HIGH PRECISION WATERJET IS IDEAL FOR DIVERSE CUTTING APPLICATIONS

Precision machine building company MDC Max Daetwyler AG (Bleienbach, Switzerland) and specialist water jet company Waterjet AG (Aarwangen, Switzerland), in collaboration with NUM, have developed an innovative CNC-based water jet cutting machine capable of cutting materials to within ±1 micron, which is 20 times more accurate than competitive machines.

The new WOMAJET/microWATERJET machine is also extremely efficient. It consumes considerably less water and abrasives than traditional systems, and looks set to open up entirely new application areas for this form of materials processing technology.

Many of the new product fabrication materials introduced over the past few years react negatively to the effects of heat during machining. However, using a jet of water to perform the cutting operation ensures that the material structure remains unchanged; furthermore, the technique can be used on virtually any type of material — even foodstuffs, providing they are not water soluble. In the light of this, MDC Max Daetwyler, Waterjet and NUM chose to combine their expertise to jointly develop a water jet cutting machine specifically for precision materials processing.

The new WOMAJET/microWATERJET machine provides a stable, precise and repeatable manufacturing process capable of creating complex contours — it can handle land widths as narrow as 20 microns (0.02 mm). The machine uses a very high-precision water jet, with a diameter of less than 300 microns, and can cut materials at a rate of up to 4000 mm per minute.

All three of the machine's axes are driven by NUMDrive C servos. These have a very high-power density, which helps minimize the size of the control cabinet. Overall control of the machine is handled by a NUM Flexium CNC system, equipped with a NUM FS152i HMI for operator input commands.

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www.daetwyler.com

www.waterjet.ch