New Member with Waterjet

[Randee S.]

Good Morning All-

I am new here and am hoping to participate in your community. I am self taught in drawing cad images, and self taught on waterjet as well.

I was hoping someone could tell me how they were taught on this stuff? Did you go to university to learn cad and cam and machining, or were you also self taught?

Also, was wondering if anyone had suggestions on what size tips to purchase if I wanted to engrave using the waterjet. We own a Mitsubishi 6x12 60,000PSI table. Right now we use .013 orifice and about 1 lb of garnet/minute, depending on material. I am curious to see if we would be able to engrave rock/marble using a smaller orifice/tip or less garnet and pressure. Any suggestions would be helpful.

Thanks All!

 

[camo1280]

Hello Randee,
I am also a self taught cad and water jet user. I have spent a reasonable amount of time experimenting with the water jet engraving stone and steel. I found using similar focusing tubes and garnet flow to what you described, running the machine at low pressure (15000psi) and 450mm or 18" per minute gets a fairly clean engraving. I also tried running it at high pressure with the focusing tube as high as possible above the material and at a similar speed created a very open sandblasted looking engraving. Quite effective for a shallow 3D look. Don't be afraid to experiment

 

[Randee S.]

camo1280- Thank you very much for your input. We have experimented a little with 1/2" a36 scrap steel, and the engraving came out looking a little more sandblasted than we liked. I will make the adjustments and see how it turns out. I am so excited to try this out!

 

[James Sanderson]

I went to Technology School and learned CAD/CAM a long time ago. I have a CNC Plasma table and am self taught on that it is totally different from what I was taught.

 

[Randee S.]

James Sanderson- I have been playing around with cad images for only a few months, so I still feel like I miss most things. I am using a free version of QCAD that I downloaded from the website. I played around with other programs but this was the one that I liked best. I am considering taking a class to learn more and perhaps making a career out of it.

 

[Jonathan O'Neil]

I was taught at Trumpf in Farmington, CT for use of our 2030 (3200 watt), been running it since 2011. We recently just purchased a Bystronic 4kw Fibre optic machine, so I'll be heading down to Elgin, Il for training on that. As for CAD/CAM training I was taught at polytech college along with training in Farmington for use on TruTops. More proficient at Solid works though.

 

[Randee S.]

Jonathan O'Neil- I worked on solid works for about a week before I found QCAD. I hear a lot of of people prefer solid works but it was all greek to me.

 

[camo1280]

Here's an engraving I did with the waterjet on stone. I actually ran it at 1400mm per minute 15k psi.

 

[Mike Scott]

I'm self-taught on AutoCAD.
Learned CNC laser cutting (Mazak), on-the-job. Had a small class on laser operations at my work.
Then I learned some basic CAD/CAM operations (Radan software) over my boss's shoulder. With a history of self-taught CNC CAM/CAM for punching systems (Jetcam), I was able to convince him to teach me enough to become a basic user, and am still self-teaching with the use of help files.

 

[themachinist]

Hello Randee. An associate's degree got me familiar with cad/cam and machining but nothing beats experience. Being taught on the job by a true master is the best way learn anything in my opinion. There's always someone that knows more than you or knows a better way. Listen to those folks. Also I would say take advantage of tech support for your machines or software. They have a wealth of knowledge and are usually pretty parient. As far as the engraving goes, I just got into waterjet myself so I wouldn't know what to say. I'm curious myself to see what works. Trial and error always works if you have the time and material. Good luck .

 

[Randee S.]

I appreciate everyone's input! I am feeding on the vast knowledge of people who are also on this site. Camo1280- that is bar far more clean than anything we have attempted to engrave in the last while. That is great!