JNieman
Titanium
- Joined
- Nov 12, 2011
- Location
- Greater St Louis Area
We're looking to replace our lone waterjet, a 60ksi Flow IFB Dynamic Waterjet. After a lot of looking around, I'd appreciate any input y'all may have.
We don't do a lot of light-gauge stuff, but do have some 22-16ga stainless work that gets bent and welded. We do some 16-11ga carbin steel stuff. Other than that, it's typically 3/8" thk and higher, with the thicker end being around 2-1/2" aluminum and the occasional 6 or 8" thk aluminum plate. The big stuff is usually just cutting out blanks to throw into a large mill fixture, not making finished parts. I'd say the mix of "cutting blanks" vs "making finished parts" is 50/50 give or take.
That said, everyone (including me) who has to work on that Flow we have right now: hates it. It's a maintenance PITA, but it may also be things brought on by ourselves over the years.
My main concerns are accuracy, and maintenance TIME. In order of priority, I would say:
1) Downtime for maintenance
2) Time required doing preventive maintenance even though machine is running (our waterjet operator is also our welder and general fabricator. Rather have him doing paying work than not, and our maintenance guy is sometimes busy with other machines)
3) Linear & Positional accuracy & repeatability.
and
4) The easier it is to teach other people in the future, the better, but I expect that's basically a wash among any waterjet machines.
We don't really do high qty production, other than intermittent jobs, making blanks for bigger vertical mills.
Does anyone have any experience with these models or at least input between makers? All we have experience with is Flow, but I've heard lots of great things of Omax.
Oh, and taper compensation is a must, and it's already been in our quotes.
In the end, the total machine costs are w/in 15% of eachother which isn't going to be a sole-decider.
We don't do a lot of light-gauge stuff, but do have some 22-16ga stainless work that gets bent and welded. We do some 16-11ga carbin steel stuff. Other than that, it's typically 3/8" thk and higher, with the thicker end being around 2-1/2" aluminum and the occasional 6 or 8" thk aluminum plate. The big stuff is usually just cutting out blanks to throw into a large mill fixture, not making finished parts. I'd say the mix of "cutting blanks" vs "making finished parts" is 50/50 give or take.
That said, everyone (including me) who has to work on that Flow we have right now: hates it. It's a maintenance PITA, but it may also be things brought on by ourselves over the years.
My main concerns are accuracy, and maintenance TIME. In order of priority, I would say:
1) Downtime for maintenance
2) Time required doing preventive maintenance even though machine is running (our waterjet operator is also our welder and general fabricator. Rather have him doing paying work than not, and our maintenance guy is sometimes busy with other machines)
3) Linear & Positional accuracy & repeatability.
and
4) The easier it is to teach other people in the future, the better, but I expect that's basically a wash among any waterjet machines.
We don't really do high qty production, other than intermittent jobs, making blanks for bigger vertical mills.
Does anyone have any experience with these models or at least input between makers? All we have experience with is Flow, but I've heard lots of great things of Omax.
Oh, and taper compensation is a must, and it's already been in our quotes.
In the end, the total machine costs are w/in 15% of eachother which isn't going to be a sole-decider.