Very Small Shavings

Up until recently we have used a HAAS Mini(with no auger) for our milling needs. Recently we purchased a HAAS DM-2(with auger)which has been a great upgrade.

The issue we are having is small shavings. We do a lot of brass cutting with .125 EM which produces very small shavings. We use the air blast instead of liquid coolant for many reasons but its also a lot less messy. The problem comes in when we go to change what we are cutting to something where we actually need the liquid coolant and auger. All of these small shaving that have built up, will clog up the coolant drain if we attempted to simply wash them down and are way to small to ever be pushed up the auger chute anyway.

So I wanted to reach out and see what other people have come up with. The most obvious solution to me is a wet dry vac, but I wanted to see what other innovative ideas might be being used? And if a wet dry vac is the solution what brands/models have been most successful for people?

Thanks

Keith

A vac system may be best, but unless you're really skint, do a multi-element system with a pro-grade vacuum device, and a separator drum or container to receive the chips. You'd want the high-grade vac source to allow enough flow and pressure drop, as well as be able to run for hours on end without failure.

Hose routing is important, you need to not foul the workpiece or machine, but be close enough to collect the chips before they scatter.

LockTech said:

All of these small shaving that have built up, will clog up the coolant drain

Click to expand...

Cheapest and fastest solution is to use a filter so it catches the chips and they don't go into the drain.
10micron filter would probably be overkill but would work.
Doesn't Haas offer filters on their site?
The ones I'm thinking of look like the things that soak up oil, they're about 1/8 thick and 2 foot wide and come in a variety of lengths.

Yes HAAS does offer a filter system but from my understanding it is inline and only keeps it from going though the pump not the coolant tank. There is a strainer that keeps it from going into the tank which we have and use, but this doesn't help the clogging issue. Doesn't stop it from clogging up the drain holes at the auger. Due to the gradual slope in the bottom of a DM2 that the coolant flows down to get to the auger channel I think a filter would be difficult to implement.

Sorry for the delay in responding I thought I had setting set up to get notified with replies.

This sounds very interesting, is there any kit type solutions that you know of or more of a build it yourself type thing?

Here's a ghetto fix- try dropping a shop rag at the far end of the auger and see if it can wipe out some of the small chips.