Desktop Waterjet for Prototyping and Low Volume Production
For prototyping and low volume manufacturing in shops that need to keep their large machines running, the affordable WAZER abrasive waterjet cuts up to ½ in aluminum and ¼ in mild steel at high precision in a 12 in x 18 in area.
Posted: March 11, 2019
The founders of WAZER© (Brooklyn, NY) built race cars at the University of Pennsylvania and spent hundreds of hours cutting sheet metal by hand because their engineering department did not have a waterjet cutter due to the size and expense. So they built a small waterjet cutting system as a school project. After graduating and spending a couple of years of development at the HAX™ Accelerator (San Francisco, CA), WAZER created their first desktop waterjet cutting system – the only desktop machine that cuts virtually everything, including steel, titanium, aluminum, glass, stone, tile and carbon fiber. Traditional abrasive waterjets cost upwards of $100,000 and are typically too large and messy to fit in most shops. The WAZER system costs $7,500, which is affordable for small businesses and schools who want to iterate quickly on designs without having to spend time and money sending their projects out to be made by an external waterjet service.
WAZER is also perfect for prototyping and low volume manufacturing in shops that need to keep their large machines running. Its high velocity jet uses a combination of high pressure water and sand-like abrasive particles to cut through the workpiece, achieving a high level of digital precision in a cut area of 12 in x 18 in that is capable of cutting up to ½ in aluminum and ¼ in mild steel. The machine is easy to set up with no special electrical or water requirements. It runs on 110V AC/ 60 Hz and only needs a sink or a hose pipe along with a drain for a water source. Any small workshop with a sink and two outlets is ready to go. The Penn engineering department now owns a waterjet cutter. This waterjet is compact, contained and fully enclosed, making it safe, clean and quiet to operate. Other features include:
- The system achieves detail and accuracy that is impossible by hand, while freeing users to complete other tasks.
- WAZER costs around $10 an hour to operate, factoring in consumable costs of $8 per hour for the garnet abrasive and $2 per hour for wear on replacement parts like the cutting beds and nozzle assembly.
- The machine is simple to use and its free web-based software, called Wam, helps users go from design file to cut in five minutes.
WAZER, 141 Flushing Avenue, Unit 403, Brooklyn, NY 11205-1338, 302-643-679, www.wazer.com.
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