2 months by cncdivi
I remember the first time I saw a Lang Chip Fan. A friend showed me on his VMC and we both had ear to ear grins in no time. Imagine a tool that sits in your carousel. Load it up in the machine spindle, spin the spindle, and fan blades pop out to blow away machine coolant and chips:
The idea is a simple one, but effective. Rather than blowing coolant and chips off the part with an air gun, and getting the back spray from all that while standing in the machine’s open door, you program a pass with flood running to wash down the part real good, and then take a pass with the chip fan to blow away the coolant and any remaining debris. Anyone who has blown coolant out of a deep pocket where a considerable amount of coolant will have collected can understand the value of this approach. Fan Blades inside a closed enclosure for the win!
Here’s another species of chip fan, from Hoss over on the CNCZone. Hoss always seems to have some interesting project underway and lately I have been impressed by the rapid prototyping capabilities his 3D printer provides. Based on the suggestion of one of his readers, he put together this chip fan:
This is a little different concept, though it could be used in the same way as the Lang chip fan. Instead, Hoss is running his chip fan coaxially with an endmill to continuously clear chips.
Just want a chip fan that can go in your end mill holder or collet chuck? How about this chip fan with cylindrical shank from Big Kaiser:
Best Deal on a Chip Fan?
My friend John Bower over at Santa Cruz Electronics (our local Tormach dealer) has the best deal ever on chip fans. As I write this he has them listed on his eBay store for $25:
https://www.ebay.com/usr/santacruzelectronics
Wow, great price! Just a warning, he has been threatening to go up a bit on that price, so hurry if you want the best deal.
They’re also listed on his online store: https://www.santacruzelectronics.com/forms/Query.cfm?do=detail&q_part=CHIP%20FAN%20160&q_StartRow=1
Here’s some photos of what they look like up close and personal:
Typical packaging…
Here’s what you get inside…
Fan blades are spring loaded…
They start to open at 500 rpm…
Note that any chip fan is limited to a maximum operating speed in most cases.
Pretty neat addition to your machine tools for removing machined material chips and excess coolant. I would have one for every mill in my shop (in fact I do, LOL!).
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Recently updated on February 4th, 2024 at 06:50 am
Bob is responsible for the development and implementation of the popular G-Wizard CNC Software. Bob is also the founder of CNCCookbook, the largest CNC-related blog on the Internet.
Hmm, I’d rather get the chips out of the way while cutting 🙂
I use a Cold Air Gun
https://www.vortec.com/cold-air-guns
Cools the work and blow the chips away.
Ralph
Ralph, I’ve got a couple Vortecs I used to use before I had enclosures and switched to flood. They don’t produce anywhere near the air volume a chip fan will, but they do help keep parts cool.
We’ve got a couple of the Big Kaiser chip fans in our Brother machines and they’re awesome. They’re not cheap but when you look at the amount of time our machine operators spent with a blow gun before unloading a machine, the price is a no brainer.
My coworker and I designed and 3D printed a design each, and while there were some printing issues involving support or program errors, once we finally sorted it out and got the whole thing printed (Kaiser style) we tested it. After slowly ramping up the RPMs by 200 increments, we got from 2000 to 6400 when the stem that is held by the collet snapped. The fan part momentarily dropped and then from the force of the wind that the fan generates it proceeded to fly across the room (non-enclosed machine for large parts). We remedied this by drilling a hole, and fastening a bolt to the fan blade and were able to reach speeds of 9600 RPMs before we decided just to back off…
3D printing is certainly possible, however we have to redesign and try again. In order to clear aluminum and steel, we need a lot of air– so right now, we are still using an air hose with a bower attachment to remove the debris.
Looks like they have something called a Chip Blower now too: https://youtu.be/Hq90pzuCHtQ