Update....
Note to self.... if you want an external trigger to work you must ENABLE the damn thing (smacks self in forehead)

Flood Cooling Components and Estimated Costs

Flood cooling reservoir, pump, nozzle, tubing, filter:

www.use-enco.com 296-2030 ~80$

Flood Coolant (tri-cool) 296-2345 ~30$ (makes 10 gal minimum depending on machining) looks to be similar to antifreez, wash hands thuroughly after using.

Extra tubing
Home depot, 1/2" OD ~3$/20ft

Vynil floor protectant for flexible semi-clear screen
Home depot 12ft 50cents/foot

Cage around setup
Two rack mount racks, scrapped. Free if you can find someone throwing them out

18" x 24" 080 plexiglass 5$

24"x36" plexiglass 15$

Whole bunch of clamps 1-2$/ea

Plastic tub (largest one you can find with only 6" depth) 15$

calking (anything that will adhere to tub) 3-6$


Cost of not having to watch the mill like a hawk with oil bottle and not having to manually move away shavings.... priceless

Flood Cooling FRICKIN ROCKS

Let me just say this. Flood cooling frickin rocks! Here are some pictures of it.



Anyways, I can not recommend highly enough that those of you interested get into home machining, it is great fun and gives you a much better understanding of what can actually be made.

Side note number two. Those cheap endmills from ebay are really really really bad. Just buy some from www.use-enco.com and you will get better endmills for about the same price. DO NOT CHEAP OUT TOO MUCH WITH YOUR ENDMILLS OR YOU WILL GET CRAPPY CUTS.

Preview of the Flood Cooled 3 Axis Mill

Here is the taig mill.

And here is the rest of the stuff (sans computer/drivers for the stepper motors). The blue pail is a flood coolign setup.

Here are some pictures of my Karlsruhe's laser cut and etched superstructure (my design) there are some small bits that need adding still.





And here is my personal favorite. my cnc gearbox designed and cnc'd by me.

rough dimensions 2.5 inches by 0.8 inches with a rounded part to fit into the inside of the hull. (not including motor). the motor is a 100W brushless motor. next on the agenda is an aluminum sealed box for the mamba reversing brushless ESC. Probably followed by a box for a 3 series lithium polymer battery pack. (or I might cheap out and just go for the round cells)