Author Topic: DIY water jet cutter  (Read 9863 times)

Offline nrml

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DIY water jet cutter
« on: May 31, 2017, 10:10:41 AM »
A very cool project and excellent explanation of the process as well :thumbup:.
Well worth watching.

Offline Joules

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Re: DIY water jet cutter
« Reply #1 on: May 31, 2017, 11:26:54 AM »
I was totally inspired, and being utterly MAD...    Here is my water jet cutter, it can cut bread just like the one in the video.

In fact, I think mine is far better being totally self contained and portable.

Honour your mentors, and pay it forward.

Offline SwarfnStuff

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Re: DIY water jet cutter
« Reply #2 on: June 03, 2017, 01:44:55 AM »
Hi All,
       I watched that video recently and if I recall correctly he cuts Plywood, Bread and Aluminium. Oh. and Styrofoam.
      I don't recall him mentioning cutting steel and his Ali was 1/16" thick from memory.

       So, can you cut steel with it? And how thick is the max cut depth on Ali?
 I'm not sure about bread, don't like my sangas soggy.  :lol:
John B
Converting good metal into swarf sometimes ending up with something useful. ;-)

Offline PekkaNF

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Re: DIY water jet cutter
« Reply #3 on: June 03, 2017, 03:29:43 AM »
I tought it was pretty cool and worth watching. He demostrated that it needs some serious pressure and consideration. Best garnet feeding explanation I have seen.

Only thing bas that he was very casual about the dangers of high hydraulic pressure. In reality i is something to be very worried. If you think there is nothing to it google "hydraulic injection injury".

Bread is very often cut commercially with water jet.

Plasma cutters seem to be more cost competite when it comes cutting thick metals - both hobby level, but palsma is not choise for plywood, foam etc. Laser is for some. Some sort sheet metal cutting device might be nice, but at my hobby level band saw is hard to beat.

Inteesting to see what is the next big thing after 3D printters?

Pekka

Offline nrml

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Re: DIY water jet cutter
« Reply #4 on: June 03, 2017, 12:06:29 PM »

Only thing bas that he was very casual about the dangers of high hydraulic pressure. In reality i is something to be very worried. If you think there is nothing to it google "hydraulic injection injury".

Pekka

You should check out some of his other videos. He does the coolest home shop/lab projects and experiments I have ever seen. My jaw was literally hanging open (in amazement) when I watched some of his videos. After watching a lot of his videos I would say he comes across as someone who has a very good understanding of the risks involved but he doesn't make a point of broadcasting a safety message in every video. Watch his video on making aerogel with supercritical methanol for some truly scary stuff.

You made a good point about hydraulic injection injuries. I saw a man who developed this problem in both legs after jet washing his newly laid patio wearing flip flops. The cement residue driven into his skin gave him multiple non healing painful ulcers on both legs. He ended up having both legs amputated a few years later.

Offline S. Heslop

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Re: DIY water jet cutter
« Reply #5 on: June 04, 2017, 11:54:22 AM »

Only thing bas that he was very casual about the dangers of high hydraulic pressure. In reality i is something to be very worried. If you think there is nothing to it google "hydraulic injection injury".

Pekka

You should check out some of his other videos. He does the coolest home shop/lab projects and experiments I have ever seen. My jaw was literally hanging open (in amazement) when I watched some of his videos. After watching a lot of his videos I would say he comes across as someone who has a very good understanding of the risks involved but he doesn't make a point of broadcasting a safety message in every video. Watch his video on making aerogel with supercritical methanol for some truly scary stuff.

You made a good point about hydraulic injection injuries. I saw a man who developed this problem in both legs after jet washing his newly laid patio wearing flip flops. The cement residue driven into his skin gave him multiple non healing painful ulcers on both legs. He ended up having both legs amputated a few years later.

I'm not a big fan of him. For the most part he's a rich guy that made his money with a tech company and uses it to buy surplus scientific equipment, pull it apart, then reassemble it as something worse and claim he's built something. There's alot of people doing interesting stuff in that realm of 'goofy home science' but they tend not to produce great videos or writings, and tend to be focussed on specific areas of interest.

I quite like this person's videos even if they're unedited and stretched.
videos Mostly about vacuum tubes but there's some neat stuff about high vacuum systems and he provides information that's not just pulled off of tacky 'Maker' blogs.

It's something I was getting interested in about half a year ago, but after camping out on ebay for months to try assemble a high vacuum system I got fed up and sold what i'd collected. The guy that bought my turbomolecular pump kept in contact via ebay and his plans are to try and build a turbopump from scratch via EDM. He said he'd keep me updated if it ever goes anywhere, and I really hope it does.

At some point, when I can afford a milling machine, I might take a punt at building an analytical balance though. I took a couple broken ones apart and it seems quite doable.

My real dream has been to build an infra-red spectrometer, but without a high vacuum system it'd cost more in buying the beam splitters than it would just finding one second-hand. But then the cost of a high vacuum system would probably more than those both combined.

Offline hanermo

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Re: DIY water jet cutter
« Reply #6 on: June 06, 2017, 09:41:16 AM »
There are 3 sites/threads that are the best, imho.

1. Best.
Approx. 14 year old builds a fusion reactor, first moving himself and his family to other side of the country, including mining and refining yellowcake uranium.
TED talk, presidential visit, etc.
Ted Wilson,
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/2015/07/150726-nuclear-reactor-fusion-science-kid-ngbooktalk/

2. Dan Gilabert - prototypes
Youtube

3. 3 Bears, first great DIY CNC mill
Google

Offline BillTodd

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Re: DIY water jet cutter
« Reply #7 on: June 27, 2017, 12:04:50 PM »
Thought you might like to see what a real waterjet cutter can do with a small piece of aluminium.

Bill

Offline philf

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Re: DIY water jet cutter
« Reply #8 on: June 27, 2017, 12:20:13 PM »
Thought you might like to see what a real waterjet cutter can do with a small piece of aluminium.
Bill,

Nice piece of scrap ally you'll have there!

Phil.
Phil Fern
Location: Marple, Cheshire

Offline BillTodd

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Re: DIY water jet cutter
« Reply #9 on: June 27, 2017, 12:51:45 PM »
This is a section of the  Y axis 'flexible' feed pipe . it is 1/4" od 5m long stainless steel and is rolled along a 1m bend as the Y axis slides .

This piece has an almost invisible fracture that shot an impressive rainbow generating stream out the back of the machine , removing most of the paint enroute.
Bill