Waterjet/Laser cutters in-house?

[Cory]

My opinion is that the Wazer is absolutely useless for FRC purposes (but cool as a technology demonstration).

It cuts REALLY slowly, the cutting area isn't large enough for more than a few small parts, the cost to run it is high, and accuracy will be questionable compared to an industrial water jet. Maintenance will likely add up to more than the cost of the machine within a few years depending on how much its used.

You'd get a lot more mileage out of paying for $5000 (plus cost of consumables) of waterjetting from a legit vendor.

A legitimate water jet cutter is going to be $100-200k depending on how it's optioned out, plus a minimum of $45/hr (up to $60+/hr) to run in power/abrasive/water/amortized maintenance. They are very finnicky and constantly have little problems that pop up that require you to stop and clean things out or perform minor fixes. When the pumps reach their service intervals you're looking at a multi-thousand dollar rebuild. The mixing tubes/orifices are not cheap either and need somewhat frequent replacement. These are also enormously loud and messy machines. Glenn can speak more to his experience with ownership of one, but it would take a unique set of circumstances for a team to have a shop that is suited to owning one.

Legitimate metal cutting lasers for FRC use (1/4" aluminum) are so expensive they're not even worth discussing. $200k-400k. Huge power requirements, though much cheaper to run than water jet due to fewer consumables and lower maintenance costs. These are machines designed to cut 4'x12' sheets all day long as fast as possible and people who own them have to run the machine virtually nonstop, often for multiple shifts a day to make any money off them. Just totally in a whole other world than FRC usage,