Coolant maintenance when running ductile iron

[GiroDyno]

Do you have machines where you machine cast iron and other materials? Or are do you dedicate machines to your cast iron parts?

Regarding running dry, are you doing any drilling dry?

I occasionally have to run one-off parts aluminum or steel in one of the cast iron mills. I use MQL in those instances and clean up right away, if I let it dry I'm left with cast iron concrete all over.

I did a lot of drill testing to make a pilot hole (vs ramping) that would be interpolated into a slot. Part of my issue was the spindle ramp so I kept SFM low and tried to use a heavy feed to make up for time. 400SFM .012 IPR, only 1xD (0.315") and thru the part so not exactly taxing but I made about 1000 holes with that single drill before I finished testing. Then I used it for a bunch of one-off aluminum and steel parts, I think the gummy aluminum was the hardest of all the materials on it.

 

[Houdini16]

Is your secondary coolant storage connected to your sump? Or is it completely separate?

The tank drains back into the sump. its a recirculation system.

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[Orange Vise]

Cast iron dust is combustible, but nowhere near as volatile as magnesium or titanium.

We've been running the material daily for 11+ years and have never witnessed even a small flame. We run the material dry for some ops and but with coolant on others. No part ever makes it out of the machine without touching coolant at some point.

I have seen cast iron smolder in the chip bin, but the offending clumps were not hot to the touch. I think they were just warm enough to evaporate trapped coolant.

 

[Houdini16]

I am sure this is applicable to cast iron also, but we ran graphite filled PTFE dry in a couple machines, with the powdery dust being conductive it eventually shorted out the control on both machines.
We switched to running coolant on them after replacing the boards and keyboards, and didnt have an issue anymore, we also stopped blowing off parts, jaws.....we just used a dunk tank to clean off parts, no more blowing.