"Wild_Bill" wrote in message
...
I'd be concerned about being in the vicinity of any airborne liquid
droplets, and I'm a bit surprised that this has been a standard method for
machining. The concept just seems like it would be an obvious health
hazard when things like plumbing and electronics manufcturing are going to
lead-free processes, mainly out of rampant paranoia, IMO.

I haven't used a coolant or a cutting lubricant system on any of my hobby
metalworking machines, but a mist system would probably have to be my last
consideration.
Misting seems like a great idea for a greenhouse though, if people aren't
occupying the same space.

Since misting has been discussed here several times recently, I've been
wondering if an evacuation system could be utilized to minimize risk to
the folks that use mist, kind of like the removal of dust in a woodworking
shop is commonly done.

One probably wouldn't want to listen to a shop-vac whine while they're
concentrating on work and safety, or get involved in a expensive
collection system, but an almost silent squirrel cage blower intake may be
sufficient to pull the stray mist into a containment system/vessel.
The relatively high velocity air flow of a shop-vac probably wouldn't be
required anyway.

The mist will very likely condense or accumulate upon contact with a cool
surface, so trying to lift it upward could result in a messy drooling
pickup inlet.

Evacuation of mist to the outdoors would also be evacuating heated shop
air, so it becomes an issue of throwing away energy costs while heating a
shop for personal comfort.

I suppose some sort of indoor containment system could be safely utilized
with lower energy cost waste. I almost hate the over-use of the term HEPA,
kinda like the abuse of the term mil-spec, but I wouldn't think that a
sophisticated refrigeration unit with specialized high dollar filters
would be required for capture or containment of mist for a home shop
machine (or 2 or 3).

Something more along the lines of passing the airflow thru a couple of
layers of screens at a low angle may be capable of capturing most of the
mist which could drop into a bucket maybe. At most, I speculate that a
small system might include a power supply and some Peltier coolers on a
plate to get the mist to drop out of the air stream.

When examining a water/oil separator for a compressed air system, the
swirl created by fins causes moisture to contact the sides of the
container where it naturally drops to the bottom of the bowl/cannister,
then sits there until it's drained by means of opening a petcock.

The water/oil separators work very well and are especially effective for
their intended/normal applications. I don't think it would take a
supergenius like the doofus that promotes the Dyson? vacuum cleaner to
invent a really cool-looking vortex or cyclone separator for a little
mist.

--
WB

One thing that we hobbyists often forget is that machine tools used in
production today are mostly fully enclosed. In some cases (more in Europe
than here in the US) they're also fully ventilated. And the exhaust from
these systems is NOT ventilated to the outdoors. It generally goes to some
kind of central collection system.

--
Ed Huntress