I have added around two gallons of distilled water over the past 5 days and the overall volume is still low enough that pressure goes down during longer sessions/cuts.
Yesterday I thoroughly cleaned the chip trap and the reservoir looks clear. Overall level was low, maybe 1cm. So I’m thinking it just needs a larger refill. Google says it should be able to hold up to 12 gallons.
Would a steward let me know what coolant is currently loaded and if there is available stock? I’m familiar with using the refractometer to check that it’s 5%.
I’ve had to add another gallon in the middle of my last session that was about 3 hours long. I don’t remember having to do this before.
I wonder if we can add an external coolant level monitor, I’ll be honest, the get-down-and-open-the-door-and-poke-a-finger-into-the-tank step is very cumbersome and I think this as well as a more accessible light switch would be some good quality-of-life Tormach improvements.
somebody suitably inclined could probably rig up a remote level display with a float sensor, but that might be more trouble than it’s worth (unless someone just finds it a fun project, in which case don’t let me stop you )
The Tormach coolant is the Fusion brand; there is a big bucket of the concentrate in the bottom of the machine shop cabinet. If you want to mix some up, I’ll DM you info about the tools you’ll need.
Mixing via the instructions should give you a brix of 5 , this is roughly where we want it to be.
As Matt has said before its best not to put direct DI water in but premix in the 1 gal or a bucket before hand.
Unfortunately an additional reservoir or a replacement tank to bring the coolant up to 20+ gallons is probably the only solution to not having to add coolant on longer runs. 12 gallons is simply not big enough.
I cleaned the chip tray, confirmed there were no clogs of chips in the reservoir, and ran without losing pressure for ~40 minutes. This was with nozzle pointed straight at the drain.
I have several sessions planned for the next couple of weeks and will re-adjust after there has been some evaporation and there is room to add more fluid.
I’ve gotten a couple of additional buckets and lids, which means we should be able to store more pre-mixed lubricants of both types and still have a spare mixing bucket.
What is the mix ratio to make pre-mix if there isn’t any? The coolant concentrate bottle says to use 5-10%. 5% for 1 gallon would be about 190 grams of concentrate. Is that a good starting place, or does someone have a better number to start with to get closer to the 5 brix goal?
OK I did some testing and found that 300g of the Fusion coolant concentrate in one total gallon gets us right about to the 5 brix. Fortunately this happens to be right at the bottom line of the Hill Country Fare distilled water bottles we have. See pictures.
So in a pinch people can just take an empty bottle, pour the Fusion concentrate in up to the bottom line then fill the rest of the way with water.
The coolant had run out completely while I was using the machine so I went ahead and mixed up a few gallons and put them in. I also left 2 spare gallons of pre-mix and left them under the machine
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