[Bob La Londe]

Just use a swamp cooler pump my foot!

First off most regular swamp cooler pump motors vent out the bottom, so the obvious answer of cutting a hole in a bucket lid and letting the head rest on the lid is a bad idea. It needs some open air space below the motor to cool properly. Next, they are all to darn short to just use a convenient cheap bucket. Sure you could stick them 3-4" into the coolant, but that leaves you having a whole bunch of un-useable coolant below the pump. Much more than you will ever need for unfiltered chip settling.

Of course my Little Giant Coolant system on the Taig basically looks like a tub with a swamp cooler pump in it, so that muddies the water so to speak. I think it only holds a little over a gallon of liquid, the motor vents to the sides near the bottom, and I bet if I measure it the distance from the bottom of the motor housing to the impeller housing is a couple inches further.

I am fixing that. Now I just need to look through my stock and scrap for the right piece of metal to make the drive shaft extension.

[Bob La Londe]

Its not done, but its starting to look ok. All of the flat sheet of this enclosure is 0.125" 5052 marine grade aluminum. Its pretty weathered from sitting outside, and to be honest I doubt that I will polish it. I kind of like the "steam punk" look it has with its non-uniform weathering and screw heads showing everywhere. LOL.

I do need to get some shorter screws for those bearings though. Either that or make little spikes to screw on the back sides where they stick up. LOL.

The reason for three top rollers is so that when the door is fully closed or fully open the top edge will always be supported by atleast two bearings. The doors open the full width of the enclosure.

Those are mid price 608 skate bearings. They cost about a dollar a pice, although if you look around they can be had cheaper.