Coolant control.

Hi folks,

I'm new to this list, but not to some of the people who post here.
For those I've not met yet I have (for a month or so now) a 1984
vintage LAGUN FTV-2 mill with 2-1/2D Anilam Crusader II control. The
mill has a Hitachi SJ100 VFD for the motor that is not connected to
the controller. I bought the mill from Peter Nolan - it came with
COMEDITCNC, about 10 end mill holders, a nice lesson on making it go.
I bought BobCAD for drawing and tool path generation. Its operational
- made some parts. Its my first ever exposure to hands on CNC.

OK. The Problem De jure - containing the flood coolant. I'm working
on containing the flood coolant on my mill. Its harder than it was on
the manual mill because once the thing starts cutting, it just keeps
going and it can build up chips really fast! I need to squirt a lot
of oil at it to keep them clear and preserve the surface finish. I
have a back splash shield already on the table - it helps a lot.

I have decided to buy some good window screen and make a swarf screen
to sit in the vise to keep it from filling up with chips on those
occasions where I will be making more than one or two parts. I may
make similar screens to sit on the table on each side of the vise
(brass screen soldered to braising rod frame perhaps?) so cleaning up
the chips is a matter of picking up the screen and dumping it.

First question: Has any body tried using screen this way?

With regard to coolant control there are two current problems:

1) The coolant channels on the vise are laughably small compared to
the coolant flow required for adequate chip clearing. On the manual
mill I built up the edges of the coolant channel to give it more
capacity, but this is really not a good long term solution.

2) Splashing off the front of the table, or slinging off the front of
the table if using a carbide cutter at high rpm.

I have two reasonably sizable pieces of plexiglass (?? Its clear
plastic stuff - I can cut it with the band saw if I'm careful) (12" by
30" or so, some sheet metal (furnace duct gage) and sheet metal tools
that will work furnace duct gages of sheet metal, and a couple of
magnetic bases from old imported indicator stands to work with. So
I'm shopping for ideas before I cut up the metal or the plexiglass.

I gather this is an ascii list - no pictures allowed? Is it allowed
to use the RCM drop box for pictures related to this list?

Fitch
In So. Cal.

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