bined these off-the-shelf components
with some customization. This made a
more affordable machine that still has
sufficient cutting power.
It’s the only desktop machine that
cuts virtually everything. It provides
a quick way to iterate designs without
having to spend time and money to send
a part drawing to an external waterjet
service to be made. It also enables manu-
facturers to keep their large machines
running while their Wazer desktop
machine is used for prototyping and pro-
viding low-volume manufacturing.It’s on the desk
Wazer’s high-velocity waterjet uses a
combination of high-pressure water and
sand-like abrasive particles to cut through
the workpiece, achieving a high level of
digital precision. The waterjet and pump
need to be physically separate to isolate
the vibration from the pump and motor.
The desktop waterjet has an overall
size of 34 x 25 x 21 inches ( 864 x 635 x
534 mm) with an empty weight 110 lb
and loaded weight of 300 lb. Its cut area
is 12 x 18 inches, which covers a wide
range of use cases, and is capable of cut-
ting up to ½-inch aluminum and ¼-inch
mild steel. A separate pump box, 21 x 15
x 11 inches ( 533 x 355 x 280 mm), is typi-
cally located under the desk or table.
This waterjet is easy to set up with
no special electrical or water require-
ments. It runs on U.S. standard 120
Vac/60 Hz, or the new Wazer global 240
Vac/50 Hz version now meets electrical
standards used in most countries. All
that is needed is a water source, such as
a sink or hose connection, a drain and
two power outlets.One of the original constraints for
Wazer was to require minimal infra-
structure changes, so you could use it
anywhere. The requirements were that
the system would work off a standard
120 Vac, 15 A circuit and a common tap-
water source. The supply power source
directly operates the 2 -hp high-pressure
pump motor without voltage conversion.
The water is open-loop with the tap wa-
ter drained out at a rate of less than a gal-
lon per minute when in use. The electron-
ics on the gantry operate on a dc voltage,
as do all the other machine components.Design and development
Wazer developed the desktop waterjet
in-house, including the mechanical
design, electrical design, software and
programming. We have a big team; there
are 23 of us now.We wanted a desktop system and
making the waterjet smaller like that
made it more difficult to design. Many
different subsystems needed to integrat-
ed into one enclosure. We were rethink-
ing water jetting from the ground up.
For example, usability was important.
We wanted the workflow to be stream-
lined, so the user could go from a draw-
ing file into our software in less than
two minutes and then onto the machine
and cutting in less than 10 minutes. We
wanted to press print and be printing in-
stead of going into a several-hour setup
process. This required onboard controls
to prepare the cutting file when a start
button is pressed.
Abrasive management is another
important usability feature. This led to
integration of the abrasive hopper as a
drawer on the side of the machine forControlDesign.com / May 2019 / 39User-assessable
Figure 2: Abrasive management is an important usability feature that included integration of the abrasive
hopper as a drawer on the side of the machine and buckets to collect used abrasive.(Source:Wazer)CD1905_38_41_CaseStudy.indd 39 4/29/19 12:26 PM