What is the optimal distance from the water nozzle tip to the top of the material? Using the plastic thingy seems unscientific and I often get different results cutting my material depending on how I adjust the height. Thank you!
What are you seeing for different results? Do you get poor results when you use the height setting tool wazer provides? The thickness of that plastic cap part is 0.09" which is about 2.29mm. Why do you think this is unscientific if you are using the same method and the same height setting shim each time? This type of gauge setting is done in high production machine shops when setting up tools outside of the machine, all though the tools used for that set up are not made from plastic, but for this level of product you should be alright.
Well- I am seeing the rubber part of the nozzle deflect and change positions on the nozzle, thus giving different results.
Don’t push in as hard. If you look at your cap, the place your nozzle touches down on has a little extra room in it to account for a little bit of misalignment/pushing too hard while setting. Just place the cap so its just touching the rubber cup and you should be good to go. If you are getting drastically different results by doing it this way, you may have another issue.
Are you sure you are tightening the nozzle head tight enough so it doesn’t move during operation?
You should never see the rubber cylinder around the nozzle move. See this article:
The nozzle is slightly below the rubber part there. I am going to 3d print a new spacer and make the part that you place under the nozzle about .5mm thicker. What I do now is just let the nozzle touch the plastic bit, then tighten the height adjuster slightly, then move the nozzle very slightly up to where it’s no longer touching the plastic thing. That’s to account for material not being the same thickness all the way throughout.
It’s still early, so my verbiage is very basic here, but if you don’t get the idea, reply back and I’ll type something up later.
Yeah, the most important point I was trying to make was that stock varies in thickness especially in sheet metal and acrylic from my experience. If you set the height of the nozzle based on one point, how do you know that’s the average thickness at that point? It’s safer to leave yourself a little bit of wiggle room and just raise it up a hair to account for that variance.
That and the nozzle head should never come in contact with anything. lol.
What type of issues are you guys seeing that shows you that the nozzle height isn’t set correctly. I don’t have enough experience to be able to tell that yet and don’t believe I have had an issue yet but would like to keep an eye on it on future cuts.
Biggest one is going to be backflow into the abrasive hose. If that nozzle touches the material, the water goes the path of least resistance. Which, in that case, is up the abrasive hose. That one’s the bad one.
If it’s up too high, you’ll see messier cuts. The cuts are already pretty rough, but if you see strips of even rougher cuts, that may mean the nozzle wasn’t close enough. Or worse, it won’t pierce thru the material.
Thanks, I haven’t had any backflow yet but I am sure its only a matter of time. Ill keep an eye out for this. I tend to not bother with warped material just based on other machining habits I developed over the years so that could be why I don’t notice this being a problem yet.