Came in to a big coolant lake this morning.

[neurosis]

LOL. Get here at 4am and walk in to the mill area. There is a coolant lake that spans almost 6 machines. I'm not sure who's responsible yet, but I'm wondering how they managed to get out of here without cleaning up the mess.

This should be an interesting morning.   

[Jim at Gentex]

LOL

Let the beatings begin! 

[Jeff]

I'm not sure who's responsible yet

I can tell you exactly who did it. Their name is "I don't know".

[neurosis]

Well, I found out who's responsible. The tattle tails are strong in this shop. 

The guy who made the mess has done this several times before. You'd think that he would smarten up after the second or third time. 

He's lucky I'm not the shop owner. He'd be mopping the whole shop today.   

[gcode]

He's lucky I'm not the shop owner. He'd be mopping the whole shop today.

They should ask him to help pay for a drum of coolant.
That stuff is not cheap

[YoDoug]

We have a central coolant system now. it doesn't autofill but has a control that goes by time in minutes. You select the machine you want to fill, set minutes between 1-15, then hit start. Before we built that we used to buy cheap sprinkler timers off Amazon to keep from over filling.

https://www.amazon.com/Sprinkler-Programmable-Irrigation-Watering-Automatic/dp/B08S3CDW2Y/ref=sr_1_1_sspa?keywords=water+hose+timer&qid=1655816063&sr=8-1-spons&psc=1&spLa=ZW5jcnlwdGVkUXVhbGlmaWVyPUExMllHVFk4Mlo4RjlMJmVuY3J5cHRlZElkPUEwMjUzMDY5MjVOSFEwQ1k3SlhXQiZlbmNyeXB0ZWRBZElkPUEwNjgzMjM4MktaSzlLSzI3NFVZSSZ3aWRnZXROYW1lPXNwX2F0ZiZhY3Rpb249Y2xpY2tSZWRpcmVjdCZkb05vdExvZ0NsaWNrPXRydWU=

[neurosis]

Before we built that we used to buy cheap sprinkler timers off Amazon to keep from over filling.

That may be a good idea. I think I'll send that link to the boss.

[YoDoug]

That may be a good idea. I think I'll send that link to the boss.

Yeah we started buying those after about the third time someone overfilled a machine. The only thing to be aware of is they seem to wear out after about 6 months or so. The spring that holds the valve closed gets weak and it will slowly leak if you leave the water turned on. We just attached the timer to the water spigot and always turned off/on the water as needed. Our old coolant system was a 55 gal drum on a drum dolly with a Zebra coolant meter, 150 feet of hose, and the coolant timer. Worked ok, but a pain in the but wheeling that drum around and dealing with the hose.

Our new system has PEX tubing plumbed to each machine, a central dosatron mixer, and a central plc control. We also have a switch to draw from 250 gallon totes of recycled coolant that we reclaim from our chip compactor. We built the system for less than $10k. We spent another $15k on tramp oil remover and fine particulate filters, but we are now buying about 1/6 of the raw coolant we used to buy. The central coolant system and recycling equipment was paid back in less than a year of new coolant savings.

[crazy^millman]

Yeah we started buying those after about the third time someone overfilled a machine. The only thing to be aware of is they seem to wear out after about 6 months or so. The spring that holds the valve closed gets weak and it will slowly leak if you leave the water turned on. We just attached the timer to the water spigot and always turned off/on the water as needed. Our old coolant system was a 55 gal drum on a drum dolly with a Zebra coolant meter, 150 feet of hose, and the coolant timer. Worked ok, but a pain in the but wheeling that drum around and dealing with the hose.

Our new system has PEX tubing plumbed to each machine, a central dosatron mixer, and a central plc control. We also have a switch to draw from 250 gallon totes of recycled coolant that we reclaim from our chip compactor. We built the system for less than $10k. We spent another $15k on tramp oil remover and fine particulate filters, but we are now buying about 1/6 of the raw coolant we used to buy. The central coolant system and recycling equipment was paid back in less than a year of new coolant savings.

Funny one of those cost saving process many of our customers will never understand how important it is and how much it saves them. Everyone is screaming go green, but a measure like this is just that going green.

Working on a process improvement that was very hard to get a PO for. They didn't think 100 hours of my time was worth spending the money on. Old method was 1 shift running 10 hours a day on the machine. Rough the parts to send out to heat treat was 5 shifts running one part at a time. Got Engineering involved and they agree we could machine the part in a Heat Treated Condition at H900. I loaded up 3 parts at a time and have taken 72 hours of roughing time and reduced it down to 6 hours. They were not using Parent Child tools now we are. We will gain 14 hours a day of unattended run time a day and 48 hours of lost time on the weekend. Eliminated an 8 hours EDM time to cut off the excess material the old way they were doing it. Shop rate is $250 an hour. Doing the math in one year they have gained 5900 hours of run time and 100 hours of my time was hard to justify. Imagine trying to sell this?

[mkd]

pictures or it didnt happen

[Brian]

Doing the math in one year they have gained 5900 hours of run time and 100 hours of my time was hard to justify. Imagine trying to sell this?

Hard to believe that the *bean counters* can't do the math...."we're too busy flushing money down the drain to calculate the ROI on your proposal-better try again later!"

[Incogneeto]

I'da been floatin' them folded up newspaper Boats and use the Fans to send them across.

"Bon Voyagee"!!

[Jeff]

Shop rate is $250 an hour.

wow, are those machines powered by gold?

[crazy^millman]

wow, are those machines powered by gold?

All Brand New Equipment in a brand new facility with launch deadlines. Don't make certain launches and penalties start to add up. Have another customer with 20 machines and they claim their shop rate is less than $50 an hour in Southern California of all places. All comes down to how the bean counters want to work out the shop rate.

[pmartin]

Management seems inclined to spend their time bent over, picking pennies off the floor while dollars fly past their heads.