
Wazer introduces the first desktop water-jet cutter - devy
http://spectrum.ieee.org/video/geek-life/tools-toys/this-water-jet-cutter-can-slice-through-anything-steel-glass-or-steak
======
gregpilling
For 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-
drilli...](http://www.kineticusa.com/products/production-spindle-drilling-
cutting-machines/kinetic-k5000/)

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
I 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/)

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kazinator
The 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.

~~~
jalanco
I wonder if you replaced the abrasive material with a ferrous material could
you direct the stream with magnets? I guess the material would first have to
be charged. And would the water flow follow the [hypothetically] focused
stream of ferrous material? I need some coffee.

~~~
CamperBob2
Interesting idea. If the water were conductive -- say salt water -- then I
don't see why you couldn't steer it with magnets. The trick would be to keep
an electrical current running through the jet.

At normal fluid pressures -- the classic example being peeing on an electric
fence -- it's hard to get much current flowing since there's so much empty
space between droplets. But at thousands of PSI, is that still true?

~~~
JshWright
Water is dipolar (the oxygen atom 'pulls' harder on the electrons it's sharing
with the hydrogen atoms, so the middle is negative and the ends are positive).
It can be controlled by both electrostatic and magnetic fields, no salt
needed.

~~~
CamperBob2
Electrostatic, sure. You can deflect a stream of water from a faucet by
holding a comb near it. But magnetic?

------
Jerry2
I'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-
de...](https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1294137530/the-first-desktop-
waterjet-cutter?ref=nav_search)

~~~
kibwen
AFAIK 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 )

~~~
Jerry2
Thanks for an excellent overview and for confirming my assumptions. I've seen
commercial waterjet machines in action when I visited a tool factory when I
was in high school and those machines were amazing... they were cutting
through plates of steel like it wasn't even there.

As for garnet, yeah, it's sand but it's finely meshed and I'm guessing you
need a strongly abrasive sand. Unless you're near some beach with that type of
sand, you'll have hard time finding something optimal.

I just don't see why any DIY-er would want this want this machine given how
expensive and time-consuming the whole process is. Unless you're rich or
working for some rapid-prototyping place, you're much better off paying
commercial guys for cutting your blanks for you. Anyway, feel free to correct
me if you think my reasoning is wrong since I'm no expert.

~~~
kibwen

      > you'll have hard time finding something optimal
    

I wasn't intending to imply that one could use any old sand in the machine,
only that disposal shouldn't be unduly bad for the environment (unless your
recycling comment was intended to focus on the economic aspect rather than the
environmental aspect).

Taken in the context of being a first-generation device, I don't think this is
a bad product at all. First-generation 3D printers were way less polished than
this appears to be (though of course I haven't used it myself). It remains to
be seen how much maintenance it will require, but even current-gen 3D printers
seem to manage to break down once a week or so, so again I don't think DIYers
will be deterred there. :P And in particular, I think hackerspaces with a
decent amount of cash but with scant floorspace might find this product
compelling (our waterjet is easily the single largest tool in the shop). This
might also appeal to folks with personal shops who can't justify the enormous
expense of a full-size waterjet, who might purchase this out of sheer novelty.
AFAICT it won't appeal to rapid prototypers, because prototyping in acrylic
(or wood) via a laser cutter is already so much faster than waterjetting
(unless you _need_ your prototypes to be metal, in which case you already own
a full-sized waterjet).

TL;DR: empowering DIYers is good, even if initial appeal is limited, and
hopefully subsequent generations of the device will improve the economics.

~~~
mveety
You can basically use any old sand as long as it's meshed within spec for your
machine depending on what you're cutting.

~~~
Animats
If you use silica sand, you get silica dust and silicosis.

------
noonespecial
Odd 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
It 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
I'm also kinda wildly interested how they keep vibration down, given the
operating pressure, etc

------
chromaton
Based 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
Latency 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
As 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)

------
duskwuff
Huh, 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)

------
elihu
Looks 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
Is it possible to cut metal with a more expensive laser cutter?

~~~
auxym
Yes, 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).

------
rotten
This was on kickstarter here:
[https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1294137530/the-first-
de...](https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1294137530/the-first-desktop-
waterjet-cutter?ref=nav_search)

It is a little pricey, but pretty cool.

------
bambax
Very cool, but the price of the abrasive seems high; why does it have to be
disposed of instead of reused?

~~~
RankingMember
That struck me as well. The abrasive cost looks to be the killer there.

~~~
everyone
Lets 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.

~~~
dsfyu404ed
If you only cut steel you should be buying a plasma cutter.

~~~
abakker
This 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
idk, 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.

------
guard-of-terra
If 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
Great video!

------
Animats
This 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.

------
JoeAltmaier
The 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?

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mcphage
Mmmmmm... gritty steak, my favorite.

~~~
adevine
Yeah, I would think the abrasives used in the cutter are not exactly food
safe.

~~~
huehehue
Steak can probably be cut without an abrasive.

------
danielmorozoff
How 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
CO2 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
Thanks 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/...](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).

~~~
Steel_Phoenix
I actually worked on beta testing what was, around eight years ago, the most
precise waterjet in production. It did indeed use very fine sand that seemed
to get into everything. Keeping it from caking was the main challenge. Edge
quality on an OMAX is a software setting (I love their software and use it for
everything 2D and vector). Basically, the numbered quality settings allow you
to prioritize what kind of edge quality you want. 1 gets you the bare minimum
needed to get the parts to separate. 2 is fine, but a bit rough on the bottom.
Picture that the waterjet pierces the material and then moves slowly, grinding
the interior edge of the cut along the path. If you corner quickly, it flares
out in the opposite direction. I think of it as being like cutting with a
paintbrush. 3 is optimized for dimensional accuracy on the top of the cut.
Despite the fact that the water stream spreads out as it goes, the top of the
cut is wider than the bottom. This is due to ejecta cutting on the way back
out of the cut, and the velocity being higher near the nozzle. Higher numbers
are for reducing the taper of the cut, but generally reduce dimensional
accuracy. There are also settings for cutting without abrasive, which are
generally only worthwhile for something soft or edible, and settings for
etching, which I found too loud and messy to mess with. There are also nozzles
that will tilt as they cut, which allows you to move and corner quickly by
countering the taper with tilt.

I do have experience with cutting precious metals with a laser. CO2 and fiber
lasers may both be infrared, but it's a big spectrum. CO2 is a wavelength
better suited for cutting organics, and doesn't have the fine focus or energy
density available in fiber. I've used a 70 watt picosecond fiber laser for
cutting silver and it actually cuts very nicely, but the problem is getting up
to the initial threshold to affect it at all. Titanium, with it's low
reflectance to infrared, low thermal conductivity, and high melting point,
will cut with a power setting that won't leave a visible mark on silver with
its opposite set of properties.

~~~
danielmorozoff
That was an awesome description. Thank you

------
ryanmarsh
That was the ugliest steak I think I've ever seen.

------
weberc2
What's the advantage of water vs metal blades? Do metal blades not cut through
glass/porcelain/etc well?

~~~
crispyambulance
I would like to know how its possible to operate this thing without wearing
down the nozzle as fast as you're cutting the workpiece. Is the grit fed down
the center of a laminar flow of water so it never touches the metal of the
nozzle?

~~~
semi-extrinsic
The particles in the flow won't hit the nozzle much at all, since the average
flow is tangential to the nozzle walls. Even if the flow is highly turbulent
inside the nozzle, there is a boundary layer where the velocity becomes zero.
However, when the flow impacts a solid object, the particles can't "keep up"
with the fluid splashing away due to their inertia, so they hit the solid
object at high speed.

Particles in turbulent flow are characterised by (among others) the Stokes
number [1], which says something about how well the particles follow the flow.
This depends e.g. on the particle size, roughness, and the density difference
between solid and fluid.

I imagine they have tuned the Stokes number to an optimal tradeoff between
cutting speed and nozzle/fluid line wear.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stokes_number](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stokes_number)

------
dsfyu404ed
I 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.

------
sdegutis
Tip: Make sure to turn your volume down before clicking the link.

------
jordanwallwork
Holy 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
Custom 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.

------
jeron
why would you use a Rolex to show off your water-jet cutter? So many harder
yet less expensive things to demo...

------
estefan
Seriously, why has it taken so long for me to be able to get a steak in the
shape of the US?

------
forgotAgain
Since the product doesn't actually exist yet they should perhaps say Plans
rather than Introduces.

~~~
Retra
By "doesn't exist" do you mean "isn't for sale?"

------
aaronkrolik
What is the base of the cutter made out of? Does the water jet defuse before
hitting the base?

~~~
chromaton
There'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.

------
jlebrech
very interesting, except for the destruction of a rolex watch.

------
smaili
As 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
This 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
> numerically illiterate

innumerate :)

