I think this finishes my coolant/Chip bin upgrades for now. I am quite pleased with the quality of the Litecycle chip bin mod, the front plate is really nicely done and the other components are very high quality.
I also added the wash-down pump you see in the picture, along with a hose bib on the front of the Litecycle’s front panel. I 3D printed the holder for the nozzle and a short hose. Very happy with the pressure of that set up and between the coolant ring which washes most of the chips down and the hose keeping the chip tray clean is much easier.
While I am generally happy with the litecycle chip bin mod, I have found that the holes in the new tray (slanted portion) are too large and allow chips to fall through quite a bit. I’ve been keeping some HF red rags lining the bottom of the original tray to keep those chips from falling into the sump but that has to be cleaned out regularly or coolant stops flowing back into the tank.
I agree, Ian, the holes do seem too big. I have the original screen in place, and then a 120-micron one below, so not much can get into the coolant tank. However, this setup leaves a no man’s land between the stainless tray and the two filter screens, which can fill up with small chips, making cleanup a hassle.
Yup, that’s exactly the issue I’ve got using the rags instead of a screen. Recently bought some chip bags that are meant to fit the bin but haven’t been in the garage since they arrived to check fitment. They won’t solve the problem but I’m hoping they make it easier to clean that space out if all I have to do is lift the bag out and dump it.
So glad the chip bin mod is working out for you, we too use them internally and found the same issue in addition to a couple other nice to have features so we redesigned the tray to reduce the number of holes, height of the wings on the front and made it extend out further. I’ve been using the new Tray for a few months now on our internal development machines along with a couple others who have bought them and they are getting rave reviews. If you want to add the new tray they are now available on the website for purchase.
