"Bob La Londe" wrote in
:

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.

You can get a lot more air flow with less CFM/PSI using the right nozzle:

http://www.silvent.com/www/live/prod...aspx?TreeID=48

Depending on the nozzle, they claim over 40% reduction in air "costs".
The bad news is that they still want 10 cfm at over 100 PSI.

Doug White