Are you having a bad day? Sounds like you should have ponied up for a Tormach VM series instead. Seems like nothing is working correctly on your machine.
@Bigdaddy2166 This is a thread about improving the design. Its great that you are happy with your build but I note that you do have other threads in which you have discussed modifications.
None of my drains were level before the pour and they were worse afterwards. The extent only really became obvious at the epoxy coating stage. These two are the worst examples. The screws were added to try to keep the tape from float off completely (there was a second layer of tape inside the drains as a backup, which saved that one). The chip tray was leveled edge to edge with using a starrett 98-12 on top of a cheap 4’ construction level.
If I was to do this build again, I would definitely revise the drain design.
This is the first pass of leveling the base plate. I don’t seem to have pictures of the later stages. This shows the level coolant was rising too before there were significant chips flowing to the drain covers. Drainage is no doubt better with 4 functioning drains instead of 3… but I’m more or less stuck with 3 at this point as the factory design is serviceable after install. Later on the coolant level rose over the bolt holes in the enclosure and started leaking out. I suspect this was because the assembly guide has the serrated nut on the inside and I think this provides a path for small ammounts of coolant to leak out directly around the screws. I’m planning to eventually replace the enclosure mounting screws with M6 screws, with the nuts on the outside, and a crush washer on the instead (1/4" crush washers don’t seem to exist?).
I agree your drain installation doesn’t look to good. Why are they angled back and to the side. Is something hold them underneath?
The coolant in my machine never gets close to coming up to the enclosure flange. Heck thats almost 1/4 to 3/8 deep…
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Are they blocked? Heck two drains should
be enough to handle the coolant flow.
The tabs were all visibly warped on my drains and were not level before starting the pour. Some copies were worse than others. I believe this is an inherent issue with the shearline V injection molded into the part. The problem got much worse when vibrating the concrete (I used an electric vibrator not realizing the drains were going to float up).
One drain is blocked as the elbow on the drain came off during the concrete pour and I didn’t notice until well after the fact as the drains were taped over. The other 3 drains seem to work normally other than 1 drain being very slow as the fluid must flow in from the outside edge because its unlevel. That is the drain I’m thinking about taking an oscilating tool to to try to get the “inside” lip down closer to the epoxy level.
Honestly, I would be surprised if many people didn’t have problems with drain level as the tabs are intentionally weak. I think the design would be greatly improved if the drains were larger and secured in place with fasteners below the level of the concrete.
Grind down the edges with a 90° 2" air grinder very carefully. I use a piece of scotcbrite in each drain to keep the chips out. Seems to work well.
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Yep, grinding down those edges is a must.
I made tape “dams” when doing my epoxy because my drains did the same tilt thing.
Took a Milwaukee rotary tool with a cone shaped grinding stone and profiled any raised epoxy edges afterwards.
My front enclosure also leaked, but a quick bead of silicone across the front seam corrected that. For good measure, I also put a dab of silicone under each fastener to make sure nothing was sneaking through there. Zero issues with draining since.
@safety3rd Geat choice of color on the epoxy by the way! 
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As a point of reference, I also did the “dam” with tape around the outside edge of the drain, and then ground a taper with a die grinder after the epoxy set. It seems the epoxxy llikes to climb the tape and leave a ridge.
I relocated my drains and mounted them temporarily using plywood, and then spend a lot of time getting them perfectly level in both the x and y directions, and at the proper level relative to the baseplate. That work paid off, I have no pooling except if the chips pile up and plug the screen. I agree, the design of the drains is not great, there is a lot of room for improvement there.
That being said, I also relocated the drains and put in 3/4" tubing with no right angles before pouring, so the fluid can really get out of the enclosure (I documented that in a seperate thread - Mods thread - I know it’s a bit late for you do to that, you can modify the drains after the fact but you will need to drill out the concrete - a 3/4" hole is not hard to drill with a good concrete impact drill, it will go right through the concrete and the sheet steel. I was thinking this might be a solution, just drill a hole and epoxy a large PCV tube inside the hold in the concrete. I have done this before on construction slab work, should work here,
Cheers,
Mike
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I have been thinking about trying to drill out the blocked drain but it is, of course, in the rear and difficult to access with the enclosure mounted. The main concern I have is making a mess out of the chip tray as the bit would need to break through the angled side of the tray. Your drains are in a much better position.
I am also thinking about cutting an access window into the rear enclosure panel, which would make drilling out the drain easier. I received some router cut PC panels from sendcutsend last night to try to rework the leaky doors. If that goes well, I will think hard about how to put an access port into the enclosure.
I picked up a couple of these shower drains from Amazon. I’m hoping they will be pretty robust since they are stainless and by running the drain straight down through the bottom of the machine and having externally run coolant return lines it will be a more effective drain system. I’ll put a scotchbrite pad in the drain for a chip filter too.
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Just to throw it out there, sealing washers are available and pretty cheap up to 1" on McMaster.
94709A214 for example.
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Hey Carter,
We need your e-mail and password to see the McMaster part. Please post. 
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Funny guy!
I don’t own an MR-1 yet but as I was reading this thread I thought the same thing. Why on earth put the tubes and elbows in the concrete instead of just going straight through the pan and then put the tubes under the machine so you always have access. Do you pics of your finished install?
To put the drains in the very corner, there is no straight through path due to the wall slope of the pan. But yeah kind of odd considering ease of other options.
If you keep the drains in the OEM location, then the most direct path is to use some 1/2" CPVC 45. They are an almost perfect fit for offsetting the hole to keep the drain within the legs.
Has anyone measured up the factory drain size and location for the 5th drain on the factory assemble MR-1?
Before I pour concrete, I’d like to make one. LS won’t sell one yet because they’re backlogged and they don’t have an STL from which I can make one.
If anyone can measure up the sizes and location (distance from back lip), I can make one myself.
Thanks,
Steve
you are over thinking it, buy a floor drain from amazon and install it behind the plate.
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Thanks! I’ll take a look.