“Quality pays off” is something that has once again been proven by Water Jet Sweden. After an upgrade that took just a few days, one of our well-used quality machines has now had its service life extended and boasts cutting tools that are at the forefront of technology. Same machine foundation, same high performance but now with increased competitiveness.

“They bought the machine with two cutting tools in 2005,” said Ronny Martinsson, Head of Customer Service at Water Jet Sweden, “but now they only use one of them. They also wanted to upgrade to the new Alphajet cutting tool, and be able to cut thick materials with angular compensation,” 
Ronny continues.

Water Jet Sweden offered the customer a bespoke upgrade package where one cutting head was completely removed and the other was replaced by an Alphajet.

Alphajet is a modern cutting tool for taper angle compensation. It compensates for the small angular deviations that a waterjet cutting beam causes and provides fully perpendicular cutting cuts in 2D. A new version of Alphajet was launched as recently as 2020 with a new compact design that weighs less, moves better and requires less work space. And since Alphajet only requires 4-axis interpolation control, it can be applied to all Water Jet Sweden’s different machine models, even older machines.

The switch to Alphajet also involved upgrading to the recent PanelOne control system, a new CNC-controlled abrasive feeder and the last version of IGEMS CAD/CAM software. In addition, the customer added features such as laser beam and adjustable water level, and the machine’s protective bellows were replaced by new ones.

“While we were refurbishing, the customer repainted the machine himself. Every part we picked off was painted before we reassembled it,” Ronny added. “After just a few days of work, the shiny machine stood there, a 17-year-old state-of-the-art workstation, now equipped with forefront cutting technology.”

“The main difference from a completely new machine is that the Z-movement is less on the older machines. It limits the thickness of the material you can cut, but otherwise the functionality is the same,” 
Ronny Martinsson concludes.

Electrical cords are like nerve fibres in the Fanuc control system on which PanelOne™ is based.

Water holder for quick regulation of the water level in the tank