WATERJET & PLASMA CUTTING MACHINE

Hello,

Does anyone knows any cutting systems that combine both Waterjet & Plasma technology?

It seems to be quite interesting, since there's a huge space saving and money saving when cutting complicated parts. My thinking was that most of the times, when I have to cut metal the specifications of the part are not the same for every single sector of the entire part. What I mean is that some edges could be cut with Plasma or even Oxy technology and the tight tolerances edges could be cut with waterjet technology. Hence, I save a lot of time since Plasma is much faster than waterjet and money.

There is a Greek Company called HYDROCUT that manufactures nice "COMBO" systems... check the website hydrocut.gr and tell me what you think!

Esab has been making a plasma/waterjet and oxy/waterjet combo machines for a few years now. I also thought they had a patent on it, their waterjet machine is also called hydrocut.

There have been quite a few waterjet plasma combos over the years, long before Esab had theirs. There are some issues with having the two processes on a common gantry:
1. The water jet abrasive is tough on moving parts. Everything must be well sealed, including the plasma z axis.
2. Typically water jets require very low cut speeds for metal cutting, and plasma requires comparatively high speeds. Machines have to be designed with a good speed torque range.
3. If the processes share a cutting bed....do no expect to be able to recycle the waterjet abrasive.

4. When one process is running, the other is not. That makes for a fairly expensive piece of equipment that is sitting idle in your shop. In many cases, it would be more cost effective to have separate machines for each process.

Jim