What's new
What's new

wardjet or omax preference questions

plutoniumsalmon

Hot Rolled
Joined
May 27, 2014
Location
Los Angeles
Hello.

I'm wondering if you guys have any opinions on ward or omax waterjets. We are in the market for 5x10 and these 2 brands are the final contenders.

Thank you
 
I haven't any experience on a Omax, but I don't like how you load the plate over top of the ball screw on the Omax. I have used an older Flow cantilevered table and now a WardJet X-Series gantry style. I prefer the Wardjet. It seems much more robust. I do see the new Flow tables are gantry style now too.

The Wardjet WardCAM programming software and Ikuhlu controller software has a good workflow. Also their customer service before and after the sale is great even for us, a smaller size shop.

A few recommendations I can make:

The height sensor that automatically adjusts the height of the cutting head is a must

A spreader bar vacuum lift with three moveable 12 inch vacuum cups and a battery powered Presto lift and fork extensions make short work of loading plates less than 1000 lbs

A high pressure gauge option that is visible to the operator is very good to have

Switch to the 400+Hour diamond orifices over the 40 hour sapphire as quickly as practical

Get the wrench(es) to remove the end-bells and cylinders to service your high pressure intensifier pump seals

A utility tractor with a good size front end loader is better than a skid loader to shovel abrasive into when the tank gets full

Hypertherm/Accustream consumables, parts, and pumps are great. They have also been of great technical support in keeping our pump running good.
 
Personally, we don't have the kind of work to justify the 5 axis head, but I would not be happy with a 30 HP pump. You need to be to the north of 50hp for abrasive applications if you ask me. A orifice/nozzle of 0.10"/0.030" (80 mesh abrasive) requires 0.49 GPM at 60KSI and a 0.014"/0.040" (60 mesh abrasive) needs 0.96 GPM.

Of course with the Wardjet you can easily and pretty economically add a second offset slave head later that will increase production if you get a big piece count job. This required double the water flow of course.

If you are planning on doing water only, well 30 HP might be enough, but multiple heads may be a factor as well.

Also, I would stay away from direct drive pumps, though I doubt any of the folks you are talking to would recommend one. You really have to appreciate the simplicity and serviceability of a hydraulic intensifier pump. You cant go wrong with Accustream/Hypertherm HyPrecision series, but honestly all the intensifiers are extremely similar.

When we bought ours we had it preped. for the AROS abrasive removal system, but we never went ahead with the purchase of the diaphragm pump kit and find the 2 guys with a shovel method every 600 hours or so of cut workable.
 
Thank you both. Weirdly, I got both companies to program a sample part and the ward jet came out twice as slow with a 50 hp intensifier vs the maxien 40 hp direct. They are checking now to see if there is a messup. It was a 1inch thick plate approx 9.5 x 8.5 inches with some holes. The wardjet doesn't have the follower option as the head is the new design. The follower is coming out in 2021. The z setter is standard though. Yes cleaning out and moving stock is a big concern for us. The space is tight and there is a drop down to the ground. I'm sure we will make it work.
 
So, The orifice/nozzle combo will make a difference in the speed of the cut and also the cut quality.

Based on my calculator at 55KSI and .7 lbs/minute of abrasive:

0.010/0.030 combo expect about 1.7 inches/minute

0.014/0.040 combo expect about 2.4 inches/minute

You can probably override these to 125% if you are willing to accept an average to fair quality cut edge. And maybe 1.5 to 2 times if you will accept just a poor/sever quality.

I would expect that regardless of the machine platform the cut speeds should be similar. Wardjet is most likely using an Accustream/Hypertherm DiaLine cutting head which is what I run. Might want to examine cutting head consumables and pump rebuild costs. I generally expect about 600 hours out of a $400 diamond and 60 hours out of a $85 nozzle, but my cut quality expectations are probably higher than most. I estimate about $3.25 in pump and head consumables per hour.

I would have them actually cut samples at a couple of cut qualities for you if you are going to make comparisons. Maybe out of 1/2" or thicker plate Buy a piece of flat bar cut it in half and send one piece to each. Specify the same abrasive and orifice/nozzle combination to make it fair.
 
So, The orifice/nozzle combo will make a difference in the speed of the cut and also the cut quality.

Based on my calculator at 55KSI and .7 lbs/minute of abrasive:

0.010/0.030 combo expect about 1.7 inches/minute

0.014/0.040 combo expect about 2.4 inches/minute

You can probably override these to 125% if you are willing to accept an average to fair quality cut edge. And maybe 1.5 to 2 times if you will accept just a poor/sever quality.

I would expect that regardless of the machine platform the cut speeds should be similar. Wardjet is most likely using an Accustream/Hypertherm DiaLine cutting head which is what I run. Might want to examine cutting head consumables and pump rebuild costs. I generally expect about 600 hours out of a $400 diamond and 60 hours out of a $85 nozzle, but my cut quality expectations are probably higher than most. I estimate about $3.25 in pump and head consumables per hour.

I would have them actually cut samples at a couple of cut qualities for you if you are going to make comparisons. Maybe out of 1/2" or thicker plate Buy a piece of flat bar cut it in half and send one piece to each. Specify the same abrasive and orifice/nozzle combination to make it fair.

Hello.
Thank you. The OMAX people came in at 3.6 ipm and the wardjet people at 2.2 or something. We are hopefully overestimating the operation costs of about 50 per hour all in. Electricity, rebuilds misc. I am looking at the omax machine Monday. Will take it from there.

BTW. The wardjet is .014/.040 from what I remember. The OMAX machine is something else but it only has a 40hp pump. I am sort of confused by that as the ward is 50hp
 
All I can say is that two shops I know of replaced the direct drives with Accustream/Hypertherm intensifier pumps. I would also like to inspect that cut quality, I expect it more of a fair cut quality at 3.6 vs. a good cut quality at 2.2.
 
We use a wardjet and were sold mostly by the customer service, we have dealt with other manufacturers and have not been let down for the 3 years we have on our wardjet in quality and service.
 
OMAX OMAX OMAX. Depending on what sorts of work you do and who is running the machine, the ease of use of the software can be a big plus. At least histroically, Omax had a big advantage in this area. With Omax you can train competent 11 year olds to run it in around half an hour. My colleagues at the local university have trained around 750 engineering students to use an Omax 2652 over 13 years with no serious problems. In a situation where you are doing prototyping or making up weldment components as you go, the ability for anyone on your staff to be able to walk up and draw and cut a part in minutes is a huge plus. I describe the waterjet as "just enough CNC" for so many projects. If you haven't done this I would go through importing or drawing and then actually cutting a part with both machines and see how straightforward it really is.
 
We are going through the same process, and have narrowed it down to 5x10 water jet cutters from wardjet (model X-1530), omax (model MAXIEM 1530), and Flow (model still unclear).
Any opinions on Flow?

We have a fablab where we would be doing mostly prototypes with the occasional low volume production, we are looking at maximum flexibility in terms of materials, low maintenance overhead, and would have users that aren't experts in water-jet so it should be easy an as fool-proof as possible to do simple things.

After looking at demos from Omax and Wardjet, at a first glance Wardjet software (wardcam) seems much more user friendly than the one from omax (omax layout + omax make) for the simple 2d cutting. More complex jobs would require switching to IGEMS for wardjet, but that doesn't seem a major downside.
 
We are going through the same process, and have narrowed it down to 5x10 water jet cutters from wardjet (model X-1530), omax (model MAXIEM 1530), and Flow (model still unclear).
Any opinions on Flow?

We have a fablab where we would be doing mostly prototypes with the occasional low volume production, we are looking at maximum flexibility in terms of materials, low maintenance overhead, and would have users that aren't experts in water-jet so it should be easy an as fool-proof as possible to do simple things.

After looking at demos from Omax and Wardjet, at a first glance Wardjet software (wardcam) seems much more user friendly than the one from omax (omax layout + omax make) for the simple 2d cutting. More complex jobs would require switching to IGEMS for wardjet, but that doesn't seem a major downside.

Hello.

I am leaning towards ward. Flow took a while to respond or begin working on pricing. If you need I can share preliminary numbers and items included.I am not a big fan of the way Omax is selling the machine. For me at the moment its between flow and ward.
 








 
Back
Top