Guess who is finally ready to start assembling baby brother!
The last of the parts needed to put together a Dominator Pro 2x2 have arrived today and we are so excited.
Next week we begin assembly. It’ll be our smallest machine yet with a X565mm/22", Y544.6mm/21", & Z168.75mm/6.6"
It’s replacing our HDM as our primary metal mill and will feature SMW plates and vise(s?)… We’re sampling a 4.5kw air-cooled ISO32 ATC (not pictured), and 3Nm closed loop steppers.
I’ll have it slicing through aluminum and steel like butter in no time.
I don’t see why it couldn’t handle flood coolant, but I’ve never used a machine with it before.
Have you used machines that had it? What kind of requirements or things you think need to be accounted for me to confidently say yes to that question?
The closest I’ve come to cooling aluminum and brass was on my old Onefinity using a “poor man’s FogBuster” setup. It consisted of a cheap air/liquid mixing block (https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07HT1Y4BK) plumbed directly into my 75-gallon air compressor tank. The coolant side of the mixing block was simply dipped into a bottle of isopropyl alcohol. I ran fairly high air pressure (around 50 PSI), but with a very low liquid flow rate. My primary concern was chip evacuation first, cooling the cutter second.
The only other gantry-style machine I’ve personally seen that truly accommodates flood coolant by design is the Langmuir MR-1. When I say “accommodates,” I mean the machine bed is specifically designed to drain toward the center into a pass-through area where you would place a coolant tub, chip strainer, filter, and recirculation pump.
With that said, I think the following are at least good starting points for considerations:
Provide multiple mounting points for accessories such as misting blocks or Loc-Line coolant hose assemblies, especially around the X and Z axes. Plenty of tapped holes would be appreciated.
The use of actual fixture plates, which you mentioned, is perfect!
Protect the screws and bearing blocks as much as reasonably possible. Personally, I would gladly give up inches of cutting area just to gain decent splash and chip shielding. I do not expect extreme measures, especially considering that even machines like the Langmuir often end up with coolant and chips all over the bearing blocks and ball screws. Still, the machine should at least be designed with the expectation that it will get wet and splashed to some degree.
Beyond that, I honestly would not worry too much about providing a factory base or enclosure for v1. There are already plenty of practical DIY solutions using plastic or fiberglass utility tubs from a home center, along with enclosures made from aluminum extrusion/T-slot framing or even wood.
