Quote:
Originally Posted by DampRobot
Seconded, normal waterjets are still crazy useful. We like to use the TS waterjet to fab our gussets really quickly, and also for large plates (bellpans, shooters, etc). The main FRC use of the multi-axis head in my mind is to eliminate kerf on stuff like gears and bearings.
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This is true, but we get along fine without that (for the sake of others reading this thread).
We have reamers for the size bearings we need, and for the few odd size we request they cut slow (this blows the hole out a bit more so account for that dimension ally, but it gets straighter edges). The reamer will make your waterjetter FAR happier. Ours cut 20 37mm holes for our swerve at .8 ipm in 2012 and was NOT happy with us after that (~2 hours runtime). For that run alone, the reamer was cheaper than half the holes cut.
For gears, there are two cases. First is you're running a waterjet gear on a waterjet gear. We run them with opposite tapers so it matches nicely. It feels junky at first, but quickly wears in pretty smooth.
For steel on aluminum, we just let it wear in an the steel wins pretty quick against the high spots in the aluminum and a happy medium is reached pretty quick.
I wouldn't recommend waterjetted gears going a few thousand rpm though.
EDIT: Keep in mind the above numbers, and the affect of taper will vary machine to machine and operator to operator.