2 New Haas Machines and ???

aandabooks · Jan 2, 2023

Need some questions answered about 2 new Haas machines (Mini-Mill & VF-2) that I have being delivered on Thursday.

A little background: I'm a high school machine shop teacher and was a CNC machinist for 10 years, a couple years doing setup for another company and various other machining experience. I have a Haas TL-1 in the shop now and have been using that for 14 years. Have been teaching on a couple SWI Prototrak mills for 3-4 years. Don't run any coolant in the shop as of now but with new machines on the way questions arise.

These machines will not be in use continuously and will go days/weeks being dormant. For sure all summer since I don't teach in the summers.

What will be my best bet for using coolant in these machines? I don't have access to recycling/pumping/filtering like I have had at other places that I have worked in the past to keep up with coolant issues.

mhajicek · Jan 2, 2023

I recommend Hangsterfer's 5080; it's what I use for medical device prototype parts. I mix it with distilled water. Maintain the proper concentration and it doesn't get stinky, no rust problems, works great in all kinds of materials, and it's basically food grade (emulsified soybean oil) so I can just flush it down the drain if I want to drain the sump, which I'd recommend over the summers, though you might get away with not doing so. I've even splashed it in my eye (not intentionally), and it didn't even sting. You can get it by the five gallon bucket if a 55 gallon drum is too much.

Garwood · Jan 2, 2023

Trim E206 is pretty resilient stuff. It's been around forever. Has a good track record for working well and not stinking.

aandabooks · Jan 3, 2023

The other thing that I am considering is just going with an add-on mister. I have been doing research on those and while there would be cleanout of the coolant tank occasionally it could be done with a shop-vac.

rklopp · Jan 3, 2023

Since you have full enclosures, I'd stick with flood coolant. We run a Fogbuster single-nozzle mister on the open TM-1 at the local high school robotics shop. This requires babysitting to make sure the coolant is aimed right at the cutting zone and the tank does not run out in the middle of a cut. With one nozzle, the part often shadows the flow. We've clogged up and broken a lot of not-cheap carbide endmills because of these issues. In addition, despite the Fogbuster name, a lot of coolant gets in the shop air. When running enough flow to prevent clogging, coolant ends up on the floor.

mhajicek · Jan 3, 2023

Flood coolant all the way. I imagine the students will be running aluminum most of the time, with cheap cutters. That's a recipe for disaster with insufficient coolant (which is lubricant as much as coolant).

bryan_machine · Jan 3, 2023

The machines in my shop sit idle for long periods - and so far I have no problems with qualichem xtreme cut 250c. (Which replaced hangsterfer's - which also worked fine but left brown goo on things.)

The quality of the water used in mixing, and the amount of muck left in the tank and not filtered out will likely be the biggest issues - so something like skimmer may help quite a bit.

aandabooks · Jan 3, 2023

mhajicek said:
Flood coolant all the way. I imagine the students will be running aluminum most of the time, with cheap cutters. That's a recipe for disaster with insufficient coolant (which is lubricant as much as coolant).

You got the part about cheap cutter right on. Budget only goes so far so carbide gets used very cautiously for specific work. Also slow feedrates and light cuts. I'm always telling them we have plenty of time and not running production.

rklopp · Jan 3, 2023

bryan_machine said:
The machines in my shop sit idle for long periods - and so far I have no problems with qualichem xtreme cut 250c. (Which replaced hangsterfer's - which also worked fine but left brown goo on things.)

The quality of the water used in mixing, and the amount of muck left in the tank and not filtered out will likely be the biggest issues - so something like skimmer may help quite a bit.

I just got a promo bucket of Qualichem 250C with my new machine. I asked for it based on PM feedback like Bryan's that I searched. I have not mixed up a batch yet, because the machine installation is incomplete. I have my fingers crossed that the 250C will last, or my wife will be rather upset. She has a sensitive nose.

mhajicek · Jan 3, 2023

aandabooks said:
You got the part about cheap cutter right on. Budget only goes so far so carbide gets used very cautiously for specific work. Also slow feedrates and light cuts. I'm always telling them we have plenty of time and not running production.

Look into Redline for cutters. They don't cost much more than steel in small to medium sizes, and run pretty well.

CGornet · Jan 4, 2023

Qualichem is what I've used with great results in terms of staying fresh. Std. tap water is what they recommended and it's been pretty solid. The tapping leaves a bit to be desired though on small threads M4 and below.

buzz altland · Jan 4, 2023

I use waterless hand cleaner auto zone was selling out at 1.00 a can

BOB-OO · Jan 4, 2023

+1 Trim
I've seen the original TrimSol product sit for 6+ months and not changed for years without any smell. We use other Trim products and have never experienced any smell/bio issues. You will need a simple skimmer to remove tramp oil. You'll save a lot of mills w flood coolant.

kenton · Jan 5, 2023

I guess I will be the black sheep and say say try running dry with air blast to clear chips. You can get away with a lot as long as you aren't running aggressively or doing deep slotting. You will have to put M00 in for adding tapping oil before tapping but I am sure most people have had to do that on tougher materials. Like you said you aren't running production or trying to break records. Without coolant you don't have to worry about it going rancid or leaving a scuzzy coolant film on every flat surface in the shop as the coolant settles out of the air.

Just inform your students that the speeds and feeds they are running are laughably slow for the real world but that is how you will be running in this class to save money on tooling.

Also try these tools:

CarbideToolSource.com

Buy solid carbide cutting tools and end mills direct from the Oregon manufacturer

www.carbidetoolsource.com

I have been happy with them in a prototype shop and at $35 for a 5 pack of 1/4, 4 flute endmills you can risk cutting dry with them.

rklopp · Jan 5, 2023

In my experience, students dry-cutting aluminum is a recipe for failure, air blast or not. There will be no margin for error in feed, speed, DOC, WOC, or air supply, and students are sure to deviate on any of those from time to time.

apoet · Jan 5, 2023

kenton said:
I guess I will be the black sheep and say say try running dry with air blast to clear chips. You can get away with a lot as long as you aren't running aggressively or doing deep slotting. You will have to put M00 in for adding tapping oil before tapping but I am sure most people have had to do that on tougher materials. Like you said you aren't running production or trying to break records. Without coolant you don't have to worry about it going rancid or leaving a scuzzy coolant film on every flat surface in the shop as the coolant settles out of the air.

Just inform your students that the speeds and feeds they are running are laughably slow for the real world but that is how you will be running in this class to save money on tooling.

Also try these tools:

CarbideToolSource.com

Buy solid carbide cutting tools and end mills direct from the Oregon manufacturer

www.carbidetoolsource.com

I have been happy with them in a prototype shop and at $35 for a 5 pack of 1/4, 4 flute endmills you can risk cutting dry with them.

The biggest benefit of flood imo is the ease of cleaning the machine and reducing dust/chips in the air. I ran a VF2 with air blast for 4 months last year. When we finally fixed the flood coolant I was blown away by the quality of life improvement. I would NEVER go back.

Kingbob · Jan 5, 2023

surprised no one mentioned it yet but throw a couple of aquarium bubblers in your tanks to keep the o2 levels up, keeps anaerobic bacteria from forming

mhajicek · Jan 6, 2023

Kingbob said:
surprised no one mentioned it yet but throw a couple of aquarium bubblers in your tanks to keep the o2 levels up, keeps anaerobic bacteria from forming

Completely unnecessary with Hangsterfer's 5080.

2 New Haas Machines and ???

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