Based on feedback from @Ozzy_Boards on my last post about improving machining speeds on our Omio X8, I’m looking into what we can do for setting up a mister for our CNC router. Currently I’m looking at a Fogbuster, but I’m stuck at how people usually mount these mister setups to their gantry.
Additionally, we don’t have air lines in our shop, so whatever we do has to be run off of a smallish compressor (which we also have yet to buy, and would welcome recommendations for as well).
Does anyone have any pictures or CAD of mister setups they use on their Omio X8?
There aren’t real high mechanical loads, so just get janky with it and make it happen.
We got an Amazon knockoff, ziptied the aluminum mister body to an empty hole on the router head mounting block, mounted a small coolant reservoir to the Z axis base plate off a random piece of aluminum with a hose clamp, and ran the air/liquied lines through the same cable management tracks that the router head electrical is on.
I’d like to bolt down the mister body in the future, since the force of the air blast does move the mister body a little bit, but as long as it’s a constant flow you can just compensate with the lockline angle. It won’t look straight when it’s off, but as long as it’s hitting the cutter when it’s on its fine.
We use a 1.5hp compressor and would recommend adding a dryer/filter, we get condensation in our setup right now.
We do the same thing on our Omio; just 4 inches of VHB did the trick! Hooked it into our shop air and we can run dry with an air blast or with coolant. Amazing what just air will do to clear chips and keep the tool cool, especially in plastic.
The one in the video is a 4mm Huhao endmill at 50 IPM and 17k RPM. We just got our machine in May so we got the Huhaos while we experiment. They are pretty good, so far we only broke them from stupid mistakes before we had a mister.
For anyone looking at this (in the US at least), you can get the exact same setup for about $100 less if you’re willing to actually call someone to purchase it. See this form on their site.
We use something like this on a single machine in a reasonably ventilated 25’ x 60’ shop space. What am I missing that makes a FogBuster better?
Why should I not just get 4 more of these as we fill in our tooling capabilities?
You can definitely get knock-offs for cheaper - by all means. But price in the solenoid valve and the pressurized reservoir if you’re going to compare apples to apples.
That’s fair. I have a manual ball valve on the air line input, and use a non-pressurized reservoir that is literally a cleaned-out gelato container. Works fine, total not even $30.
I think I’m more interested in whether the physical differences have effects that matter in the real world that I’m not aware of, particularly in terms of health. ie is our setup generating hazardous droplets? - that kind of thing.
The one Mike linked is like the one I use, but with the thinner nozzle, and that one is great. You do have to play around a little bit to get the coolant stream nice, but it works great at cooling. I believe Ozzyboards uses a similar one as well.
I have a Kool mist on our router. It’s terrible. I wouldn’t recommend their fluid either, as it will rust your bare steel surfaces. We usually just go with air, which really helps quite a lot.
For a compressor, if you aren’t going to go for a huge shop compressor, look at California Air Tools or the newish Harbor Freight Hercules quiet compressors. I have the Hercules on our laser and I am happy with it. Get the biggest one. Keeping an open mister with decent flow will use quite a bit of CFM.
Never could get a nice light mist out of it. It was kind of all or nothing. It was either not pulling any cutting fluid or using way too much, creating a huge mess. A phone call to them was no help either.
How much success have other teams had with using vacuums to clear chips? We have a vacuum pump in our shop now (in addition to shop air), and setting it up with our router is our current plan for chip clearing.
Conversely, I’ve had good luck with our Koolmist (albeit mounted to Haas TM-1P and not a router). With their coolant it’s always had a nice fine mist and has been easy to adjust. We also have a very good air supply (clean and dry with very high availability) so YMMV.
However I think that a Koolmist or similar industrial misting solution is overkill for router work. I’ve been really impressed with the Amazon one that was pointed out several posts above. You really don’t need much more than that IMO.
Vacuums can clear mess, but it won’t help for actually moving chips out of the cut. 115 uses a vacuum with a dust shoe, and although it does keep the table pretty clean, it does little to prevent chip welding.