Quote:
Originally posted by unregistered
dumb, as in seriously stupid
what is the lube for the (mag drive) pump shaft ?
and the plastic is rated for slurry service ?
jeez
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Glad to see you think outside the box often, bill. I understand your concern about the mag-drive shaft lube. Many mag-drive pumps have a plastic bushing riding on either a ceramic shaft. I would imagine that running this slurry will "impregnate" the plastic with aluminum/copper powder very quickly, but how much of an effect will that have on pump life? Will aluminum or copper powder have much of an effect on a ceramic shaft?
I've been running one of these pumps in a flood coolant system without problems on my mill for about 6 months now at about 72 hours per week. It routinely pumps chips smaller than 0.030" without problems, and sometimes larger chips pass through it as well.
"...one is tempted to ask for what great occasion are the brains being reserved ?"
One might ask the same thing about investing $15,000 into thermal testing equipment, but I'm sure that we've both learned to filter out the naysayers.
I do believe this is possible to do in a ball mill. I worked at a cement plant for about 2 years and I have seen rock crushed (in ball and rod mills) to such a fine powder that it would pass through a T-shirt almost as if it were water. Waste fuels, including the occasional contaminated steel barrel, were also crushed in ball mills in much the same way. I'm sure I could look up screen sizes if you're really interested. Talking with pyrotechnicians, many metals are powdered this way to make the nice colors you see in fireworks. Other things such as makeup, beauty powders, and spices are all crushed in ball mills. They are very efficient.
although this may be a total waste of time, it is very cheap to try out. Let's say I destroy a pump and 5 feet of tubing. I'm out $15. That's pretty cheap, IMO.