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Clean coolant is discharged to the coolant tank, while filtered fines are brushed from the filter screen and flow to the bottom of the conveyor. There, they are picked up by the belt cleats and discharged. By dramatically reducing the number of chips migrating to a machine tool coolant tank, it decreases downtime for tank cleaning and maintenance. As a result, shops experience improved pump, tooling and coolant life for less waste and better part surface finishes.
Small cast iron, steel and other ferrous metal chips are hard to remove from coolant and are particularly problematic because they can rust quickly and / or congeal into a messy, hard-to-remove sludge. Permeated with these chips, the coolant soon turns rancid and requires programmed stops for cleaning both the coolant tank and machine tools. The resulting economic impact is significant when factoring in the compounding results of lost productivity from machine
downtime and the increased cost of recycling or replacing cutting cooling fluid. To eliminate the problems associated with cast iron, steel and other ferrous metal chips, conveyor OEMs offer those conveyor systems that incorporate the use of magnets. Such systems have proven more effective than traditional hinged belt and drag flight conveyors at removing fine ferrous chips, especially in high coolant flow rate applications.
As gravity causes larger chips to settle to the bottom, a powerful array of magnets installed below a conveyor’ s load and lower curve sections attract and hold fine ferrous chips that may otherwise remain in suspension. Once at the bottom of the conveyor, the chips are scraped and carried away by stainless steel cleats to the discharge section at the top of the conveyor. The filtered and clean coolant is then ready for additional filtration, recycling or reuse.
As in all machining applications, efficient chip evacuation and cleaner coolant improve machining accuracy and surface finishes
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