Water jet baskets

I came across this on the ol' internet and was wondering if anyone has any experience with these types of baskets or anything similar to it...

Improving Waterjet Machine Uptime with Custom Wire Baskets

I was going to have our fab guys create me something similar but different but if these baskets work out it'll def be easier than trying to make them ourselves.

Anyone use anything like this to collect their drops? We are a "higher than normal" production facility and even though our drops are small-ish we make a lot of them. I figured being able to most of them out once a week or once every 2 weeks will def help keep the machines a bit cleaner.

thanks

mike

Not the same i know but most laser cutters have draws underneath to achieve exactly the same, catch the slag in a easy to clear out manner.

Rather than mesh though i would be more inclined to make some kinda a solid bottom tray and mesh sides so you catch more of the smaller bits.

Looks pretty nice but I think with the garnet on top of all the drops it would be hard to remove. I made 10,000 aluminum parts with a 2.23" diameter hole and all the drops ended up in one corner of the tank and I have been getting them out by the hand full for two weeks!

We're running production and all the drops are roughly the same size so I'm not worried about them going through the mesh. I am concerned about the Garnet build up and not being able to get the baskets out. I'm thinking it would be better if they were elevated and inch or 2 so they weren't resting directly on the bottom of the tank. It would def have to be part of the daily's/weekly's to fish them out and dump them. I wouldn't expect to get them all the drops but I think it would help out. We do have an agitation system within the tanks so that would probably help reduce the garnet build up within the baskets themselves.

Interesting. I have been thinking about doing something like that for my Omax 5555 I put in at my home shop.

For the most part I tab a lot of the items into the sheet. I am not on the clock at home and make most things only for myself so time is not a factor however cleaning the tank is. I want to make it as simple as possible.

I figure if they get to heavy or stuck in place from the spent Garnet I can lift them out with a Forklift.

I would love to hear some feedback from those who have used them.

Question? How do you remove the spent Garnet?

Waterjet2017 said:

Question? How do you remove the spent Garnet?

Click to expand...

I haven't yet. I just installed the machine about 4 weeks ago. Being that it is in my shop at home I only use it once and a while to make things for projects I have going on.

I suspect I'll either get a Barton Wand or I'll pay my Nephew in Beer to shovel it out.

Honestly i would start with the forklift and sling, key to the laser ones is set things up so emptying is fast and easy, then do it oftern, never used a water jet but lasers and plasma cutters will damn near end up with one volcanic like fused slag heap if your doing heavy cutting, its way better to empty once a week than try and oxygen lance it out once every 6 months or so.

Would imagine the garnets the same, removeing a couple of inches a times probaly pretty quick with a suction setup once baskets are lifted out, but i bet corroded into place with the swarf it sets up hard if left to really back up.

You would think the waterjet people would look to the blanchard grinder
(and it's copies, mattison et all) for sludge handling.

Drag chains, high velocity to a waterfall system, etc.

Can you elaborate on that? DO they have a wicked awesome system for handling sludge?

The kinda sludge you get is commonly delt with all day everyday in industries from mining thru sewerage treatment. Your biggest issue is most of the systems probably just don't scale down small enough to make it viable for your scale of operation. Low double digit tons a year are probably just cheaper to shovel than the system setup costs.

Cyclonic filtration is std in the mining and sand quarry world, same goes for drag chains and jet pumps capable of pumping super abrasive mixtures whilst experiencing minimal actual wear. That said none of them would contemplate trying to do this with a flat bottomed shallow tank, they would all drop some kinda conical tank down well bellow floor level and then pump it out of the natural center collection point, more than likely with a big auger to remove settled solids. Chuck in some eddy current separators and you can pull out all of your metallic "lumps" and then you can easily spin it down to a liquid waste stream and garnet - small cutting waste streams.

Not sure how the baskets would cope with a water jet as it will cut anything in line with the jet, obviously the slats get replaced once in a while.
The jet will cut the baskets.
The water jet i used just let the drops fall into the tank, the garnet however was pumped by a submersible pump into a seperate tank with a bag in it, it settles in the bag and overflow goes back into the waterjet, the bag the garnet comes in 1 ton bag the large ones. The bag from time to time when its full is replaced in the tank and a fresh bag put in its place. Pump runs while the water jet runs.
I suppose the water jet cuts the drops a bit over time but the agitation transfers the garnet to the submersible pump to pickup, the submersible pickup is at the end of the tank.
You have to be careful you don't cut the pickup when operating the full length of the tank, i.e. take it out when you do.

While i was there the tank was never emptied of drops but i suppose it would have to be emptied when it builds up how ever long that would take i expect years of use.
The submersible pump lasts about a year before its worn out due to the garnet going through it.

Kind of sounds like you have an Omax with a solids removal system.....We got one with our first machine and quickly removed it and replaced it a solids removal system of our own design. We have an agitation system in the bottom of the tank. 1.5" pvc pipe running around the perimeter of the bottom with eductors mixing up the water in the catch to keep the garnet in suspension then pump it through an Oberlin filter press to remove and dry the garnet....no sludge. Just dry Garnet that gets pitched in the landfill.

I hear what you are saying about the baskets getting cut but the jet, by the time it gets within 6ish inches of the bottom has lost quite a bit of energy and has lost even more focus. I chucked a few chucks of scrap material down in the bottom of the tank while we've been cutting and nothing really happened to it. I'm thinking that the baskets might suffer a bit of damage over time, I don't expect complete destruction.

As far as the garnet in the baskets....I'm hoping that our agitation system keeps it from getting completely buried. If you keep the baskets up off the floor by an inch or 2 most of the garnet should settle down through the basket and on to the bottom where the agitation system should mix it and keep it in suspension enough to get sucked out into the Oberlin. Weekly or Bi-weekly clean out of the baskets should also help with not needing a crane to pull the baskets out as I suspect that over time they will get buried in the garnet.

We have a very clean tank all the time. Like see the bottom of the tank crystal clear water on monday after the weekend. and we run 3 full shifts 5 days. I'm hoping that if we can come up with a "basket catch type system" that we can get a lot of the drops out on a regular basis we would only have to pump out the catch tank maybe once a year during maintenance.

If you have issues with the jet cutting the tops of the baskets, assuming its as dispersed as you say, just get some rubber edgeing strip - or cut some air line in half, rubber stands up incredibly well to grit blasting, it simply absorbs the grits impact energy and springs right back sure it would do just as well with water jet so long as its not directly and closely right under the nozzle. IE if its not enough to cut it it will more or less never show any meaningful wear.

Agitation under the baskets sounds like just what is needed too. Only thing i would caution is if your agitating it enough right on the bottom of the tank you could get some holes worn in time, have seen that on process equipment with a lot lot less abrasive sluries than were discussing here.