One thing that we hobbyists often forget is that machine tools used in production today are mostly fully enclosed. In some cases (more in Europe than here in the US) they're also fully ventilated. And the exhaust from these systems is NOT ventilated to the outdoors. It generally goes to some kind of central collection system.
-- Ed Huntress
Of course, with a fully enclosed (and CNC) tool, might as well use flood coolant rather than a mist...
Still using a can of oil and a brush, given my unenclosed manual tools. Might consider cooling with compressed air, if I get a better compressor.
Not necessarily. Most of today's advanced cutters, with multiple coatings of ceramic materials (titanium nitride, titanium carbide, titanium carbo-nitride, aluminum oxide, etc., etc.) can't tolerate thermal shock. So they're often run dry, at speeds that produce red-hot chips. Or, if necessary, some can be run with mist coolant. The coatings with aluminum oxide won't work properly unless the AlOx is hot enough to vaporize, so they don't cool them at all.
But running flood coolant, particularly in milling operations, will crack the coatings all to hell.
You probably don't need cooling at all, unless you're running your tools at maximum speeds. What you and I need is lubrication, not cooling.
-- Ed Huntress
On the subject, sort of....
I quit using RapidTap and such, for drilling or anyplace it would "smoke", as it gave me a bad cough and a sore throat every time. Lotta that stuff isn't as good for your health as it is for your sanity (ease of work..no broken taps), etc.
On the subject of heat and carbide, it was pretty amazing at IMTS2008 to see Valenite (I think) and Hurco (I think) running a rough milling technique called "Ram Cycle Milling" (I think). Anyway, all my "I thinks" aside, on a 50 taper spindle they used about a 3" diameter roughing mill by 2" depth of cut and literaly rammed it into the work doing an edge cut (followed later in the demo by a pocket cut), and would cut at high force and reasonable feed for only about 1 or 2 seconds, back off for 1 second, and repeat. Scary to watch, but nothing but the chips seemed to get hot.
Take care.
Brian Laws>
--Dunno if they're still around but Wynn's used to sell an additive for their soluble oils that would cause the fog to condense rapidly, preventing its hanging in the air forever. I remember it was something I added to Wynns 331, but forget the name/number.
All the appropriate remarks about coolant vapor notwithstanding, a cold or the flu is a viral infection. You got it by exchanging vapor with someone who was already infected (a sneeze, a cough, by shaking hands, or handling coins, etc.).
I guess the question would be whether or not breathing coolant vapor gives the virus a more direct vector to your bloodstream.
-Frank
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