That Fadal spindle load meter told me more than I expected this morning

I was running a batch of 304 stainless parts this morning and kept seeing the load meter sit at 72% on the finish pass. Same program I've run 50 times, same tooling, same fixturing, but normally it hovers around 55%. Took me a minute to realize the coolant concentration was off because the mix pump had been acting up since the last filter change. I dumped the sump and re-mixed it, and sure enough the load dropped right back down. Makes me wonder how many times I've blamed the insert or the feed rate when the real issue was fluid condition. Do you guys check your coolant concentration before messing with speeds and feeds, or is that just me?

2 comments

2 Comments

craig.olivia4d ago

Coolant is sneaky like that. Had a job last month where the surface finish went to hell on a mild steel run and I chased tool wear for two days, swapped holders, even rechecked my program offsets. Turned out the coolant was so weak it was basically colored water and the chips were just welding themselves back onto the part. Now I keep a refractometer in my toolbox and check the mix every Monday morning before anything else. Still catch myself blaming inserts first sometimes though. Old habits die hard.

kimdixon4d ago

That coolant trap gets everybody at least once. Refractometer on Monday is the kind of boring habit that saves you a whole week of headaches.