Mine holds 30 gallons. I use Hangsterfer's 5418 but it's costly.
You might try Mobil cutting oil, cheaper. But unlike Toilet water you
only have to by oil once <G>.
Glad to see another fella with a CHNC. Its simply the finest small CNC lathe
there is. FWIW, I changed my machine over to toilet water. Oil is great for
production, messy for others.
Karl
By toilet water, I'm assuming you mean water soluble coolant.
How long have you been running soluble coolant?
Are you getting any rusting/staining of the ways or other machine
parts?
I thought that was one of the reasons they ran neat cutting oil on the
Hardinge's is to keep the bedway nice and neat, ...
Thanks!
You get this if you run too low a % water soluable. 7% is my target. I got
lucky and got a refractomter.
Biggest problem with toilet water is a REAL NASTY bacteria can grow. I use
an anti bacteria treatment and a fish aquarium air pump on all the time.
Your whole shop will have a neat film of oil. Then the dust will cling to it
and you will have a neat film of grime. Hope your SO don't mind you tracking
a neat oil film into the house. You'll need to keep a shop rag in your
pocket to keep wiping the neat oil film off every thing you handle.
Karl
Got to get an extraction system... When I use soluble coolant on the surface
grinder it tends to fog the shed up something wicked when the coolant gets
picked up by the wheel. Nice cooling mist, and then you realize that your
shirt is sticking to you...
Mark Rand
RTFM
Yeah. My friend's VMCs have had this.
He skims them and uses tablets too.
Hmmm... a film of oil everywhere doesn't sound like a good thing.
Don't want my SO nailing my testicles up on the wall...
This is for my home shop for prototyping, maybe light production runs.
Don't want the cost to be too high, short or long term, and I don't
want the machine to rust or corrode from using it.
How much was the TW coolant?
Thanks!
I've been using Encool from Engineered Lubricants. They made up
a gallon of concentrate for me, I've been using it at
something like 10%. I use it on the mill, have left the vise on
the table for months, and I get a slight black stain that rubs
right off, nothing more. I have left the sump for months
without the slightest hint of odor. Something does grow in it,
as I get a yucky film that grows on the coolant surface, but it
doesn't smell! I used Tri-cool before, didn't have rusting, but
poor tool life and horrible smells after just days in the sump.
Eng. Lube listened to what machining processes and materials I
was using and then supplied what they thought would work best,
and they sure were right. I have no connection to them, just
happy with their coolant and embarrased that I haven't used up
my gallon of concentrate yet so I can buy something from them!
http://www.englube.com /
Jon
Jon, you need to get out in the shop more.
To the OP. Getting all the oil out of your CHNC will be a job. I found that
taking the sight glass assembly off the tank at the end of the machine and
fill the tank with coolant past the exposed holes ran oil off the top.
Repeat several times. I kept skimming oil off what came out and putting the
overflow coolant back in the machine. I then used a hole saw to cut a hole
in the tank where the back right panel is. I run a belt type skimmer through
this opening.
Many people swear by this coolant or that coolant. I use whatever is in the
shop my son is working for at the moment. (he brings home free concentrate)
They all seem the same to me. I think the keys are: Keep the oil/crap film
off the top of the coolant. Keep an air bubbler running. You'll have no
problems with these two precautions. I also put in a bactericide - just an
added precaution.
Karl
Good luck, CHNC's do not last long with Toilet water, the Hardinge
tech told me that. Even though my new 1992 was sealed to try to offer
them to people that wanted to use it the water still gets in the
turret & ball screws. One shop I know changed 5 of theirs over to TW &
within 4 months they had trouble with all of them.
I'm still running my 92 model all day every day on production & it
still holds .0003. NO repairs other than a few air valves. But it was
filled up with oil from day one. Use oil & a mist extractor & you
won't get a film all over the shop! All my CNC's & screw machines run
oil.
I think the key difference here is production vs. intermittent use. No
question, in production, oil is a good way to go. But my machine is being
set up 200 hours a year and runs maybe 100 hours a year. Allowances must be
made on any machine not running oil, run the air line oilers at a good rate.
Same with the ball screw and way lube units. I have had to take my pop up
turret apart and clean it a couple times. Its about a one hour job.
Karl
At HP in the 80's I ran one of these. We always used "real" oil.
Hangsterfers (sp.?) as I recall.
Yes, .0003 was routine. We had a few jobs where we held .0002 (not plus or
minus, .0002 total)
Any problems were always tooling, never the machine's fault. We had oil mist
removing equipment.
Smog-Hog I think. Helped with the "oil all over everything" problem
Bob
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