pic: Team 359 Flow WaterJet Installation
 

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If you don't mind me asking, how much does this machine cost? I've thought about something similar but I'm guessing it's out of our budget.

Re: pic: Team 359 Flow WaterJet Installation
 

Don't know about their machine, but for a quality 4x4 to 4x8 size machine you're looking at $120-200k depending on size/options.

They also cost $45-60/hr to run when you factor the cost of abrasive, water, maintenance, etc.

Re: pic: Team 359 Flow WaterJet Installation
 

I wonder how much it cost them to ship it to Hawaii. I wouldn't be surprised if installation/transportation costs were as much as the machine itself.

Re: pic: Team 359 Flow WaterJet Installation
 

I'm not sure I've got the right machine, but it looks like a flow mach 2b, which retails normally for $235,000.

http://www.glassmachinerylocator.com...ls.mgi?id=3047

Re: pic: Team 359 Flow WaterJet Installation
 

I haven't looked at the price of water jets in awhile but 235k seems too high for that machine, given that it's pretty much a base model.

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Wow. You must feel really, really lucky.

Just curious, how do you fund raise something like $250,000? I know that you guys have an awesome fundraising machine, but that's a ton of money, even if you got a lot of large donations. We'd be extremely happy to have an extra 5 or 10 thousand to spend on new machine tools...

Re: pic: Team 359 Flow WaterJet Installation
 

Just out of curiosity, what sort of cool stuff do you plan on making. Our team's sponsor might let us use a waterjet in the future, so we'd love any information you might have.

Plus, this is so cool, I can't wait to hear more!

Re: pic: Team 359 Flow WaterJet Installation
 

We get super lucky in the fact that our main mechanical mentor works at a place which allows for the usage of professional grade equipment for our team. He spends his work time on this but it is beautiful when you get the final result.

Re: pic: Team 359 Flow WaterJet Installation
 

The water jet looks very high end, my guess would be over $200,000.

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I don't know about Flow's pricing, but OMAX's Maxiem line starts at $67,000. They also offer heavy discounts for FIRST/Education use as well. :yikes:

Re: pic: Team 359 Flow WaterJet Installation
 

Cory definitely knows his stuff.
After meeting with a Flow Sales Rep during the summer of 2009, he quoted us about $150,000 for a base machine.
What we didnt know was that add-ons such as a chiller (still on order), and the materials that Cory mentioned to "start-up" was a whole lot more.
Our grand total at the moment is over $215,000 which includes the electrical and water line setup.
This did not include shipping, and yes, its like buying a new Toyota Corolla.:ahh:

We are new at this game, and dont expect a whole lot of drastic changes to our robot design approach....yet.
The one thing we struggle with is manpower and many of our high $$$ machines get used VERY sparingly.
For example, our LPKF circuit board router has a 2 year warranty with 4 visits from a mainland rep to service and train. We havent even used 1 of those visits yet, and we had the machine over a year.:ahh:

Being out in Waialua, it is a very very rural area and the distance is unbearable to drive to especially for those in Honolulu and our traffic issues.

Overall, we are excited to have such a machine at our school where our program has 24 hour access for whatever we want to use it for.

Re: pic: Team 359 Flow WaterJet Installation
 

This is very common for many mainland USA FRC teams and impossible for a team like ours.
Hence, we buy and bring the tooling directly on campus.

Re: pic: Team 359 Flow WaterJet Installation
 

Ok I am officially jealous. :]

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This isn't a shot at 359, love those guys. More for all the people who are jealous.

If your goal is to get some waterjetting on your bots, it's pretty easy to get shops to sponsor you.

Worst case, you can always pay to get it done. I've seen it quoted anywhere from $100-$300 per hour.

Average waterjet making average parts and 3-4 hours of cut time is enough for a very crazy single robot, or for 2-3 sets of moderate parts.

For reference, in 2012 we had 12 hours of cut time for 3.5 robots worth of pure craziness (lots of gearin). In 2011 we cut 6 sets of claw plates (each set was 6 large plates) in ~ 2 hours.

Re: pic: Team 359 Flow WaterJet Installation
 

I'm excited to see what you will make with such a nice piece of equipment.

Re: pic: Team 359 Flow WaterJet Installation
 

Off the bat, having our own jet will serve 4 purposes:
1. 24-hour access to our own machine, especially during build season which makes it easier on all of us. It should help us fabricate parts much faster than in previous seasons.
2. Allowing other local teams to make some parts for their own robots.
3. Opportunities for our program to earn $$$, working towards sustainability.
4. Most importantly, allows our students to learn and tinker with something new (me included).

Re: pic: Team 359 Flow WaterJet Installation
 

Don't get me wrong, it's awesome that you have it and all the points you raise are totally valid.

I was just talking to the teams that are seeing this and thinking they could never utilize such technology.

Re: pic: Team 359 Flow WaterJet Installation
 

Very cool install, I'm sure the water jet will serve you well!

Out of curiosity, what feature(s) did you consider that lead you to choose a water jet vs a cnc plasma cutter/router table?

Re: pic: Team 359 Flow WaterJet Installation
 

Wow, It's amazing feat in its self you were able to fund it without a major sponsor. The install of our robot arms would of been ludicrously expensive if it wasn't done by the sponsor.

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I can't speak for 359 but you can't hold anywhere near the tolerance of a water jet with plasma.

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We have a cnc plasma cam. It's really disappointing for anything other than outline cuts for welding or decorative pieces. It has a hard time making round concentric holes and requires a lot of set-up and calibration. The heat also warps the metal and heat treats it. Our CNC mill/router is much more useful for robotics purposes.

Re: pic: Team 359 Flow WaterJet Installation
 

This is a really good question.
I cant even recall the exact reason why or how we got the idea to get one since its been so long.
However, we decided to get one independent of anything else.

Our total funding I was able to get was $750,000 for which I used 1/3 towards renovations and the rest for equipment such as our jet, computers, a Sharp minimill, lots of tooling, and our nice big trophy case.:)
I have either been very lucky or very good in creating our business plan and proposals to get funding.

The largest one I got was back in 2005 when we wrote for 1.92 million and actually got it the 2nd time around, failing the year before. That's when we decided to kickstart our FRC program again after giving it up at the end of the 2003 season.

Re: pic: Team 359 Flow WaterJet Installation
 

This is absolutely true.
Our machine will complement a set of mills/lathes (some CNC capable) that we already have.

Re: pic: Team 359 Flow WaterJet Installation
 

Adam,
hope you didnt think I was mad or something?
You are absolutely correct.

We chose this route instead because we are unable to do it the most economical/realistic way that you described.

Re: pic: Team 359 Flow WaterJet Installation
 

Thank you.
I literally kill myself day in and day out dreaming of ways to get funding to support our program.
I'm lucky my wife doesnt tell me to stop already.

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waialua359, that fund raising is quite impressive! How does one even go about securing that level of funding?

That depends on your definition of "anywhere near" I suppose, and the particular machine being used. I see CNC Plasma vendors citing tolerances at least as low as +/- 0.004in (I assume for higher-end systems) and up to +/- 0.030in for 'entry level' systems. I believe water jets fall somewhere on the better end of that scale, generally.

Certainly low-end plasma cutters can't reach the tolerances of a waterjet, but that's comparing a $10k machine to a $100k machine.

It's funny you should say that. Our CNC table requires little or no setup and calibration and doesn't warp metal when we cut it. At least it hasn't warped anything since we started using the proper current/cut rate calculators.

The the plasma arc doesn't 'heat treat' the edge of the cut, it nitride hardens it (and only 0.005-0.006in). A small distinction perhaps, but an important one. The HAZ will certainly degrade any heat-treatment in the parent material though.

We're going to use our CNC plasma table to build more and more parts this pre-season and figure out exactly how close to a finished part it can make. I imagine holes will be cut undersized and drilled to a final dimension.

Re: pic: Team 359 Flow WaterJet Installation
 

Everything I have read about high def plasma says .015-.020

That Flow is rated for .005, if I remember correctly (.001 with the dynamic head).

Re: pic: Team 359 Flow WaterJet Installation
 

http://www.schulermfg.com/cnc-plasma...-services.html

http://www.fsmdirect.com/articles/cu...d-capabilities

One of my contacts at Hypertherm had a high-end table he was testing that was achieving between +/-0.005in and +/-0.010in tolerance.

The tolerance is heavily dependent on the drive table and proper operation and setup of course, with both plasma and water-jet cutting. For work, I routinely get better results from an outside machine shop with an ancient 3-axis water jet than a military prototyping shop with a 5-axis water jet.

Now I'm not saying one is better than the other, they both have good and bad sides, I'm just saying that not all plasma cutting systems are created equally.

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Yeah, me too.

Maybe if I moved to Hawaii, they'd let me tinker too? Maybe, but I couldn't live there, what with all the freezing weather, snow, hurricanes, earthquakes, tornados, and nearly constant rain. Oh, wait: That's New Jersey....:rolleyes:

Re: pic: Team 359 Flow WaterJet Installation
 

Nice machine. I bet those robots from Hawaii are going to be getting better and better every year.

Just a FYI Glen

The machine needs to be turned on and ran for a few hours each week. It's not good for the machine to sit idle weeks at a time.

Now that you have a cutter are you guys looking into press brake equipment?

Re: pic: Team 359 Flow WaterJet Installation
 

Glenn, the only GP thing we can do in this situation is provide you a list of parts you can make for us during this weekly maintenance.

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Yes Glenn, please let us know how we can help you out... ;)

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Anything for you Glenn, let me know as well.

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Man, I wish my work would pay me to make FRC parts :P

Can you say "Dream Job"?

Okay, this is mind-blowingly amazing. I can't even begin to comprehend what we could do with that kind of money.

I understand wanting access to your own machine and all, but you could get a couple very nice CNC mills, (and a really, really nice CNC router for sheet metal parts) for that kind of cash, and running them will be a lot cheaper. Why waterjet?

Re: pic: Team 359 Flow WaterJet Installation
 

We have a total of 7 mills and lathes, a Sharp minimill with a conveyer belt (new), and lots of other equipment already as well.
Maybe one day, we can get guys like Aren, Adam or Brandon to move to Hawaii and make use of all of our stuff.
I have dreams of even more stuff that I am working on. It wont happen overnight, but it will!
I guess you could say that's my "hobby" in the FRC program besides coaching and managing our program.

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Roy, thanks for the advice.
We were made well aware of doing just that by our trainer that came in from San Diego.

We have teams already requesting to use our machine.

However, I must say, we are now not the only HS in Hawaii with a Waterjet.
The rich private school in Honolulu, just got one too after inquiring about it with us just 6 months ago.
We are a rural PUBLIC high school. We have to work a LITTLE bit harder to get what we get.

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One day, not too far in the future, Hawaii will be turning out so many high-end skilled machinists, they'll become the new Detroit. GM, Ford and Chrysler will build their HQ there, along with several large production plants. Maybe a few imports, too.

Is the weather nicer in Hawaii than in Michigan? :rolleyes:

Re: pic: Team 359 Flow WaterJet Installation
 

There is a teacher right next to my VEX room who is from Michigan (went to Michigan State) and married a teacher from our community. After being here for quite a while, he does complain about not having the Michigan cold once in a while. :confused:

Re: pic: Team 359 Flow WaterJet Installation
 

Saw a Flow waterjet in action at the WESTEC show today. Nice machine.

Re: pic: Team 359 Flow WaterJet Installation
 

You guys are so lucky that you could afford this. It costs more than most homes in Phoenix! How'd you fund this much money? We are asking for tax-credit donations and if we do well, we will have ourselves $60k+. But that much money is just outrageous. keep up the good work and keep the community posted about how it works!

Re: pic: Team 359 Flow WaterJet Installation
 

As a misplaced Michigander, this is a real problem. Hopefully I can fix this in the near future :\


I'm sure Brando could keep that machine busy.

Looking forward to seeing how you leverage it next year, hope you'll clue us in on the value added to your program (not just robot).

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I'd also like to hear about how many other teams you're able to help out with parts during the season thanks to the new machine.

Have fun with it!

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:eek:

Man, and we were barely able to scrape together $5,000 for a cheapo little chinese mill.

Seriously, what kind of institutions are you finding that are willing to shell out that kind of cash?

And hey, if you ever want to retire some machines, I'd be willing to adopt them :D

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Akash, being that 2438 just got one, I'm sure they will be able to help out teams in Honolulu since they are close in proximity to a lot of Hawaii teams.
Whats impressive about Iolani is that the school spent 25+ million on the building and equipment and they are luring people from industry to becoming teachers at their STEM center.
The salaries alone we could never afford, such that our program is pretty close to 100% volunteer-based other than the equipment and materials we buy of course.

Team 3008 is already coming next week and Team 4158 plans to use it extensively during build season (our closest neighboring school).

Re: pic: Team 359 Flow WaterJet Installation
 

This is why I put on workshops several times a year for different groups. As broke as this country is and as poor as our state public school system is, monies are out there!
The question becomes how hard are you willing to work to get it? :)
Then comes the pressure of performance based on what you got. Those that give out grant funding expect you to deliver and there are no gray areas when it comes to reporting/data/impact.

Re: pic: Team 359 Flow WaterJet Installation
 

It's not luck, 359 works extremely hard (and smart) for their money.

Nobody should be jealous or think it's unfair.

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Let's see...move to Hawaii? Work with a HoF team? Access to a waterjet and well outfitted machine shop?

Yeah thats a real hard sell Glenn.....

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Brandon, because we are volunteer based, its a hard sell to get established seasoned people like yourself to come here, without knowing what Job you could get here.
Now, if I had the 2438 situation, and be able to offer a job with our program (center), I'm sure we could attract people from the FRC community.
I cant even imagine what it would be like to get paid well for doing what we enjoy doing anyway.:ahh:

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Yup, can't imagine it at all :rolleyes: