Super HDM coolant Saga

[TheWatchMker (Matt Mahoney)]

So I let the other thread close through lack of not posting but figured I would show some progress

My HDM has officially run 12 cubic inches a minute in aluminum pretty handly. Surpassing what I’m told can be expected from a tormach 770

This is with coolant and 8 Mrr from a rougher

HDM running 8MRR

Coolant has made a world of difference. I first started with a fox style coolant but had chip welding from chips not evacuating from pockets. I went to the spray style you’ll see in the video below and have had quite a bit of luck as it’s fairly high pressure.

My biggest problem now is the large amounts of mist and chips thrown everywhere.

So I’m trying to make a curtain of coolant around the coolant ring and help push some of the high pressure chips and coolant down.

Thinking a channel like this will run around the ring and have coolant piped to the inside slot that it has to fill up before spilling over and pushing down into my curtain. Hopefully this will keep flow going out the back and not just in the front next to the inflow of coolant

Thoughts? Ideas? Things anyone else has seen similar?

[nwallace (Nick Wallace)]

I hope you succeed in managing that coolant. This is why machines that have higher coolant flows are designed with that in mind. I am not sure that a coolant ring will accomplish what you want but it might help. If i were doing this I would probably be looking at sacrificing a little work area to build a full enclosure and way covers that protects all the motion components with some sort of door to access the tools. Then it doesn’t really matter as much if coolant and chips spray everywhere inside the enclosure. Something inspired by industrial mist collectors could also be done for the air in the enclosure.