Less Misting

Why deal with it?

You might be asking – “What does SPIDERCOOL mean by less misting?” And “why a picture of diesel smoke?”  First off, let’s establish that misting is highly undesirable.  For the most part, misting comes down to poor air quality, hence the smoke.

Misting is a phenomenon where coolant or oil becomes finely atomized and floats in the air.  With straight cutting oil, its a lot like having wet diesel smoke in the air.  Misting is caused by a combination of heat and extreme agitation of the cutting fluid.  This is the reason that machines, and in some cases entire factories, have air filtration systems.

There’s always some degree of misting in a milling process.  But excessive misting is caused by coolant hitting the tool holders, rather than just the cutting edges of the tools.  Collet nuts and other features on tool holders act like high speed paddles that literally pound the fluid into a fine mist.  Imagine spraying a garden hose directly into a high speed fan.  This is exactly what happens with the factory coolant nozzle system on the Fanuc Robodrill because there’s no way to precisely target the coolant at the exact point of cut for different length tools.   Instead, the four factory nozzles are staggered to aim at different length tools.  When you have a nozzle aimed at a short tool, and then a long tool comes into the spindle, where is the coolant for the short tool going to go?  You guessed it, directly into the holder. On the Fanuc Robodrill, misting is exacerbated by the high speed spindle.

The adverse effects of misting are many, but often overlooked.  Air filtration systems do not capture all of the mist.  So the more mist there is, the harder it is to capture which is why you should minimize it in the first place.   Any mist that is not captured by the air filtration system goes one of two places – either into human lungs, or all over every single surface in the shop which creates slip and fall hazards everywhere.

So a little bit of logic and common sense reveals the following:  Excess mist forces your employees to breathe hazardous chemicals.   Excess mist lands on walking surfaces creating a fall hazard.  Excess mist overburdens the air filtration system requiring higher maintenance costs in filter elements, as well a cleanup and disposal of more waste residue.

SPIDERCOOL creates less misting because it automatically adjusts to keep the coolant precisely targeted at the cutting edge of each tool, and not the holders.