Our Sites

Totally enclosed waterjet cutting

No drain required

Figure 1
The HSB24 abrasive machining center is designed for fabricating operations that require this type of high-tolerance cutting capability, but do not have to contend with high-volume production pressures.

Dan Sarmiento spent several years of his working life designing high-speed packaging lines for the pharmaceutical industry. He invested a lot of time in developing fast-paced systems for a fast-growing industry.

To get parts for these systems made, he worked with several fabrication shops. Most of the parts required waterjet cutting, which delivered very high tolerances and did not create a heat-affected zone in the metal while cutting.

With each shop visit, however, Sarmiento’s negative image of the waterjet cutting process was reinforced. He couldn’t get the unorganized and dirty scenes of the fabricating areas out of his mind.

“I didn’t like the fact that you could walk into a waterjet shop and that within a 60-foot radius of the machine, garnet was everywhere. I didn’t like the fact that after five or six years the waterjet machines were complete rust buckets because they make the waterjets out of mild steel and then paint them,” Sarmiento said.

That led him to create his own waterjet cutting machine. The HSB24 from Hydren Systems made its formal industry debut at FABTECH® 2015 in Chicago last fall (see Figure 1).

The waterjet cutting system is not designed for the typical fabricating job shop. Targeted users are colleges, technical schools, engineering shops, and high-tech start-ups, according to Sarmiento.

Neither is the HSB24 designed to accommodate 4- by 8-foot or 5- by 10-foot sheets. It’s a fully enclosed system with a 24- by 24-inch X-Y cutting envelope. The equipment’s tank and guards are made from 10-gauge stainless steel. The frame is constructed of 2- by 2-in. stainless steel tube. The panels to see into the cutting chamber are made of 3⁄8-in. clear Lexan.

“There is nothing on this machine that will ever rust,” he said.

The waterjet cutting system is unlike other systems in that it has a fully integrated water recirculation system and an onboard pump and motor. The three-stage, 5-micron filtration system cleans the water for recirculation; the unit doesn’t need to be hooked up to a water supply or a drain. The pump and motor are located at the base of the unit. The machines can be designed with pumps that deliver up to 40,000 PSI, Sarmiento said.

The unit does not require a power source. It is designed to run off 230-volt, single-phase power.

Figure 2
This stainless steel tubular part was cut on the portable waterjet.

“You can literally put this in your garage,” Sarmiento said. “We’ve had guys tell us that they are going to pull out their dryer and put this in its place.”

The waterjet, which sits on casters, operates like other waterjet cutting machines. A 19-in., Windows®-based touchscreen control is used to program jobs, and a familiar-looking 3-axis waterjet handles the cutting (see Figure 2). It can handle a variety of materials, from metals to composites, with positioning accuracy down to 0.0005 in.

At FABTECH, Sarmiento was demonstrating how the waterjet could cut several metals, including 0.25-in. steel, using only 15,000 PSI.

“You can compensate for less pressure by using more abrasive,” he added. “Typically something like this, we would be running 1.25 to 1.50 lbs. of abrasive per minute.”

Hydren Systems LLC, 1900 N. La Canada Drive, #70027, Oro Valley, AZ 85737, 941-448-7837, www.hydrensys tems.com

About the Author
The Fabricator

Dan Davis

Editor-in-Chief

2135 Point Blvd.

Elgin, IL 60123

815-227-8281

Dan Davis is editor-in-chief of The Fabricator, the industry's most widely circulated metal fabricating magazine, and its sister publications, The Tube & Pipe Journal and The Welder. He has been with the publications since April 2002.