I'm doing a major re-fit on my old BP CNC.
Part of my process here (since I'm now waiting for the parts to come this afternoon) is to clean up and restore all the ancillary equipment, like the mister, flood pump, and oiler.
I got the oiler scrubbed down, and all it needed was cleaning on the outside. It still gives one nicely adjustable shot of oil about every 25 minutes of spindle time. I'm 'remoting' the peak-reading pressure gauge, though, so that it's always visible from the front of the machine.
The Bijur mister was all 'goopy' with coolant slime, so that took a complete teardown and alkali solution cleaning of its tank to get it clean. The only restoration it required was to re-paint its top escutcheon panel, and re-stick the label on that after the paint dried. But while I was at it, I never liked fog in my office, so I studied what I had to see what it would take to make a CDA (controlled-droplet applicator) from it.
Most guys seem to think the Bijur Spraymist device is only a siphon-feed, and that one requires pressurized coolant feed for a fogless emitter to work. Well, the Bijur is a pressure feed on both the coolant AND the air, so with tiny alterations (not to the mister body at all), it works AS BUILT as a fine fogless emitter.
Only two changes (and one adjustment) are required, and both dead-simple:
1) cut back the emitter tube's oriface end and angle it slightly so that it doesn't shoot directly out the nozzle, and isn't as prone to siphoning as the design shape. This is simple, because the emitter tube is just a short length of 4mm plastic air tubing jammed up into the flex-hose assembly. So I saved the old, and cut a new one. 3-minutes. 2) install a needle valve in the air line right at the emitter's manifold, so you can control not only the fluid flow, but also the air flow to the nozzle.Now just turn down the operating pressure from 25psi to about 8psi.
That's all! Now the Bijur mister puts out a nice stream of non-atomizing coarse droplets, and still only moves as much coolant as when it was 'fogging'.
Total time, 10 minutes. This is SO much simpler than making up those 'fogless emitters' I've seen on the machining groups. They require you build a whole new mister from scratch, rather than re-using the old to the new purpose.
Bijur misters and their clones are cheaply available as used items, and with a little TLC, they clean up just fine.
My next mod will be to replace the two-way air valve in the mister with the same make and model 3-way, so that it vents all pressure instantly. That will make the mist turn on and off instantly, rather than having to wait for the inlet chamber to de-pressurize.
Lloyd