On Sun, 18 Mar 2012 12:32:00 -0700, Bob La Londe wrote:

I needed to get a couple jobs done. The screws need to be replaced on
the Taig so I couldn't use its regular flood oil coolant setup until I
fix it. I used my smaller machine, rubbed a little Tap Magic on the work
piece and hit it with a blast of compressed air. When surfacing off the
aluminum work piece with a 1/4" end mill (largest that spindle will
hold) it got pretty hot, but it worked great when 3D carving with a 1/16
ball mill. I ran full pressure off my compressor (125 PSI I think) and
used a simple ball valve to regulate flow somewhat, but I let it flow
pretty heavily. So... how much air do you guys use? Pressure? CFM?

My compressor ran continuously when I was running the mill. I'll be
adding an electric shut off valve to the air line to that cabinet, so my
compressor will shut off when I am done with a cut, but I was thinking
if I could consume less air and get a decent job I would add a flow and
pressure regulator too.

Speaking naively, because I don't do this, either: a pressure regulator
may be the least necessary part. Just putting in a valve to let you
throttle back the airflow will "regulate" the flow to the extent that the
compressor is maintaining pressure. A regulator will let you keep the
flow steady, which means that you'll conserve air when the compressor
pressure is high (by not letting the flow increase at high pressure).

But I suspect that the two biggest things that will save air will be to
find the minimum flow necessary to keep things cool, followed by that
electric cut-off dingus that you're proposing.

Does anyone use augmenter tubes, to get more low-pressure flow from the
naturally low-flow, high pressure stream out of a nozzle?

--
Tim Wescott
Control system and signal processing consulting
www.wescottdesign.com