said:
I see this getting clogged up really quick in real world use.

They have all sorts of different nozzles, including plain open ended ones, just like loc-line.

littlerob1 said:
Looks nice!!

Only caveat is line-loc gets pinched, smashed, pulled apart, etc. Makes me wonder what would happen if it couldn't.

R

Yeah, I've had the same thought... But I showed it to one of our mill programmers and he's going to get a box of demo parts to try.

pMetal · Dec 11, 2019

Thanks for all the input!

Good to hear that I've probably been unnecessarily restricting my gage length for my sub 1/2" endmills.

I agree a programmable coolant nozzle would probably be a good investment, but that will be one for when we have extra money to spend on this sort of thing. Actually one of our machines has the internal electronics installed for SpiderCool, but the previous owner kept the motorized nozzle.

A coolant ring could work, if I got a good one. We tried the loc-line coolant ring product, but it was pretty much unusable because you couldn't adjust individual nozzles without messing up all the adjacent nozzles. Maybe some day we'll custom make a legit ring and mount lots of the those CapJet ball nozzles.

Good input on through-spindle coolant. Two of our machines are plumbed for it already, but we lack the high-pressure pump. I've been thinking about how great it would be, but didn't think about the maintenance issues that come along with it.

Today we just ran a bunch of new coolant lines in the machine. We added a coolant hose to a magnetic base on the table, with some loc line nozzles aimed directly at the part. This will also be nice because it will be spraying from a totally different direction compared to the spindle-mounted jets. We also put the ceiling-mount coolant lines into service, with parts that spray down from above. Its a rediculous amount of coolant flowing there now. You can't see a thing when its running. We'll see how well this goes later today but it seems hopeful.

litlerob1 · Dec 11, 2019

The concept of programmable coolant nozzle is a good one. But the ones I have used are junk and take too long. Until the command is completed they stop everything else from moving forward. (In either circumcision).

R

as9100d · Dec 11, 2019

litlerob1 said:
The concept of programmable coolant nozzle is a good one. But the ones I have used are junk and take too long. Until the command is completed they stop everything else from moving forward. (In either circumcision).

R

The Haas pcool sucks for speed. Idk why they can't make it run in the background somehow

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Djstorm100 · Dec 11, 2019

Curious how others go about this as well. I heard about TSC through the collet but my better judgement says this is not a smart idea as another member already mention.

as9100d · Dec 11, 2019

Djstorm100 said:
Curious how others go about this as well. I heard about TSC through the collet but my better judgement says this is not a smart idea as another member already mention.

Well we have mounted a coolant nozzle on the table for short gage tools before. Just spray on the part.

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thesidetalker · Dec 12, 2019

as9100d said:
The Haas pcool sucks for speed. Idk why they can't make it run in the background somehow

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On which machine does it not? Never seen any of mine wait for p-cool to move. 2014+ here

as9100d · Dec 12, 2019

thesidetalker said:
On which machine does it not? Never seen any of mine wait for p-cool to move. 2014+ here

2018-2019 dm2, 2019 vf2 all wait for pcool to finish moving before completing the rapid.

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gkoenig · Dec 12, 2019

litlerob1 said:
The concept of programmable coolant nozzle is a good one. But the ones I have used are junk and take too long. Until the command is completed they stop everything else from moving forward. (In either circumcision).

Methods up-sold all the Robodrills I work on with SpyderCool. The ladder is modified for the system and every tool change has a .37 second delay while the control sends SpiderCool the tool number, it thinks, and then it sends a finish signal back... even if SpiderCool is totally turned off. It isn't used on a single machine, and the total time lost across the fleet is hours per day. I submitted a recommendation to solve it, but I'm not paid to mess with Fanuc ladders (nor would I know how).

G00 Proto · Dec 12, 2019

I once rigged up an air blast out of parts from McMaster Carr for clearing chips. It didn't take much since I had an available M function relay already in the machine to control a solenoid. I had it aimed to hit the coolant stream just above the cut to re-direct and accelerate the coolant flow to remove swarf. It worked pretty darn well, especially on machines with anemic coolant pumps.

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