We have had the unit for close to 7 years with not a single issue. They are made local to me here in laurel montana. We have actually had the engineers at our shop checking out or waterjet because they were looking to buy one and told us there lift are way under rated!!

 

I'll definitely give them a call. Looks like a solid unit.

So in my quest to safely move plate onto the machine, we picked up a 2000 lb bridge crane today. We are going to have to resize it to fit the bay, but I think combining it with a vacuum lift should make this easier on everyone.



I've also discovered a new way to torture employees that irritate me. Flange cleaning. Talk about a thankless time consuming crappy job. That time saver thing is going to look cheap I think once I start tracking the time spent on doing this.

 

Here are a few shots I snapped while I loaded a piece of granite to cut this morning!

 

If you are doing any sort of quantity it will pay for its self in no time, its amazing how something might only take a minute or two adds up over thousands of parts, suddenly you have weeks of shitty handwork to do

 

Well .. I decided to upgrade the machine. Call me bitchy/picky/etc, but our consumable life just wasnt consistent, and the programming and motion control just wasnt as good as I would like. We've plunked some coin down on Hypertherm's Edge 2 control, HD3070 high-def power source, Command THC, ac servos and drives, and their new HPR torch (supposed to get 2500 stop starts). So this machine is going to be down for awhile to get stripped and retrofitted with all the new stuff.

In the mean time, I'm eye balling a small flow bengal waterjet just to get our feet wet (no pun intended). I've had less then 8 hours of training up at omax, so I'm a little nervous considering the learning curve we've had on getting this sucker running. I think I'd like to run waterjet for copper and aluminum, and run mild and stainless on the hi-def. Atleast that's my current thinking.

 

The waterjets definatly haul on the soft metals and leave a great finish!! We use ours prob mostly for mild steel. Thats the thing plasma is faster on sheet metal most of the time but waterjet has upper hand because I can stack sheets to nearly 1/2" and cut!! I know there are a lot of companies that use plasma to produce flanges but anything you saved in cut time is wasted in clean up of the parts. When parts come off our table they are ready for the customer to use! We are looking to a add a HD plasma to our operation just as another option for customers, because there is a lot of stuff at times that doesn't need to be tying the waterjet up.

 

Hey CRMB,

Have you looked at the newer Komatsu Twister units? Thoughts?

 

I dont know a lot about the newer komatsu machines. I'm sure they are excellent, but since most of them approach the $200-$300k mark at that level I think a used laser is a smarter option or a new waterjet.

All our retrofit hypertherm edge 2 control, hypertherm high def plasma, lifter and drives, comes in next week so we are excited to get this thing cutting again. Our goal is to be able to run the machine nearly unnattended. With the existing rasor control and consumable issues, the machine required an attentive operator. Since our employment is down right now due to the season, that's not acceptable option as we have more work then labor right now.

 

I'm getting quotes of about $150K. About the same as a Messer/MG Metalmaster Plus with an HPR-130. The Komatsu Twister looks like a better machine to me though.

 

I think I would personally go down and get training at komatsu on the machine. Run it for a couple days. Run parts that you would make in your shop. Keep track of your consumable consumption. Gas usage. # of bad parts. etc. How often you had to fix **** that wasn't right. Then do the same with MG machine. I think the HPR system if it can live up to the 2500 stop starts that they advertise at the near 0 taper will be very hard to beat.

 

That sounds like great advise, thanks.

Hey would you PM me your email address. I want to send you some info I got from Komatsu and get your take on it.

 

Got our hardware in today. Lifter was brand new, but the power source & control were taken off a machine that got a ~$100k+ hpr400 / edge pro upgrade... Only 2000 hrs on the meters. Going to be a long couple weeks getting this **** wired in.

Some machine **** for those that like this stuff:

Edge 2 controller:



PHC Slide (Moves the torch up and down)



PHC Control (Torch height controller)



High Def Plasma HD3070 with autogas console

 

hey man, my buddy derrek works for you, but anyways idont know alot about these machines but i have ran ares at my work a couple of times, it is basicly the same machine u have, on ares we have the option for fine cut or regular cut , on fine cut u have to change out the consumables but its nite and day difference, ive aslo come to notice that on thicker metals if you will hit the tip with a fill alittle bit everynow and then it wont eat your tips out near about as fast

 

Retrofits are such a pain. Got some stuff done this weekend.

Old lifter removed


New lifter installed


PHC control mounted


PHC Complete Mount - both

 

Finally getting this B*TCH done!!! Retrofitters are here this week finishing her up. Been quite the process.

Wiring monstrosity. I would not switch places with the tech this week.



System overview. Slats pulled.



Wiring = crap



2000lb Gorbel Bridge Crane installed w/ 2 Ton Jet 3 Phase Hoist over the top of the machine... This system works great for what it is, but I prefer top riding bridges. This was a mother f*cker to put in. Took 4 guys, a laser level, a genie lift a forklift and 12 hours to install. Still need to find a vacuum lifter for it.



Here you can see my guys pulling the new high-def hpr torch leads through the machine. The torch leads are 3x the size of the ones we pulled out that ran the komatsu hd torch. You can also see the mount for the control, it gives 180 degree of rotation and the rediculously expensive filter system that we had to place infront of the gas console on the hd power source.

 

Torch done, installed. Bridge done.



Edge 2 done. All cabling built and tested.



Putting it all back together. Moving the slats back on. Had stuff moving at the end of the day. Will be cutting tomorrow. Yay.

 

Updates: The beast is running. The retrofitters kinda of sucked and were unable to get it running themselves (so 7k in labor later) I've spent the last 2 weeks debugging and working out all the issues. Now that we are running however - we've been cutting 3/8" plate at 105 IPM!!! Roughly 3 times the speed we were able to cut the with komatsu hd, with less then 1.5 degrees of taper. This thing is insane! It's also a gas sucking monster though, it only runs on nitrogen and oxygen. No air.



Unfortunately the existing DC brush servo drive system sucks. Its dimensionality innaccurate at the machine's newly capable cut rates (it seems that it was designed to be run at ~50IPM max accurately), so the servos are going into the garbage and new Mitsubishi J3 2KW AC Brushless servos & drives are going in. At 50 ipm I'm +/- .004. At 105 ipm I'm +/- 0.013! Suck!!! I can cut sheet metal (1/8" at 400 IPM!) I don't want to even know how bad that dimensionality is right now.

We did end up purchasing that Flow Bengal waterjet that was being sold locally. Machine has less then 1000hrs on it and was upgraded to new controls @ Flow in 2006. Should be an interesting thing to play with. Monitor and cutting head aren't installed yet.



It's kinda little. 4' x 2' cut area.

 

my buddy builds these. 4x4, 4x8, and 5x10 table . Check them out!

www.trackercnc.com

 

Cutting 1/2" plate @ 80 inches per minute. 1.5 deg taper or less. Going to be testing some 3/8" stainless plate tomorrow.

Notice the high-tech plate remover device to the left.

The laser finder we added is pretty sick. Makes for setting up jobs really simple. When the torch is fully raised it gives a point and cross-hairs 90 deg to the table.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oMC5Wp_4B8g

We are now at 780 pierces on the same consumables. We just pulled them to measure electrode depth and they looked barely used. Huge props to hypertherm.

Evaluating nesting software solutions. Sigmanest 9 vs ProNest 2010. Will post results. Unfortunately the cost of nesting software is going to be another large expensive (~$15k).

 

Looks great. Congrats on getting her fired up and wrecking stuff!

 

Adam, don't pay 15k for nesting software, that is crazy for 2d software. Its been a while since I have set up any local shops with burning tables but I used OneCNC in the past I believe, call 1.813.995.9459 and ask for Michael, tell him Dave from Passenger sent you, he'll hook you up with good software for a lot less.

15k is 3-4 axis mill software man!

 

Dave, I appreciate the concern

But we are talking nesting software tho... I have process control software, cad & cam software, I can cut parts no problem. But I'm running entire 5x10 sheets/plates, thousands of parts... My issue with having crappy nesting software is how high my scrap percentage of the plate ends up being and trying to minimize pierces. Having evaluated these nesting software packages, I would estimate my scrap percentage was like 55-65% by hand nesting previously.

So take these 15k sofware packages, same part, same test plate (4'x8' in this case), pro nest I can get is 230-240 flanges with an external pierce on each part. Same part on Sigmanest, 300-320 flanges. I can get the scrap percentage down to 30-40% and I can reduce my number of pierces by 30% by using auto bridge nesting. Either software package is required to program the autogas console for the HPR/HXD "true-hole" technology as well (0 taper - supposed drill quality holes).

My other concern is difficulty in programming. If I can just switch machines with a click of the button, choose 1 or 2 head for the plasma unit and effectively nest for 2 heads if I want, or have it control edge quality for the waterjet automatically... That will save a lot of time & money long term. I'm starting an entire new business with this stuff.

 

I understand what nesting software is and why you need it, I do the same thing but on machining centers all day. OneCNC has a nesting module or upgrade that would be less than half the cost and likely just as effective. Nesting is SIMPLE SIMPLE SIMPLE, its not worth anywhere near 15k, that is seriously machining center 3D surfacing software price, which is 10 times more complex and capable.

 

I'll check it out, but I dont think we are comparing apples to apples. This is the industry standard for flat plate cutting, all of the laser & production waterjet shops around here run it and for good reason - it pays for itself quickly. I was skeptical as my hypertherm rep was so eager to push the mtc pro nest, saying it the best thing next to women.. Having spent a week evaluating it, honestly it's not even in the same ball park.

 

6 month update:

The plasma has been great, cut a ton of parts but we've found that the time savings on the table don't equate to time savings off the table cleaning up the parts and getting them to spec. Honestly if we never see a slag hammer again, it will be too soon.

We've really been impressed with the cut quality of our little flow waterjet. We find ourselves running it almost 16 hours a day now. The little thing is pretty slow - it only has a 40k pump, but it's churning out parts all day. Best thing about waterjet parts - for the most part - they are done when you pull them off the table. No slag. No addtl machining required (atleast for us). Rinse them off and blow them dry.

We did end purchasing sigmanest. Incredible software. I can go from drawing to nested parts within a few minutes. Then just select the machine you want to output code for and go. It's seamless for us between waterjet posting and plasma posting. I would highly recommend it for anyone getting into flat parts.

We've gone ahead and purchased a second waterjet - a much larger 6x12 60k psi jet edge machine that will be taking the place of our hydef plasma. I think the plasma is going to end up going into storage or being sold.

It's really too bad, there is nothing like cutting 3/8" plate @ 120 inchs per minute with a beautiful flat edge. We just find that customers are requesting waterjet even if it costs them more for the same part.

If anyone needs more info/advice on plasma just send me a pm. We've probably logged about 3000 hours on the machine since I finished the retrofit and I've seen just about every damn problem you can imagine running a machine that many hours.