DIY WaterJet Cutter

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You don't want to stick your finger in that liquid media cutting stream.  :eek:

I had my drum tuner bottom metal (steel) machined by a water cutter and the detail and flexibility was superior to conventional machining.
resobottom-300x195.png

While not apparent from that photo there is a tiny index hole right next to the 1/2" microphone clearance hole (between the two speakers)  that would not be practical with a NC punch, perhaps possible with a small enough end mill but not inexpensively.

This metal was not as cheap as I would have liked (for a bottom), but the result exceeded my initial expectations.

JR
 
Yeah good point that stream is deadly!! Should be approached like high voltage - don't DIY this unless you're aware of the risks!

The speaker grill looks great JR. I had a PSU water jet cut with fabulous results.
 
Phrazemaster said:
Yeah good point that stream is deadly!! Should be approached like high voltage - don't DIY this unless you're aware of the risks!

The speaker grill looks great JR. I had a PSU water jet cut with fabulous results.
Thanks,,, I just needed a simple speaker grille, but since it cost me nothing extra to cut an intricate pattern, I got cute and added the "R"s  (for resotune).

JR
 
water jets are nice.. I took some courses on them. I used to have access to one at a shared space where it costed $1 a minute to run. They are much faster than CNC mils while the accuracy is somewhere between a CNC mil and a plasma cutter. These are favorable over plasma cutters for front panel cut outs IMHO.
 
Question for those of you that know the technology: Is this a possible way to drill 1mm-holes in 1.2mm brass?

Reason for asking is that stamping is not possible, and CNC is too expensive (drill in brass is slooooow, and there's thousands of holes to do)..

Jakob E.
 
Jakob,
i can't answer for jet cutting, from what i've seen in some place i worked in the past, using laser or plasma cutting it should be possible.

The material wasn't brass however (stainless steel iirc, the purpose of final item was some filter can for food industry ) and don't know about final cost, but this kind of thing is technically possible using this technology.
 
gyraf said:
Question for those of you that know the technology: Is this a possible way to drill 1mm-holes in 1.2mm brass?

Reason for asking is that stamping is not possible, and CNC is too expensive (drill in brass is slooooow, and there's thousands of holes to do)..

Jakob E.

Jakob,

The waterjets would work the best on thick materials, otherwise way slow and imprecise. Of course, for brass of your thickness and amount of holes the stamping would be by far the fastest. If not possible (and there is no way around) then I'd look at laser cutting. The same rule as for stamping applies (i.e. the size of the hole should be appr. equal the thickness of the material), but 1mm and 1.2mm are close enough. With laser if the holes are close to each other you might run into a problem of too much heat generation. The way around is to skip the hole rows, allowing the material to work as a heat sink and then come back to those rows later.

If you can stack a few plates together then the CNC might work reasonably fast. You will need to spot those, first (the 1mm drill will walk) and then with carbide drill, flood coolant, and high speed spindle in a couple pecks you could drill through some 10-12mm stack with a reasonable speed.

Best, M
 
How do they drill tiny holes in PCBs,  would that process technology work?

The small hole I cut in my steel bottom cover was maybe 0.075-0.080" square,,, The water cutter allowed that small hole pretty close to a larger one with no breakout or distortion.

JR
 
In PCB'c you can drill really really fast, if you have a sharp drill running at ridiculous-fast rpm. On Gustav's factory I saw them going 140K rpm, and 180m/min feed - they didn't consider that fast (!)

In brass, however, there seems to be no way around going slow and steady, "peck-drilling" to remove cutoffs. Otherwise it'll grab the drill and kill it instantly. Yes, even with special drills for brass..

The chinese must have come up with something to enable them to do microphone capsules at such low prices..? Oh well, maybe they drill by hand..

Jakob E.
 
gyraf said:
In PCB'c you can drill really really fast, if you have a sharp drill running at ridiculous-fast rpm. On Gustav's factory I saw them going 140K rpm, and 180m/min feed - they didn't consider that fast (!)

In brass, however, there seems to be no way around going slow and steady, "peck-drilling" to remove cutoffs. Otherwise it'll grab the drill and kill it instantly. Yes, even with special drills for brass..

The chinese must have come up with something to enable them to do microphone capsules at such low prices..? Oh well, maybe they drill by hand..

Jakob E.

Yes, the problem with the brass the material tends to suck the drill into it--that's why the specialized brass drill bits have straight flutes, or you get better results with duller bits. It is essential to run the bit as concentric as you can, so you want to use collet rather than chuck.

Normally,  you want to use as high RPM as you can and find out the right feed. You can find it from the formula: chip load 1.5% of drill diameter per flute, so with your drill diameter .040" for two flute that would be .0012" per revolution. Say, with the 50,000 RPM your feed will be 6" per minute. You would want to use pecking. The rule of thumb is for the first peck use some 3 times drill diameter, and then half of the diameter for succeeding pecks. Some suggest to run it dry, but at least a mister would be a good idea to blow the chips away and provide some cutting lubrication and cooling. 

If you are talking about drilling the capsule backplates then with correct CNC machine, correct speeds and feeds, and correct brass grade the process should be very fast (of course there can be no stacking). We make backplates in batches of some 50 at a time and the process is very efficient. 

Best, M
 
I vaguely recall one project where I had to machine brass back during my machine shop days (summer job over 50 years ago  ::) ). I don't even recall exactly what I was making... I think a bracket/holder for a couple glass tubes.. So reasonably thick brass with maybe 1" diameter holes (machined on a milling machine).  IIRC feed speeds were slower than normal, but back then I just did what I was told.

This was for some kind of gear used in sea water (the machine shop supported oceanographic research ships) thus the use of brass.

JR
 
Marik said:
Jakob,

The waterjets would work the best on thick materials, otherwise way slow and imprecise. Of course, for brass of your thickness and amount of holes the stamping would be by far the fastest. If not possible (and there is no way around) then I'd look at laser cutting. The same rule as for stamping applies (i.e. the size of the hole should be appr. equal the thickness of the material), but 1mm and 1.2mm are close enough. With laser if the holes are close to each other you might run into a problem of too much heat generation. The way around is to skip the hole rows, allowing the material to work as a heat sink and then come back to those rows later.

If you can stack a few plates together then the CNC might work reasonably fast. You will need to spot those, first (the 1mm drill will walk) and then with carbide drill, flood coolant, and high speed spindle in a couple pecks you could drill through some 10-12mm stack with a reasonable speed.

Best, M

Because I own a laser cutting machine the size of a container truck, I can tell you this.
Only a special build type of laser cutting machine can cut through brass, copper or bronze.
Reason is because their surface is reflective.
 
metalb00b00 said:
Because I own a laser cutting machine the size of a container truck, I can tell you this.
Only a special build type of laser cutting machine can cut through brass, copper or bronze.
Reason is because their surface is reflective.

You probably have CO2, which indeed, has problems cutting reflective metals. High power, short focal lens distance and using oxygen as cutting gas (which greatly helps laser beam absorption) do help. Fiber lasers do not have those problems at all because of different laser wavelength. To cut that thickness you will need at least some 400W machine for reasonable speed.

Best, M
 
Marik said:
You probably have CO2, which indeed, has problems cutting reflective metals. High power, short focal lens distance and using oxygen as cutting gas (which greatly helps laser beam absorption) do help. Fiber lasers do not have those problems at all because of different laser wavelength. To cut that thickness you will need at least some 400W machine for reasonable speed.

Best, M

Hence, I said a special build, and way a lot more expensive. Mine cost about $40,000 after tax (fiber laser is about $150,000 after tax) and the cost of maintenance over the span of 7 years could've probably bought another one or two.
 
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