OK, we made the mistake of doing the stock drains, and frankly, so far, it appears to be the worst part of the design - we end up with coolant over the baseplate, with clogged drains all the time. I’ve seen some good ideas if you haven’t yet poured the concrete (PVC pipe etc)
Anyone have good ideas to get the coolant back down? I’m having to blow out/unclog the lines and filters every 10-15 minutes
Have you tried MQL (ie fog-buster style) coolant systems? It’s very effective on the MR-1, makes cleanup a lot cleaner, and the drains won’t clog because they aren’t used.
The high pressure air does a better job of chip cleaning in most cases, and the small quantity of lube has been enough for good cool life. I think flood helps in deep pockets (where it’s hard to aim the air into the pocket), but otherwise the fairly low pressure flood of the MR-1 system probably isn’t as effective.
On other systems. Management went flood.
are the lines clogging or the screens?
Sometimes the screens, sometimes the lines.
i used the gaskets that someone made a 3d print file of and that kept the lines clean and the screens in place. Then you can brush screens 80% clear mid cut and they drain better than what you may be dealing with, some scotch brite under the screens also helps. I also limit the coolant to about half flow unless I’m pocketing or drilling.
My machine is # 2. I really didn’t know at the time. I kick myself in the butt everyday for not putting 3/4 straight thru drains in this thing. I have all the same problems as you. Now the machine is awesome and don’t regret anything except that.
I wish I could say the same thing!!
I agree and wish I had changed as well. Something I did that I feel helped considerably is I put the tank in the back of the machine and I ran a 1" PVC from the front to the back. I hung it from both lines as PVC doesn’t weigh much and same with the back 2 then to a 3/4" NPT to a 3/4" hose to the tank. Dont get me wrong this still clogs but I found I only have to blow it out once or so a day. Much better option IMO. OH and I also drilled out all the barb fittings. I also found that if I blow out the front left drain the pressure back flushes all the rest since they are tied together now.
Oh man, I wish I had done some sort of modified drains. I haven’t come up with a good solution yet, but have been brainstorming how to keep the fine particles away from the drains but not impede coolant flow.
I have machined a lot of stainless in mine so far, and the finer chips will drop through the screens and settle in the tubes pretty often. I find myself shooting a little blast of air up the drain hoses to dislodge the particles and get then draining again. Tons of fine particles find their way into the coolant tank also.
Been contemplating a fine mesh screen that I could make a levy of sorts with, or a bigger screen to sort if pre-filter the coolant before it gets to the drain screens. Just one more thing to clean though. I also plan on building a screen to drop in the tank as well to keep particles from circulating through the pump as much as possible.
Tried smaller guage screen. The problem is the screens fit so badly. I have a set of gaskets from MrmachineTX that help, but do not fix the problem.
I just deal with it for now.
I have stacked multiple sizes of green scrub pads to form layers of media trap under the screens. Final thing I place on top of the scrub pads a cut to size square of aquarium polishing mat which traps the rally fine stuff that passes through the metal screen. It will fill up and I will yank it to cut a new one. Has greatly cut down on need to blow the lines clear.
What I would love to see would be a kind of catch can that is down stream of all the drain lines. Have high volume but low flow output giving the fine material a chance to settle. Remove catch can, empty, reinstall.
If I was building a setup today I would have likely done a 3D printed drain 3x as long as the current drain extending towards center along X axis from each stick corner. Plum something larger in diameter as a near straight drop to the bottom of the pan and run lines from there.
I would love to see THAT video!
I had a different expletive in mind when I wrote that😜. I would want to offend anyone!!!
All kidding aside. This machine is a perfect fit for my needs. I just need to take off the enclosure and get out the coring drill/saw. I just can’t believe that this problem was not addressed in the design phase. With all the prototype time prior to the release that someone didn’t speak up in a meeting before the rollout.
It still a awesome machine. There I am done ranting!!!
It is good to see you worked out the problems with the dreams I look to the forum a little while before I put mine together and realize there was a drain problem from the get so we made the modules needed and it flows so good
are you running the coolant setup that comes with it or your own? i know on mine i did a diy which flows more coolant and knew those stock things wont work. but i wonder if they are fine for their setup?
Stock coolant setup.
best solution i can think of for your situation is to get a hammer drill and drill 1.25" holes through the concrete and then check fitment of a 1" pvc pipe. The 1" pvc pipe will probably have to be turned down to fit but you can then silicone the pvc pipe in place.
I have a 1.25 coring bit. But your right. You just can’t drill straight down due to the setback for the legs. I’m mulling it over… 
I was thinking you would have to abandon the factory drains and fill with epoxy. Drill the new drains so they come out on the flat of the concrete pan.
