I thought this crowd would appreciate this

[G+_Chris O'Riley]

I thought this crowd would appreciate this. I have a small CNC mill and I live in a town house without a garage or basement, so I have no choice but to keep and use the mill in our living room (I have a very understanding wife!). As I've been working with metal more, I wanted to add a flood coolant setup to make my end mills last longer, improve finish and wash away chips. That means a full enclosure to catch all the splashes and drain the coolant back to a holding tank. Because the market for enclosures for mills as small as mine is essentially nonexistent, it had to be DIY.

 

The main enclosure was easy enough, just built from t-slot aluminum channel and sheet plastic. The hard part was the drain pan, since the mill is in the living room, it COULDN'T leak. I don't have access to welding or metal forming equipment, so it was going to have to be plastic. I built a wood form, sealed all the joints with fiberglass and epoxy, and attached a sheet of acrylic plastic with silicon caulk and some wood bracing. I hung the whole thing over our BBQ grill and fired it up. As the heat from the grill started to soften the plastic, it would start sagging down and I'd turn on a vacuum pump attached to a barb epoxied into the back of the form. That would suck the plastic into the form and I'd just move the grill around to try to keep the heat as even as possible.

 

Acrylic is pretty brittle and I cracked a few, so they weren't going to work for the real pan, but they were good practice. For the final, I used a 3/16th thick sheet of ABS plastic. It took a little longer to soften up than the acrylic, but it softened and formed just the same. Here's some pictures of the form, the sheet acrylic in place, the whole thing over the grill and the results. Some of the edges of the ABS pan could be a little tighter, but I've learned not to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory! I have some last details to work out, but it's coming down the home stretch and the hard part is behind me.

[G+_Damien Wessling]

Well done, especially given your limitations to a work space in which to construct your formwork etc ?

[G+_Ryan Damask]

Very good work. Nice job!!

[G+_Scott W]

Very cool DIY project. What CNC machine do you have? I built my current CNC from scratch using mostly MDF, It works pretty good but not as solid as I would like. I have it set up with a 2w laser and a Dewalt 611 router.

I am now in the process of building a new machine based on the Ox CNC http://www.smw3d.com/ox-diy-cnc-kit/

[G+_Chris O'Riley]

Thanks everyone. Scott, I have the Taig Micromill. It's really solid, but the work area is limited compared to gantry type mills like the one you're building. For the things I use it for, and for the space I have, the Taig is fine though. I'd definitely like to have the ability to put a laser on it, which I suppose is possible, but it'd still be limited by the work area. Once it's all set up in the enclosure, it'll be pretty unobtrusive in the living room! ;)

[G+_Travis Hershberger]

Nice work.

Now the 100 questions routine, because I want to know how to finish up. What sort of pump and hosing are you planning to use with it? Also, what sort of liquid coolant are you planning to use? Planning to use any nozzles? Screens for keeping shavings out of the pump?

[G+_Chris O'Riley]

Thanks Travis. I bought a 1000 GPH submersible fountain pump, it's probably more than I need, but there's a bypass that I can use to lower the volume to the mill. If it's too much, I'll just buy a lower GPH pump, but from all the reviews I read, the stated performance on these types of pumps are pretty optimistic. You loose a lot of flow for every vertical foot it has to pump up. I think I calculated it should be 500 to 600 GPH with a 6 foot rise.

 

It'll be 1/2 inch hose to the mill, and will split there into two 1/4 inch loc-line hoses so I can hit the bit from two sides. I only mill softer metals, aluminum, copper, brass, but clearing out chips from deep pockets and cavities is still a pain when milling dry.

I'm thinking I'll need a 1 inch drain in the bottom of the pan - if the coolant will be fed under pressure to the mill in a 1/2 inch hose, I'll need more than that for a gravity feed back to the tank. The coolant will go into a 5 gallon bucket, and I'll put some sort of screen to catch any material that gets washed down the drain. Might put a screen in the pan over the drain too. I'm going to use Kool Mist because it's people/environment safe, which is important being the mill will be indoors.

 

It's all very much NOT industrial strength, but neither is my mill or what I use it for. If I need to replace the pump every few years, so be it, they're only $40 to $60. I try to balance cost/need/use and put something together that will work... reasonably well.

[G+_Travis Hershberger]

Chris O'Riley Thank you! Great info, and now I know!

http://tacticstime.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/gi-joe-the-battle-shirt.png

[G+_Daniel Armstrong]

Another possible tub to use is a corn furnace bin. Not sure what the chemical compatibility is though. http://i.ebayimg.com/00/s/MTE5NFgxMzQ1/z/JwEAAOSwqu9VFWVu/$_1.JPG