[mflux_gamblej]

I switched to a synthetic coolant this week, and it's making a LOT more mist in the mill.

Granted there could be many other factors, like I've been facing a lot today. However, the mist is noticable where it wasn't before. I like the new coolant for several other reasons though so I want to try and live with it.

I'm interested in building a mist collector. A commercial one costs like $10000 (seems to be the price of anything that goes on a CNC machine). I don't have enough spare cash right now, and it seems silly to spend so much on a mist collector

In my mind its just a fan of some kind, or a centrifuge, and / or a refrigeration system.

The general idea is that the mist needs to be sucked into the collector, and it needs to collect in there (duh), so it could be one or all of the following:
- a cold surface inside the enclosure for the mist to condense on
- a filter with pores that are smaller than the mist particles, but bigger than the air particles (gore-tex?)
- a centrifuge to get the mist particles to coalesce with each other


So, maybe its at least two of the above mechanisms.

I'm thinking maybe a used college dorm refrigerator for a cooling circuit which will be interfaced to a machined coolant circuit somehow. The coolant circuit main block (chunk of aluminum) will then be bolted / interfaced to a stack of perforated sheets that are chilled by the fridge.
then there will be a sheet metal housing with a fan at the exit, not at the entrance.
The air + mist will come into the housing, contact the condenser made of the perf metal sheets, etc., the mist will hopefully collect on it, and drain out as condensed coolant back to the machine or machine sump. The air entrance will be through a duct, and the air exit will be back into the mill's enclosure so that if all the mist didnt get collected, it can go for another pass thru.

Anyone ever make a mist collector? is there an even easier way than this?

my new coolant doesnt stink, doesn't irritate my hands (yet), doesn't rust the machines, and its nice and transparent. All things that I really like - but the mist is going to be a real irritant.

[mflux_gamblej]

I ended up buying a used filtermist on ebay for about $500.

its a centrifuge that has some fins on the inside, various filters, a 3 ph motor for driving it, and pretty elaborate sheet metal that makes up the whole thing. way cheaper than building your own? maybe, if you have a small machine like a lathe you could get away with building something less fancy. The filtermist website talks about the requirements based on machine enclosure volume.

I have not installed this thing yet. Still getting misted to some extent. The day that I got all pissed off about mist, I was face milling a lot and that was the main mist making operation.