New Group Discussion: Continuous flow water vs geyser in the pan water in cabbing machines. Today manufacturers of cabbing machines for grinding and sanding are offering two different methods of putting water on the wheels. One is the old method used with silicon carbide wheels of continuous flow. The other has been around now about a quarter century and consists of an air pump device that sits in the pan that sprays water to contact the bottom of the wheels above. I have personally used both methods and will make some introductory comments here. The purpose of this discussion is to inform new buyers of cabbing machines who may have never used either water supply method and perhaps think that the continuous flow method is new. It is not and, in fact, it was replaced with what most people thought at the time was a superior method...the geyser in the pan method. Some background first: It is interesting to a person like me who started on silicon carbide to watch the rediscovery of continuous flow water for cabbing equipment. It was necessary to use continuous flow on silicon carbide grinding and sanding wheels because of the high volume of abrasive that comes off those wheels as they are used. It would never work to use the geysers aka sprayers on those as grit contamination would be terrible. There are pros and cons on continuous flow vs the sprayer/geyser water supply. When I switched to my Diamond Pacific Genie I much preferred the new type over the old continuous flow. Its not perfect but those of you who opt for the continuous flow will soon come to understand the drawbacks of that. The good news is that if you get a machine that uses continuous flow and want to switch to geyser it will be simple and inexpensive to do so. Back in the days when every cabbing machine had to use continuous flow we didnt complain. It was the only alternative. I only remember that when I first used the sprayer in the water pan I immediately preferred it to continuous. With sprayer you must clean out the pan. This is something I do after every session of work sometimes twice if I am doing a lot of work. I put the water in old plastic jugs to let the sediment settle out then pour the water on plants in the yard. 1/ In the days of silicon carbide we would plumb directly to the cold line in the basement or run a copper line to the shop area in the garage. The water would always be very cold on the hands. This could be avoided by setting up a mixed water source so temperature could be adjusted but would involve more plumbing. The valves we used were brass and could control normal household water pressure. Im not so sure that present valves on new continuous flow machines could take the pressure. If you use a over head gravity feed for the water you could put any temperature water in it you wanted. But, you have to keep replenishing the water source. 2/ The pump ( Diamond Pacific ) or sprayer must be cared for. For my genie and Titan this means a few drops of oil every so often. I have never had a DP pump fail. With continuous you have multiple valves and all the tubing/pipe connections. 3/ With continuous flow you will have higher volume of waste water. You cannot just pour this down your household drain before it has settled out or you will clog your drains. You will need room for buckets or plastic jars of water to settle several days at a minimum. You CAN toss the water in your yard or on your flower beds. However, if you use a powder polish like cerium oxide you will not want to toss this in the yard...probably anyway. 4/ Continuous flow puts the fresh water on top of the wheel. The water has just hit the wheel when it gets to your work. With the spayer/geyser in the pan the water hits on the bottom of the wheel and is well distributed before it comes around and reaches your hands and your work. It is difficult to describe but I have better visibility of the work with spray putting water, even cloudy, on the bottom of the wheel than on the top. You have to use more water on the wheel when using continuous flow. In my 25+ years of using continuous flow with silicon carbide wheels then another 25+ using the sprayer approach I was never tempted to return to continuous. You have to clean out the pan and deal with a small volume of water with the sprayer...neither method is without maintenance requirements. Please share your thoughts and experiences on this thread. Photos of your cabbing unit showing water connections, reservoirs, drains, geysers, pumps etc are all welcome. You may also want to recommend certain machines but please keep in mind that while links to manufacturers websites are allowed links to individual dealers who sell equipment are not. This video shows using a grinding wheel with under wheel sprayer. The machine is a Diamond Pacific Titan. This machine is designed for 8 wheels but I use 6 to have more working space. Even with the smaller wheels the factory supplied geyser in the pan wets the wheels very well. Visible in the video is the fact that the water is well distributed on the wheel by the time it reaches the grinding position. Water volume on the wheel and work is perfectly adequate for cooling and removal of cuttings. In an overhead continuous water supply the water isnt as well distributed when it reached the work and more spray is produced along with obscuring of the work on the grinding wheel. This video is about face polishing an agate which in most cases requires better water flow than grinding a cabochon. Your thoughts, experiences, and comments please!
Posted on: Sat, 10 Jan 2015 22:31:27 +0000
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