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Why does my Mits fx10 water get so hot?

tvalen1432

Aluminum
Joined
Nov 21, 2014
Location
Pomona
My Mitsubishi fx10: I have a problem with the water getting hot after awhile and in turn changing the alignment of the wire. I tried cleaning off the radiator vents but that doesn't seem to be enough. Any suggestions? Also, I'm having a hard time finding information about filtration importance or the effects of poor use of filters on the machine, thus to convince my co-worker to not allow the numbers go up to 100+:nono: by putting sensor in cup of water. Website Suggestions???.
 
Do you have a chiller or just a fan cooler? Chiller will have a LED display with the +/- temperature on it, or an error code. Fan cooler is just a square box with a fan and some coils in it. Fan cooler machines will get hot after a while. Pumps impart more heat into the water than machining, so if you have just the filter pumps running for a long time but no tank circulation, there is no water flowing through the chiller, and the water will get hot. Or, your chiller has simply failed.

Filters are critical. Skimping on filters just transfers the work to your DI resin. There is no free lunch. Filters pull out particles down to the 3-5 micron range. DI bottles remove the remainder and any dissolved solids. It is those solids (ie, metal debris from the EDM process) that cause the water conductivity to rise, so one way or another, those particles will be getting removed, but it's far cheaper to let the filters do that work than the DI bottles. Filters need to be changed out every couple hundred hours or so, give or take, depending on the type of cutting you are doing, the material you are cutting, and the quality of the filter. Don't trust the pressure gauge for the filters alone, if they have clogged then internally cracked the pressure will be low, but only because the water is all leaking out of a hole and no filtration is happening (bypass). Often a cracked filter will have "squirters" or streams of water shooting out of the sides like a water gun against the filter cover. If you see these, the filters are bad and need to be changed immediately. DI bottles/socks must be replaced when the conductivity level no longer remains under 2.5 (or 25, depending on the era of the machine; some don't show the decimal).

So what is the effect of bypassing the probe and letting the conductivity levels rise? Poor finish, wire breakage, unstable cutting, increased wear on power feeders, increased contamination in the work tank, unreliable threading (due to contact sensors in the AF system falsely detecting wire thread complete), possible contact alarm with wire on, control not detecting VG properly thus affecting cutting speed and tolerance, etc, etc, etc.
 
X2 on previous posts

One other filter suggestion. Make sure that you have a 5 micron filter between your DI resin pump and the DI bottles. This will catch particulates if you should happen to have a bad filter or blow a filter.
 
Thank you for your response. It only has a fan cooler on the fx10. Is there something in regards to the pumps that I can do to help keep them cooler?

As for the filters, I'm all for taking care of the machines and due to my last job, I know how important it is to change them out as to the effects on the machine and quality but try telling that to an old timer who thinks that stretching the filters beyond max is dunb! All of those symptoms are true yet he always finds a way around the bottom line only to say see its not the filters. IDK. It was easier to prove on a water jet when they weren't using the resign bag because it caused a calcium build up on the internal pressure chambers critical parts. Then once they conformed the machine rarely broke down. But you don't see that so boldly with EDM. Only so much you can do unless your the boss I guess. :crazy:

Thank you for the information on filtration and effects as well as on heating.
Tvalen1432
 
Thank you for your response. It only has a fan cooler on the fx10. Is there something in regards to the pumps that I can do to help keep them cooler?

As for the filters, I'm all for taking care of the machines and due to my last job, I know how important it is to change them out as to the effects on the machine and quality but try telling that to an old timer who thinks that stretching the filters beyond max is dunb! All of those symptoms are true yet he always finds a way around the bottom line only to say see its not the filters. IDK. It was easier to prove on a water jet when they weren't using the resign bag because it caused a calcium build up on the internal pressure chambers critical parts. Then once they conformed the machine rarely broke down. But you don't see that so boldly with EDM. Only so much you can do unless your the boss I guess. :crazy:

Thank you for the information on filtration and effects as well as on heating.
Tvalen1432

Tvalen

We used to have fan coolers on our earlier model Mitsubishi's. So I guess that I am speaking from my own experiences here. If you are doing reasonably close tolerance work, do yourself a favor and convince your boss to buy a chiller. If your water is the temperature of bath water, you are fighting a losing battle with tolerancing.

If you are banging heads with an operator, best of luck. I've found that if you can keep a log of when the machine shuts down for whatever error code, you might be able to point out a possible solution. But if the operator is "smarter than you", he can make this log look any way he wants. You guys need to get on the same page! Play to his "experience". Ask questions and LISTEN to his answers. Everybody wants to show what he knows. After listening, ask more questions. Eventually, the two of you might discover what each of you have to offer to the job. Just my 2 cents.
 
You guys need to get on the same page! Play to his "experience". Ask questions and LISTEN to his answers. Everybody wants to show what he knows. After listening, ask more questions. Eventually, the two of you might discover what each of you have to offer to the job. Just my 2 cents.

Simply because it needs to be read again.
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Thank you for your input. I do value his knowledge and experience and respect it. Filtration is our only area we don't see eye to eye on. LOL. I'm glad that is the worst of my worries. I just try to bite my tongue and carry on. We have a good relationship and it's hardly worth stressing too much over unless it causes us to not be able to work.
The way I look at it, if you aren't learning anything then you aren't paying attention. You obtain knowledge and hopefully you share it with others.

Thanks everyone for you input. God Bless.
 
An update with some info that may help someone else, the filter that takes the oil out right by the one that takes out the water located by pump, should not be full of oil and needs to be drained. This adds to the pump heating up more than usual and is transferred to the water. Also cleaning off the radiator fins will benefit too. This has helped but not completely solved the problem.

Thanks,
Toni
 
A big factor I just recently encountered as to why the main unit and possibly part of hot water issue was that in the main unit(with monitor and wires) in the back, there is a panel you can remove that encloses a lot of aluminum cooling fins which should and NEED to be carefully cleaned. They should be brushed top to bottom and using a type of vacuum at same time to remove all the dust etc. build up. The outside of the unit would reach up to 102-105 degrees even if in idle state. Now exceptionally lower and water doesn't get hotter than bath water either for some reason.

Tvalen1432
 
What was your ambient temp when the water temp was high? The fan cooler in my eyes is more of a temp normalized, to even up with the ambient temp. Are you running in a temp controlled clean room?
 
Ooh. This thread sounds ominously familiar. We have a Agie Charmilles Fi440 and it often reports that the water temp is out of tolerance. It was baffling me because nothing was going on (apparently). After a weekend doing nothing it would have an error.
I noticed a while ago that the filter pressure gauge was reading zero when it was previously reading something. I figured that whatever was reading the pressure had failed. My boss didn't seem concerned :nutter:
I think I'll have a look at the filters
 








 
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