Water jet heating up the water

We are also in the process of shopping for a water-jet machine.

One thing that has been brought up is that the water is going to heat up from use. Anyone out there running their water-jet in a production type application and have experienced the hot water? How hot does it get? What do you do to mitigate the heat? Do you have any problems keeping tolerances?

We're just trying to get a feel of how much this will affect what we are trying to do.

thanks!

mike

At our heaviest production, we run it for about 14-16 hours a day, but typically just 8. Right now it's more like 12-14. The water may get warm but it's not "hot" that I've ever noticed. It might get up to nearing a bath-temperature, around 95F but I haven't experienced any hotter. Flow IFB_DWJ, 60ksi. We normally run thick stuff.

Thanks! We're probably thinking that we might be running almost 2 full shifts. Good to know!

I've run over 20-30 hours straight and the tank water is just warm. You do need a source of chilled water to keep the hydraulics in the pump cool though. A constant bleed of of city water works, but you have to figure it into operational costs vs. running a refrigerated chiller.

Don't know who you are considering, but I love my WardJet. You should take a look.

Omax, Flow and Ward are our 3 choices so far with each having their own goods and bads.

Omax is probably leading the pack so far as they gave us the best results with our test cutting and they have been super helpful with us.

Ward actually gave us the worst results and the worst cutting time by a lot - like double what the other guys did. I like those guys but we're kind of looking for a "turnkey" system - work with the manufacturers for the first piece and we can use that to 'figure out' the rest of them. We don't really want to drop a machine down and then spend the time to 'figure out' how to do what we want to do. Flow and Omax gave us almost exactly what we were looking for on the first attempt with minimal input from us.

What kind of work are you doing with your Ward machine? How fussy are your tolerances?

We are still 'shopping'. I'm totally open to hear what people have to say about their water-jet machines. I reckon the more information I can gather, the better!. Especially when the price is a lot.

thanks

We were/are pricing a waterjet replacement for our Flow. Our purchaser called Ward just to get their numbers in the stack to compare. When he told the Ward rep he had prices for an Omax and Flow, the Ward guy told him he wouldn't compete and not to bother getting a quote. I guess they try to hit a budget number instead of performance comparison.

JNieman said:

We were/are pricing a waterjet replacement for our Flow. Our purchaser called Ward just to get their numbers in the stack to compare. When he told the Ward rep he had prices for an Omax and Flow, the Ward guy told him he wouldn't compete and not to bother getting a quote. I guess they try to hit a budget number instead of performance comparison.

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Yikes Ward must be covered up with work

TurboGuy said:

What kind of work are you doing with your Ward machine? How fussy are your tolerances?

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Mostly aluminum and stainless to 1" thick with 80 mesh garnet abrasive. A little foam with pure water. Using a Accustream/Hypertherm DiaLine cutting head and Wardjet E-1530 gantry style machine with Z-height control, Flow 9XS at 55ksi. Happily holding 0.005" on ID/OD measurements with some taper as expected as thickness goes up and nozzles and sapphire orifices wear (haven't tried diamond yet). Mostly fabrication and some machine blanks for VMC so nothing too critical for my needs.

Still learning, but I like their welded grates over slats that Flow uses, and also their WardCAM software for programming directly from .dxf files. I've used a Flow cantilever style and I think Ward's edge quality is better. They are also only a couple of hours away. When I visited they seem to be a full service turnkey supplier able to custom tailor a system with any auxiliary automation or high speed option you would need. I'm surprised by your expectations were not initially met.