Anyone tried this pump for coolant?

Jan 02, 2007 9 Replies

I am looking for a pump for DIY cooling rig for my milling machine?. HF sells this "Dirty water" pump for $29 It has flow rate: 1315 GPH Is it too much, too little?



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These have a more appropriate flowrate and work well:

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Tom

They work well enough when used with "toilet water"...IE water based coolants. Im not sure they will work all that well with heavy oil coolants, which are my personal preference. Shrug.

Flow..thats adjustable with a valve at the machine tool

Be sure to elevate it at least 1" above the bottom of the tank, else it will be clogging up with spooge regularly.

Gunner

Political Correctness

A doctrine fostered by a delusional, illogical liberal minority and rabidly promoted by an unscrupulous mainstream media, which holds forth the proposition that it is entirely possible to pick up a turd by the clean end.

I see lots of these in machine shops. And lots of dead ones. But they work well enough for light duty in a home shop.

Gunner

Political Correctness

A doctrine fostered by a delusional, illogical liberal minority and rabidly promoted by an unscrupulous mainstream media, which holds forth the proposition that it is entirely possible to pick up a turd by the clean end.

How about these cheapies; anybody tried them in a hobby shop environment ?

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David Merrill

Giant brand pumps used for condensate drains, etc. work real well.

The last picture here

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shows my setup. The tank is an old enamel refrigerator hydrator, the white thing is a piece of 2" drain pipe with a filter made of open cell foam for window air conditioners at the bottom. Very little chips make it through the drainback hoses to the tank anyway.

Jon

That's a nice setup. One question though -- is the return driven by gravity only and if so, does not not slow too much at the filter?

AG

After some self education I decided to go for oil as a coolant instead of water based one. No health hazard, stink and rust. I hope it splatter around less too due to higher viscosity. I'll probably build some kind of plastic enclosure for my Millrite anyway.

Here is my question: how can I tell if a pump will be good enough to pump oil? Or better yet point me to a particular pump.

Thanks, Alex

For anything in a hobby situation -- *way* too much. I would guess about 50 GPH would be more than plenty for that situation.

With 1315 GPH (as you had suggested above), it would not matter much how much it splattered -- it would *flood* the place. :-)

Since that which you suggested, and the others pointed to from that page (1/2HP instead of 1/3HP) are all specified as being for water, I would suggest that oils might be likely to attack and harden the plastic parts -- which were selected to avoid rusting with water.

Why not look for something specifically listed as for coolant? Go to MSC's web page, and search. I found the following:

or, if you have the current MSC "Big Book", check out page 2650. It is under "COOLANT SYSTEM/TANK UNITS" on the web page (Item #09409012) , and it includes the tank, the hose, and the valve at least. Note that the horsepower is listed as 1/50th, so your 1/3rd HP dirty water pump is

*way* too powerful, even if it would survive your oil coolant.

Good Luck, DoN.

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