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Wazer introduces the first desktop water-jet cutter
- rotten 10y agoThis was on kickstarter here: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1294137530/the-first-desktop-waterjet-cutter?ref=nav_search https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1294137530/the-first-de... It is a little pricey, but pretty cool.
- bambax 10y agoVery cool, but the price of the abrasive seems high; why does it have to be disposed of instead of reused?
- emeraldd 10y agoProbably because it is full of bits of whatever is being cut and can't easily be filtered after a run.
- maga 10y agoDepending on the material being cut there are might be ways. If the weight densities of the abrasive and the material differ enough we can try simple density separation. If the abrasive isn't magnetic while the material is, we can use magnets to do the same. In both cases, the big question would be how much impurities in the abrasive can the machine tolerate. If machine is somewhat tolerant, and impurities do not threaten its mechanisms, these simple methods can be economical for small businesses working with specific materials.
- RankingMember 10y agoThat struck me as well. The abrasive cost looks to be the killer there.
- everyone 10y agoLets say you only cut steel. Then the steel particles could be filtered out with magnets. I suppose its much more common to want to work with steel than glass or ceramics.
- __jal 10y agoNobody I've heard of recycles garnet. It is considered part of the cost of operation.
- dsfyu404ed 10y agoIf you only cut steel you should be buying a plasma cutter.
- abakker 10y agoThis 100%. Water jet is great when you need to cut things that don't cut well any other way (tiles, glass,stainless steel, hardened tool steel). Otherwise, plasma, laser, router, mill, etc are all nicer and easier to work with. Yeah, I'd love to have a water jet for making tools, but I've learned to live with the fact that these kind of things are better owned by someone else.
- convolvatron 10y agoidk, plasma leaves a lot of slag and depending on the application requires substantial finishing work. mill is fine but has a limited work area (like this waterjet), and at least in my shop, cutter lifetimes aren't great. Thats probably because i don't have the best processes. Also holding down sheets well enough is a substantial hassle unless you're set up for a particular run. Metal routers are really noisy and are arguably more of a hassle than mills. but I totally agree with your last point, its less convenient, but doing small to medium runs though a local water jet shop is pretty cost effective. Its mildly pricy but they will source standard material for you, and you pick up clean parts a day or two later. even ignoring maintenance - dealing with the up front cost, the consumable cost, and renting enough space to keep the thing is a pretty serious commitment. I have free access to a 4x8 cnc plasma gantry and I still send out quite a bit of work to the water jet place.
- nraynaud 10y agoI studied a bit the question, in the waterjet cutting industry nobody reuses it. Basically it becomes rounder after use. A bit like the difference between river sand and desert sand.
- DannyBee 10y agoAmong other things, it gets used up, it may become too fine to cut the kerf at that IPM, it may also have impurities, etc. Depending on the abrasive, it's theoretically reusable, but that would be very hard to quality control (even assuming you separate it effectively from the material). This is one reason waterjets often get used only when other ways of cutting are not effective. Also note: for things like wood, you can probably water jet them without abrasive.
- kyzyl 10y agoIn principle it can be done, of course, but it wouldn't be economical. The abrasive sludge that accumulates in the bottom of the machine is full of large and small bits of various different materials, which complicates filtering. Even if you only cut a single material, you end up with significant amounts of abraded metal from the machine parts (slats, fittings, clamps, etc.). You would also have to spend a significant amount of energy evaporating and drying the sludge. In any case, the main problem is that the abrasive garnet particles become decidedly less abrasive once they've been smashed into a piece of steel at 75000psi. Think of it like one of those tumblers you use to smooth and polish stones to make them pretty. EDIT: As someone else mentioned, it's also a QC issue. Even with brand new abrasive, you sometimes get the tiniest bit of something the wrong size or weight and the solenoid feeder gets jammed and has to be take apart. Recycled sand and who knows what else would be a nightmare. Waterjets are enough work to keep running as it stands ;-) Source: ~7 years of using an Omax waterjet cutter.
- weberc2 10y agoWhat's the advantage of water vs metal blades? Do metal blades not cut through glass/porcelain/etc well?
- mcphage 10y agoIn addition to what others said, inside holes are a lot easier.
- Terr_ 10y agoIANAWaterJetGuy, but I think a big draw is that (A) you can make arbitrary cuts and very turns and (B) less risk of shattering brittle substances.
- mey 10y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_jet_cutter#Benefits https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_jet_cutter#Benefits
- clarry 10y agoWaterjet & laser have cut through a small point that can follow any programmed 2D path and can start a hole in the middle of a sheet. By contrast blades are often very restricted as far as shapes go. Imagine cutting a disk with a band saw. A wire saw can get closer, but you don't start a hole with one, and AIUI it's quite slow (a thin wire is fragile, you can't feed hard). Milling tools can likewise follow arbitrary paths but usually the tools are unnecessarily large for cutting a shape out of a sheet. So you have higher forces and need better clamping and waste more material. Tiny milling tools exist but again you run into issues with fragility & low feeds, high rpm requirements, coolant, tool wear, etc. And the depth of cut tends to be very limited. All of the said methods will leave burrs instead of a nice smooth cut. The setup for laser cutting can be very very simple.
- weberc2 10y agoI was indeed picturing a mill setup. I guess the cost of the abrasive seems higher than the costs associated with material loss, coolant, etc at the hobbyist scale, but I'm also not particularly familiar with this domain.
- duskwuff 10y agoHuh, another puff piece about a crowdfunding project on an IEEE blog. Is this a trend? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12950781 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12950781
- mcphage 10y agoMmmmmm... gritty steak, my favorite.
- adevine 10y agoYeah, I would think the abrasives used in the cutter are not exactly food safe.
- Cerium 10y agoCutting food is actually one of the number one uses for waterjet machines. Ever wonder how salad mix is cut without crushed edges changing color? Or how do you cut rice crispies without accumulating marshmallow on the knifes? Waterjets (without grit) are wonderful tools for cutting foods. Also, without grit they are unable to cut steel, so the waterjet will not cut through the bed. Degradation of the bed is a significant problem with steel cutting waterjet machines.
- chromaton 10y agoFood and other soft materials are cut without abrasives, using water only.
- gnicholas 10y agoharder problem: cutting the steak in a shape so that after it's cooked it looks like the US.
- lotyrin 10y agoCould probably train a network to look at the marbling and determine the deformation within decent bars with enough before/after shots. Might put some pounds on generating the training set though...
- noonespecial 10y agoOdd that they don't want to let anyone know the operating pressure. They seemed to spend an inordinate amount of song-and-dance dodging the "whats the pressure" question.
- __jal 10y agoIt is odd. That was my first question, having used a more traditional (==much larger) one. I have trouble figuring how the cutting speeds claimed jibe with the overall weight of the device. Not calling it out, just saying based on their numbers, that seems like quite a lightweight tank for the kind of pressure used for cutting, for instance, stainless steel.
- DannyBee 10y agoI'm also kinda wildly interested how they keep vibration down, given the operating pressure, etc
- extrapickles 10y agoI wouldn't be surprised if its what a standard pressure washer can do (3k PSI) as they claim to use parts from "other industries". I doubt the pressures are much above 10k PSI as there isn't the power to generate those pressures with a reasonable flow from a standard US outlet.
- foofoo55 10y agoUsing gpm=(hp x 1715 x efficiency)/psi and allowing for 90% pump efficiency along with max 1.93 hp continuous from a 15A 120VAC receptacle, we can simplify the pumping-water-with-a-North-American-receptacle equation to gpm=3000/psi. So 10k psi outputs only 0.3 gpm, 3000psi outputs 1gpm, and 2000psi spits out 1.5 gpm (the latter of which matches the output from the top electric pressure washers).
- Cerium 10y agoAnd since they said that it uses 10-20% the water of a standard shower head... A modern shower head uses about 2gpm, so we are talking about 0.2 to 0.4gpm. That would give us a pressure of about 7500 to 15000psi using your equation.
- guard-of-terra 10y agoIf you're curious how these things look like: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PCsoC3i7JYc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PCsoC3i7JYc (this is some other waterjet cutter obviously) Looks amazing.
- exhilaration 10y agoGreat video!
- kazinator 10y agoThe difficult thing in water jet cutting, historically, was the development of nozzles that can withstand the abrasive fluid. These parts have to shoot a jet of fluid which can cut through steel and ceramic; but themselves cannot be easily cut by the passage of that fluid. I'd be concerned about the life of the nozzles and the cost and availability of replacement parts.
- chromaton 10y agoAll of the hydraulic components in a waterjet are subject to wear: hoses, connectors, etc. The nozzle is considered an item that you simply have to replace regularly, kind of like windshield wipers on a car. The pump is one of the larger and more expensive components of the waterjet cutting system and also tends to fail at inconvenient times.
- deegles 10y agoHow would a failure ever be at a convenient time? :)
- AtheistOfFail 10y agoThink about a bomb that ticks down to 0 and doesn't go off. That would be awfully convenient.
- flashman 10y agoThat's actually pretty bad because you have no idea whether it's still going to explode. Like a firework that does nothing after the fuse burns into the casing.
- Ma8ee 10y agoThe alternative is worse for everyone but the bombers. I very much prefer to have a bomb in the mall that might explode any moment to one that actually just did.
- sdegutis 10y agoTip: Make sure to turn your volume down before clicking the link.
- aaronkrolik 10y agoWhat is the base of the cutter made out of? Does the water jet defuse before hitting the base?
- chromaton 10y agoThere's typically a catch tank filled with water below the workpiece, which diffuses the stream pretty quickly. I've also heard of other materials being used, like stainless steel ball bearings.
- chromaton 10y agoBased on one of the examples on their website (the knife), I estimate that we can cut around 27 times faster on a professional waterjet machine. Given equivalent running costs, this means that 2 hours of runtime on a pro Flow or Omax machine is equal to the price of the entire Wazer. In other words, the $6000 you spend on the Wazer will buy you a LOT of complete parts from on online service like Big Blue Saw.
- Retric 10y agoLatency is a major advantage of this stuff. Do 10 examples on this as you iterate a design then 1,000 on a professional device. Even if it is really slow, you can probably use different materials and or thinner materials.
- emp_zealoth 10y agoAs other comments pointed out there seems to be an issue with max pressure it can produce. If it has to be run for hours on end it might actually be cheaper to get a local place to do it...(Not even considering the costs of maintenance and consumables, just power and initial price) I've had parts made on a crappy waterjet once and we just tossed them all out due to extreme taper (Although the company was a massive piece of shit too, used the wrong material)
- chromaton 10y agoIf you go that route, just get a laser cutter and use acrylic for prototypes.
- shagie 10y agoThe "I wish I had that" recently was for some custom one off parts for a recumbent tandem trike. The part did exist as a standard manufactured part... in Germany. There is also an online bike shop with no inventory that probably does what you describe... and at that time had a backlog of two weeks. This was for one part - a custom gear. Yes, a professional machine can do that in no time flat for less than the cost of the Wazer. No, the professional machine can't do that in the same time it takes to make the part and it was actually faster to order from Germany in this case than to try to find time on a professional machine shop somewhere. Sure, if you're going to make hundreds or thousands of the parts - thats great. But if you want one or two... not so much. Especially if that has the timeframe of "today" on it to fix that gear to go out cycling this afternoon.
- dsfyu404ed 10y agoI see this falling flat on it's face unless the table is easily expandable. Waiting a long time for a part is a much easier to deal with problem than constantly hitting the upper limit of what your machine can cut.
- elihu 10y agoLooks pretty cool, but it seems like it would be impractical to use regularly for small things due to the hassle of purchasing, storing, and disposing of large quantities of abrasives. (I wonder if higher-pressure commercial machines consume less abrasives?) My point of comparison is that I own a 45 watt laser cutter from Full Spectrum [1], which I'm pretty happy with. The machine is kind of expensive, but the cost of operating it is very low. Just have to keep the mirrors properly aligned and clean, and top off the water bucket and scoop out dead bugs from time to time. The main operating expense is the material, and I can get 1/4" or 1/8" birch ply for under a dollar a square foot. I can't cut metal or glass or ceramic or stone though, which is where a water jet would come in handy. Another advantage of a water jet is that you don't have to vent smoky exhaust. (Fortunately, I live in the top floor of an apartment, and if anyone notices they probably think I'm running a barbecue.) [1] http://fslaser.com/Product/Hobby http://fslaser.com/Product/Hobby
- atomical 10y agoIs it possible to cut metal with a more expensive laser cutter?
- auxym 10y agoYes, but in most cases you'd be looking at industrial-scale machines. Better find a smaller local shop and send them a .dxf, they'll have better access to raw material anyways. Buying sheet metal in small quantities is expensive and a pain. Small laser cutters are really fun though. Other interesting materials (besides wood) that can be laser cut with good results are acrylic and delrin. Delrin has great mechanical properties but can't really be glued effectively. Acrylic cracks easily but has the advantage of being easily "welded" with some solvents (acetone can work in a pinch but isn't the best, dichloromethane is great but requires most safety precautions).
- elihu 10y agoSure, but it takes a lot of power to do it and the price goes up really fast. I think once you get over about 100 or 150 watts it's possible to cut thin metals. To cut think plate steel takes a lot more. Since I've just got a 45 watt machine, I don't have any experience with metal. (I have been wondering if I can cut copper foil tape with 45 watts, but I haven't done the experiment yet.) There are other considerations besides wattage, though. Different wavelengths are better at cutting different things. I've also heard of releasing pure oxygen at the point where you're cutting helps. (Even low-end laser cutters typically use an air compressor to blow smoke out of the way and, paradoxically, prevent the material from catching on fire.) Reflectivity can also be an issue. I know someone who runs an industrial laser cutter and they avoid brass because too much of the light just reflects back and tends to damage the machine.
- forgotAgain 10y agoSince the product doesn't actually exist yet they should perhaps say Plans rather than Introduces.
- Retra 10y agoBy "doesn't exist" do you mean "isn't for sale?"
- danielmorozoff 10y agoHow does this compare to a co2 pump laser CNC? what conditions would water jet be preferable especially because it also requires high power consumption? Co2 lasers are cheap and pretty easy to build/ maintain. They also can put out enough power to cut steel. In my experience only special optical/thermal materials like borosilicate glass or certain plastics are not good with co2 because of heat build up/ stress and fracturing properties
- Steel_Phoenix 10y agoCO2 lasers aren't great for many metals due to wavelength issues. Waterjets create essentially no heat affected zone. As an example, I've cut two inch thick black granite with a waterjet, and I'm not sure a CO2 laser would do more than scuff it. Silver seems to just reflect infrared lasers like a mirror. Some plastics make nasty fumes in a laser, but cut fine with water. When both technologies were in their earlier years, I would have taken a waterjet over a laser for most industrial uses. Now I think I'd lean more towards a fiber laser. I'm not sure how much more innovation there is left in the waterjet realm, but lasers seem to be continuing to get better.
- danielmorozoff 10y agoThanks that makes sense. What cut edge quality can waterjet achieve? It seems it would be a factor of the abrasive material particulate size. Has pure waterjet been employed (the pressure requirements would be huge I would assume but doable). I've seen directed explosive blasts + water cut through cars :) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gHJo956BtJM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gHJo956BtJM It's interesting you bring up silver/ other IR reflective materials), as I know fiber lasers cut silver. Here's a cool paper on it: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/store/10.1002/latj.201390001/asset/18_ftp.pdf;jsessionid=AE3A209E65435632EF12EE00663E72BB.f03t04?v=1&t=ivjhm9f2&s=4fcd1e0db0ec9adb9fe9e1ef8637140dc6389093&systemMessage=Wiley+Online+Library+will+be+unavailable+on+Saturday+26th+November+2016+from+07%3A00-11%3A00+GMT+%2F+02%3A00-06%3A00+EST+%2F+15%3A00-19%3A00+SGT+for+essential+maintenance.++Apologies+for+the+inconvenience http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/store/10.1002/latj.201390001/....
- ryanmarsh 10y agoThat was the ugliest steak I think I've ever seen.
- Jerry2 10y agoI've looked at the examples of things they cut with that thing [0] and the amount of time and abrasive needed to cut even a single knife blade out of steel is quite shocking: >Cut time: 118 min. | Abrasive used: 39 lb. I presume this abrasive sand, garnet, is non-recyclable? Yikes! Imagine how many bags of sand you'd need to cut a whole sheet of metal! [0] https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1294137530/the-first-desktop-waterjet-cutter?ref=nav_search https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1294137530/the-first-de...
- maxerickson 10y agoIt apparently can be recycled: http://www.thefabricator.com/article/waterjetcutting/reusing-waterjet-cutting-abrasive http://www.thefabricator.com/article/waterjetcutting/reusing... (I guess it won't be worth setting up recycling for most users of this machine) They say $0.30-$0.60 a pound (and I see lower prices suggested elsewhere), so the cost isn't astronomical.
- Jerry2 10y agoThat's an interesting link! However, like you said, you need specialized equipment to recycle it so this is not something that hobbyists or users of this machine will use since the cost will probably be more or less the same as the cost of a new bag of sand. And you're still left with the huge amount of time it takes for it to cut steel. Commercial waterjet systems can cut that blade I mentioned in seconds. Wazer took 2 hours. I think all these hobbyists and small shops that are considering this technology should beware of the cost. Suddenly, that seemingly high cost of commercial waterjet providers doesn't seem that high at all to me!
- kibwen 10y agoAFAIK garnet isn't recyclable, but it's also pretty much just sand (non-toxic, though the material you're cutting might make the resulting slurry something to avoid). To put the amount of material in perspective, the large table waterjet in the shop that I work at recently had its annual cleaning, during which over 1.5 tons of garnet mud was removed (we do use it regularly, but we're far, far from a high-volume shop). To cut a single knife blade ours would probably use less than a pound of garnet, but then again our machine cost several hundred grand. As for time, that is indeed pretty high, but it's comparable to what you'd expect from commercially-available 3D printers. DIYers wouldn't be discouraged there. For me, the biggest reservation is that 4mm of steel seems quite shallow, if indeed that is the maximum depth. (Note that I just started working at this machine shop two months ago, so I'm hardly a real expert here. :P )
- smaili 10y agoAs much as I appreciate the innovation, I'm not sure this would do well in places like California where water has become a bit more scarce than it once was.
- bpodgursky 10y agoThis is the kind of numerically illiterate logic that now requires me to ask for a glass of water at a restaurant when I'm in CA. There are probably 10+ orders of magnitude difference between the couple gallons used here and the billions of gallons used in agriculture, industry, etc. Water isn't expensive at anything less than an industrial level, and using this will have 0 impact on the water shortage.
- inimino 10y ago> numerically illiterate innumerate :)
- gregpilling 10y agoFor anyone who needs things waterjet cut (or other methods) there are a lot of metal fab shops out there, and you can get things cut cheap enough. The last water jet job I had done in a 24 hour rush was $140 for a 1 sq ft piece of aluminum 1/4" thick. It was shaped with a couple holes in it, not complex, but $140 is a long way from $6000. For speed, this thing is slow (fine for hobby use) and you may find that other processes are more appropriate - especially if you cut a lot. I have a HD Plasma that can cut 1/4" steel plate at 282 inches per minute; compare that to the 0.4" on this machine. While my machine was $60,000 and thus 10x more money, it does cut 700x faster ..... and I am going to the Fabtech show in Vegas this week because I need to go even -faster- . http://www.fabtechexpo.com/ http://www.fabtechexpo.com/ Dreaming of a Kinetic machine with dual torch heads ... http://www.kineticusa.com/products/production-spindle-drilling-cutting-machines/kinetic-k5000/ http://www.kineticusa.com/products/production-spindle-drilli... Or maybe a 6KW fiber laser ... (this video is not sped up!) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B3gMM5VSQUE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B3gMM5VSQUE Fabtech is one of those trade shows where something under a few hundred thousand dollars seems cheap!
- pelario 10y agoI totally lost my respect to IEEE as a "serious organization" when I saw they were advertising [1] their start-up event with the title "Everything you know about startup success is wrong" 1: http://postimg.org/image/cz2rbvifz/ http://postimg.org/image/cz2rbvifz/
- brutus1213 10y agoAre you a mechanical engineer by training? I'd like to learn more about hw fabrication.
- detritus 10y agoThe speed of the Waser was the first thing I paid attention to upon hearing about it so long ago - I'm sure it'd be great as a toolshop or hackerspace tool, or perhaps even educational, but there's no way I could use this commercially to complement existing laser and CNC capabilities, so I'll just keep outsourcing. A shame, as I'd really like to get on the first rung of water-cutting - it's an incredibly versatile tool. . Your 6Kw fibre laser video has me looking at my own laser machine quite ruefully :)
- Animats 10y agoThis is a messy process, unlike laser cutting. The Kickstarter videos gloss over that. (They also avoid showing video of the thing cutting at actual speed.) The tank fills up with water and garnet sludge. A lot of sludge. They don't show cleaning out the tank. I've used TechShop's Flow waterjet cutters a few times. They're way overkill for most TechShop jobs, being able to cut 4 inches of steel plate 8 by 8 feet. TechShop's people are looking at the Wazer. The big question is operating costs. If the Wazer goes through its consumables fast, it could be too expensive to run. It's useful to have a small waterjet, but it's not clear that a really slow waterjet is useful. Especially if it chews up more garnet per cut. Still, it could be great for thin sheet metal jobs. I hope this thing ships. Remember GlowForge, the low-cost laser printer? That's been hyped for two years now, and holds the all-time Kickstarter pre-order record, $28 million, beating out the Pebble watch. But it hasn't shipped. Currently they're claiming they will ship by the end of December 2016.
- jeron 10y agowhy would you use a Rolex to show off your water-jet cutter? So many harder yet less expensive things to demo...
- jordanwallwork 10y agoHoly cow, the addition of a set of legs costs an additional $250?! Who the hell could ever justify such a price increase to save a bit of worktop space?
- detritus 10y agoCustom options on small-run hardware is invariably quite high because of the cost to manufacture and the small end-market. Compared to options on other machines out there it actually feels quite cheap to me (even in current GBP terms). I'd not fault them for this.
- jlebrech 10y agovery interesting, except for the destruction of a rolex watch.
- JoeAltmaier 10y agoThe kickstarter page has a 'preorder' button. So did Kickstarter give up on the 'donate to fund artistic endeavor/get a premium' model, and just switch to selling things now?
- estefan 10y agoSeriously, why has it taken so long for me to be able to get a steak in the shape of the US?