Where have all the flowers -- and my coolant -- gone??

How are you checking the concentration?

PV:

It may be evaporating and coating everything in your house - sheets, towels, clothes, dishes, furniture, walls, carpets, etc. etc. _ with a thin coat of coolant & bacteria. Now there's a scary thought, eh?

Proly not far from the truth -- plus getting my clothes soaked.....

I don't really check concentration, beyond how it appears to "coat" the moveable jaw of the Kurts.

"Thin", and it kind of pools in individual puddles. "OK", and it seems to coat the jaw smoothly.

Kind of the diff, between skim milk and whole milk.

Yeah, I know, Big Dick machinists do all this refractive stuff, with tables'n'charts'n'shit....

But f'sure, volume is lost, and almost as sure both soluble and water, together, as per my earlier deeduction.

So, where is it all goin, and how much/often do y'all have to top off??

I'm pretty sure the bacteria on the coats of my alley-cats-pretending-to-be-housecats will kick any coolant bacterium's ass, yo.

I'm proly immune to anthrax, at this point.

But, you think it is overall evaporation? Ruling out leaks, this proly *must* be the case, between the misting, hot cutters, etc.

I just didn't expect it to be so much.

Taste

Quick way to tell the difference between an Oral and Rectal Thermometer......

Odd.... no need to taste, afaiu. I thought oral thermometers were .25" in dia, and rectal thermometers were

1.25" in dia.

Or were they pulling butt another fast one on/in me?

That would be the DC special....front and rearie......

I think water is evaporating and some of the oil sticks to your chips and is thrown away. Few years ago I looked at a system that compressed all the shavings into 6" square blocks and retrieved all wasted coolant from it. I seem to remember that it was a lot of coolant if you believe the salesman. Jerry

It's mostly evaporation of the water. If you were to check the concentration with a refractometer, odds are it's high if your topping off with the same concentration you filled with.

We fill with 5% and top off with 1%.

Don't know about way down there in Yonkers, but here in WNY the humidity has been pretty low which quickens the rate of evaporation, obviously. I keep a combo hygrometer and thermometer at my workstation and the highest I've seen the humidity in months is 23% after a hard rain then sunshine this week.

centrifugal,

Use a shop vac muck it out take the tank down to your local coin op car wash pressure wash out all the fines.

At the same time, dissasemble and clean your pump body--and afterwards always run with full flow you arent doing yourself any favors running clogged on the delivery side.

Depending on what RPM you are running....in combination with what kind of tool you are using....I lose alot of coolant by it turning into a mist. Running a 1" cutter in alum at 15000 RPM turns alot of coolant into mist. A 3" facemill at 6000 ~ 8000 also is really good for making a fog. I don't see this when I am running steel....mostly rough dry....but when we get those alum jobs....I think we need to get one of those mist collectors.

That makes sense. Except I am pretty sure if I were measuring, I'd be topping off with 3-4% -- AND I proly have considerably higher humidity. So I don't really know where the soluble itself might be going, unless from accumulated splashing -- I proly do more with the doors open than most. Or from some other poor habit.

But if evaporation really is the main issue, and my small 3016 is using a gallon or two per day, at pretty low power (spindle rarely gets above the

30% range), then I would imagine people using their larger machines at near-100% all day *really* have to top off quite a bit -- I'd guess 5 gal/day?? More?

Inybody keep rough track?

I've noticed that my vintage machine (10 years old now) typically had open tops, and with the flood going full blast, an operator could do with an umbrella!

But if I'm seeing various pics of new machines correctly, they seem to be totally enclosed. I'll bet this helps quite a bit with the coolant evaporation/loss issue, AND the lung issue.

And why the weather station? Just to know, or does this info somehow affect your work?

[...]

I've had times when 5-10 gal and more a day disappeared. Usually when running high rpms for extended periods (all day and night) creating a mist which easily vaporizes.

I just top it off when it needs it. Sometimes months go by without using coolant and it's amazing how much the level drops.

I'm in the habit of holding my breath when opening the doors and sticking my ugly mug in a machine that just stopped and had coolant running.

A smog hog would be nice but we've got other more important problems to address. Like the huge ball of fire that just billowed out of the EDM machine across the isle from my workstation.

It was a feeble attempt at getting the boss to modify the maintenance guy's schedule. Every single morning without fail the floors get mopped. During the summer when it's already 90 degrees in the shop at 7:00am the humidity jumps up 10% for about an hour making an already sticky situation feel gooey. In the winter when it's colder than a witches tit in the shop, it's an indicator of when I should plug in my little space heater. That's all. :)

I'd have to agree with BD on this one.. If you grabbed a refractometer and checked the concentration, you would probably be surprised. We've saved alot of money in the past few months on coolant since I've been using the gage. Guy that was running the machine before would never check it.

Runnning my Robodrill at 24,000 RPM, all day long it burns about 2 gallons..... Per HOUR.

So, I keep busy hauling and mixing coolant as the machine pumps out parts at a frantic pace.

That makes sense.

Except I am pretty sure if I were measuring, I'd have to top off with

3-4% -- AND I proly have considerably higher humidity. So I don't really know where the soluble itself might be going, unless from accumulated splashing -- I proly do more with the doors open than most. Or from some other poor habit.

But if evaporation really is the main issue, and my small 3016 is using a gallon or two per day under very mild loads, then I would imagine people using their larger machines at near-100% all day *really* have to top off quite a bit -- I'd guess 5 gal/day?? More? Inybody keep rough track?

I've noticed that many vmc's have open tops, and with the flood going full blast, an operator could do with an umbrella!

But if I'm seeing various pics of new machines correctly, they seem to be totally enclosed, which I'll bet helps quite a bit with the coolant evaporation/loss issue, AND the lung issue.

And why the weather station? Does this info somehow affect your work?

[...]

I've had times when 5-10 gal and more a day disappeared. Usually when running high rpms for extended periods (all day and night) creating a mist which easily vaporizes.

I just top it off when it needs it. Sometimes months go by without using coolant and it's amazing how much the level drops.

I'm in the habit of holding my breath when opening the doors and sticking my ugly mug in a machine that just stopped and had coolant running.

A smog hog would be nice but we've got other more important problems to address. Like the huge ball of fire that just billowed out of the EDM machine across the isle from my workstation.

It was a feeble attempt at getting the boss to modify the maintenance guy's schedule. Every single morning without fail the floors get mopped. During the summer when it's already 90 degrees in the shop at 7:00am the humidity jumps up 10% for about an hour making an already sticky situation feel gooey. In the winter when it's colder than a witches tit in the shop, it's an indicator of when I should plug in my little space heater. That's all. :)

A lot of water evaporates. Some water and coolant goes out with your chips.

The refractometer is a good idea. We have a central supply tank with coolant run to our machines. Outside of a few machines where the concentration is run higher than the standard mix, the only thing I see the operators add is piped over premixed coolant or water.

I've heard that higher concentrations of coolant can lead to increased occurance of dermititus issues. The refractometer would be a good thing to have and use.

Wes