Stumbled on a coolant trick after 8 years of fighting with fogged up windows

Had been running standard water-based coolant on my Haas for about a week straight on a big aluminum job and the shop humidity was making the windows on the machine look like frosted glass. Couldn't see a thing, had to keep stopping to wipe them down. Monday I had a random thought to bump the coolant concentration up from 5% to 7% after reading some forum post about surface tension. The fog cleared up completely within an hour and my visibility stayed solid for the rest of the run. Has anyone else played with coolant mix to fix window fogging or is that just a weird one-off thing for me?

2 comments

2 Comments

simon_wood7221d ago

Honestly that makes total sense when you think about it. Higher coolant concentration means less water in the mix, so there's less moisture to evaporate and fog up the glass. Tbh it's the same reason why a higher alcohol content in windshield washer fluid stops it from freezing and fogging in winter. Ngl I've been messing with ratios for years on different machines and this is just one of those little tricks that actually works but nobody talks about.

oliver52320d ago

Ngl I had the same issue with my old truck. I tried everything - new vent settings, cleaning the windows, even checked the AC drain. What finally worked for me was switching to a 70/30 mix instead of the standard 50/50. Tbh I thought it was just a waste of money at first but the difference was night and day. No more wiping the windshield every five minutes. Honestly sometimes the simplest fix is the one you overlook.