Welcome to the ultimate waterjet forum, WaterjetGroup.com!
This forum will give you access to participate in discussions and attain resources via our vibrant waterjet community . This discussion board is intended for any waterjet user but the majority of the moderators are associates of Flow International Corporation. We will attempt to make this community an unbiased source of information regarding general waterjet topic areas. If you are a registered Flow Waterjet customer and require in-depth product support, please visit FlowParts.com.
We're running a Flow machine (well two actually) and we are looking for a way to program the machine to move to a point, pierce, and move on to cut other shapes. We're cutting very small holes (2mm) that are latter tapped and we're finding that the smallest hole we can achieve that is small enough to tap is 3.175mm (.125").
Has anyone been able to get Flow software to do this. It seems to me that the software should be able to handle this task.
Im not familliar with flow software or machines, however are you able to modify the G-code? because you could simply make the head go to the desired point and turn on the HP and abrasive and then off once the pierce is complete and then continue on.
another thing would be the material thickness as I've noticed the thicker the material the larger the piercing hole is.
you need two separate ord files, one for pierce only, set your lead in to the center of the hole (remember to set on FLOWPATH, Autopath settings (No Offset on LEAD IN/LEAD OUT) so it pierces right in the center of the node when you do the pathing. Then you can run this file on flowcut and choose the Pierce All First Option. Then for the other file, just delete the ones you did for holes only and leave the others for the cutting.
By the way, for the small holes, i''ve been able to use 0.07" orifice and 0.020" mixing tube from FLOW, but you need to buy #230 mesh garnet from barton. This will give you a small hole of 0.5mm++.
In response to waterjetphillippens post, yes that works, but much simpler, is use your one original .ord file, then in the first flowcut window, set the jet settings as I mentioned in my previous post, run pierce all holes first on low pressure, wait for it to complete, then Chang settings back, proceed as normal on high pressure. Don't worry about tool offset, by default it's the same for both the pierce run and the cut run as long as you don't change it between runs. I set mine at .032 when I first load the .ord file
Please note, the views and recommendations expressed by employees of Flow or it's partners on this website do not necessarily represent those of Flow International Corporation. For more information on this site's Terms of Use , please visit the DXF Copyright and Community Guidelines pages.
Important: Do not upload any DXF's or images without permission unless they consist entirely of content you or your company created.
By clicking "Upload file", you are representing that this DXF or image does not violate the WaterjetGroup.com's forum's Terms of Use and that you own all copyrights to this file or have authorization to upload it.