I’m curious how y’all clean your tables, specifically getting the water out. I want to drain our table to give the machine a good cleaning and replace the water/green cut mixture that’s gotten kinda nasty due to the amount of use it’s been getting. I know there’s a drain at the bottom, but I haven’t used it yet so I’m assuming I can hook up a garden hose to it and then … do people just have a drain or something nearby for the hose to go to, or have it flow into a bucket and dispose of it?
@Ron_Olson I would recommend using a drum, and discarding the greencut - water mixture with a proper local disposal company. When I drain tables for cleaning, drain as much as you can with a hose, then start draining with 5 gallon buckets. As things slow down, I start squeegeeing over excess gunk and fluid to the drain. I then use some Simple Green degreaser to wipe things down before adding fresh water and Greencut.
I personally haven’t done that. Doesn’t mean it wouldn’t work. Just lots of dumping into a drum. Actually a wet vac would be a good idea for the final cleanup, cause there is always left over standing coolant. I’m actually a little annoyed I didn’t think of doing that rather than scrapping the left over toward the drain.
@Waterppk has a great solution to draining his plasma. He runs a makerspace and has connected his 1300PL to a sump container under the table. He uses a ball valve on the drain to drain to the sump, then a sump pump to pump back into the table before use. I think he did this to fight evaporative losses during the intermittent use the machine sees at the makerspace. Perhaps he can post a few pics?
Stock tank from a farm supply store underneath with a 90* and a ball valve on the drain. I think we welded in a fitting in one or the other of those locations so FYI your table may not have bungs in the same place:
As Rogge said this allows us to drain the table to control evaporation (we just run Sodium Nitrite, 5 grams to 5 gallons and you can see it pretty effectively controls rust), also helps to keep our shop cat safe from random liquids and makes cleaning the table a simple process as it’s dried out between uses.
Regular sump pump with ONE important trick, cheapest PVC check valve (~1.5", larger reduces back pressure) to keep the water from draining back through the pump. Not shown in a piece of C channel sitting on top of the feed water into the table that keeps the table from turning into a fountain water feature by directing the water sideways, piece of angle iron/etc would work too it’s not fixed in place just sitting on top of the inlet:
We installed a cheap relay inline on the 120V for the sump pump to shut the table down when it’s full. Float switch was found “upstairs”, I’m sure something similar can be found online. It’s warded in the corner of the table with some angle iron and red powder coat to hopefully reduce people smashing stock into it:
