Anyone have a OMAX waterjet table?

[rpage]

Anyone out there own one of these or work on one? I am interested to hear from someone that can give me the scoop on these systems. Ease of use, reliability and so on.

Thanks in advance.

Rick

[jderou]

We have one on its way, it'll be here in November. will let you know then if you can wait. I think its like 12' by 8'

joe

[rpage]

Thanks Joe, that would be awesome! I have been looking hard at them and have seen some short video on the software. Looks pretty nice. Have not tried to arrange a demo yet. Been to busy.

Look forward to hearing from you after you are up and running!

Thanks again!
Rick

[Gregawj]

I have been running an omax for the past five years. If you have any questions please contact me.

Greg

[Verfur]

we have a 55x100 and we are to be getting the larg baby this week 12 by 5
worked with Omax for about 9 years now.

have any questions shoot them off and I will get you an answer

John

[gman]

We have a 55x100 omax for about 3 months, somewhat of a learning curve, nothing terrible, found the local sales rep and the omax service to be satisfactory.
We puchased the unit with the terrain follower which is a very new option to the machine, we have the first one installed on a tiltajet head which is not operating correctly yet. This will tell how good the company will be--I am sure there will be many changes to this unit.

If you can run a CNC machining center, there would be no problem operating a waterjet. Basically it is running a machining center with 1 tool that never wears out (except for normal maintainence)

Gary

[rpage]

you just pulling dxf file sinto the omax software or have you used the omax software to draw your parts? the little bit I have seen of it, it looks easy to use.

I assume that the terrain follower lifts the head to follow the material? Like if the steel you have on the table is warped the head would follow the warp without hitting the material?

Thanks for the reply!

[gman]

we do both--download dxf,dwg files and also using the omax software. The omax software is very good. There hasn't been any parts that needed programing I couldn't use the omax sofware. Correct, the terrain follower keeps the nozzle at a constant standoff, used for material that is not flat.

[jderou]

Well we have our 12' x 5' OMAX installed, and we just finished training. A few things that kind of irk me. First is the absence of a pendant, try setting the z clearance on a nozzle by yourself when you cant reach the keyboard and tip at the same time! Their is a automatic standoff feature, which seems kind of cheezy. It basically has a small (nema 23 I think) stepper motor that crams the nozzle into the workpiece. When it hits the workpiece the stepper stalls (hate that sound), it then raises up a preset distance and zero's the counter. Their are issues with this method clogging the nozzle, so we won't be using this.
Accuracy seems to be pretty good so far though, we'll see how it goes once we start running it more.

Joe

[Verfur]

jderou,

I have to admit that is one thing that would be nice to have on the machine is active controls on a pendent all my mills and lathes have it and it does drive me nuts (fat man) walking from one end to the other. we have tried remote keyboards but the did not like to go swimming so no good there.

The stalling the stepper motor out is defently a strange system but hats off it works good so far.

did you guys get the SRS system????

John

[jderou]

Solids Recovery System? If that's correct then yes we did. What can we expect from it?

We had issues with that auto stand off on the first day. It probably works ok on thicker materials, but on thin stuff it will deflect the material, then the clearance becomes less.
the install guys said they have seen pendants that other customers rigged up somehow, I may look into this. Might be possible to make something like some of the Mach guys made.

[gman]

When there are jobs away from the computer, to set the standoff we use a wireless keyboard.
Hope this helps.