This page does not sell you a machine. It explains how to write your own requirement, and it ends with ten questions to put to every supplier you talk to, including us.
We have been building waterjets in Nanjing since 2014, and we have watched a lot of buyers get the specification wrong in the same few places. Those places are what this page is about. If someone else answers these ten questions better than we do, buy from them.
Start with the part, not the table.
Most first machines end up at 3 × 2 m. Stone shops usually go to 4 × 2 m, because that is the slab. If floor space is the constraint, the C-Series cantilever goes down to 1.2 × 1.2 m and loads from three open sides. Anything else can be built to order.
When a supplier writes "3 × 2 m", ask whether that is the cutting travel or the frame. VICHOR quotes cutting travel.
The gantry stands on its own columns rather than on the tank. The linear guides and ballscrews sit above the waterline. On the H-Series high frame, the bridge stands higher for work up to a meter tall, a table rated at 900 kg per square meter, and a reinforced bridge made to carry more than one cutting head.
| G-Series · Gantry | 2000×1500 · 2000×4000 · 3000×2000 · 4000×2000 · 2000×6000 · 3000×6000 · 4000×10000 · 5000×20000 |
| C-Series · Cantilever | 1200×1200 · 2000×1000 · 2000×1500 · 2500×1500 · 3000×1500 |
| T-Series · Tilting table | 3000×2000 · 4000×2000 |
| H-Series · High frame | G-Series range, to order |
| Custom | Widths to 5 m · longer Y-axis built on request |
Maximum and continuous operating pressure.
Ask what pressure the pump maintains under load during cutting.
One more thing before the models: in P60IV, P60IVB and S60IV, the 60 is the pressure class, and all three are identical there — 430 MPa peak, 380–400 MPa continuous. Servo is a choice about energy, not about pressure. What separates the three is redundancy and power draw.
Three-axis cuts flat. "Five-axis" means two different things.
- Standard 3-axis. Vertical jet for flat parts.
- A/B five-axis — Compact head ABII. The A axis tilts to 9.8°. That is not enough for a bevel and it is not meant to be: it is taper compensation, so the cut edge comes out square instead of slightly conical. Take it if your parts are flat but your edges have to be perpendicular.
- A/C five-axis — Dynamic head ACIII. The A axis goes to 75° and the C axis rotates without limit. Weld preparations, chamfers, and genuine three-dimensional contours.
Large-angle five-axis needs the NC100 controller rather than the base unit.
The controller is NCStudio, built on the Weihong platform with functions developed for our machines. Support for it comes from us, not from a software company you have never dealt with. For ordinary nesting and cutting you do not need to buy CAM software at all — the NC100 does it. If you do professional nesting or three-dimensional work, that runs with IGEMS, licensed separately.
Two of these are not really optional.
A water deionising system and a chiller appear on most option lists, including ours, but treat them as part of the machine. Water that is too hard will shorten the life of everything downstream of it, and a pump that runs hot does not hold pressure the way a cool one does. Budget for both from the start rather than discovering them in year two.
The abrasive delivery system is not an option here at all — it is standard on every machine we ship.
If a competing quotation comes in cheaper, one of the first things worth checking is whether abrasive delivery has been moved into the options column.
The rest of the option list is worked out against what you actually cut, and it belongs in a quotation rather than on a web page. Tell us the job and we will tell you which options earn their place and which ones you can leave off.
The purchase price is the small half of the decision.
A waterjet costs money in four places, and only one of them is the invoice you sign at the beginning.
- Garnet. The largest running cost by a distance, and the one most first-time buyers underestimate. It scales with how much you cut, not with how much you paid for the machine.
- Electricity. Our standard pumps are all 37 kW. Over 2,000 hours a year that is real money in most countries, which is the whole argument for the servo pump in section two.
- Consumables. Orifices, mixing tubes, high-pressure seals, replaced on a schedule that depends on how hard the machine runs.
- People. One operator can usually run the machine and do something else. Nesting well is a learned skill and it pays for itself in garnet.
Published industry figures put waterjet running cost somewhere between $12 and $30 per hour. That is a wide range because it depends almost entirely on the four items above — which is why asking for a price per part, without knowing the four, tells you very little.
Consumables: ask who stands behind them.
Every waterjet runs on consumables: orifices, mixing tubes, high-pressure seals. How long each one lasts depends on the part, the pressure and how the machine is run, so treat any single service-life figure with care.
The orifice and the mixing tube on our heads are standard parts, and most of the pump consumables are standard too, so you are free to buy them elsewhere. We still recommend genuine parts from us: when a machine running genuine parts has a problem, the cause can be found quickly. With third-party parts, their quality has to be ruled out first, and the machine waits while that happens.
Core components
Core components include Yaskawa servos, THK linear guides, HIWIN ballscrews, Bosch Rexroth hydraulics and Innomotics motors. Before shipment, VICHOR sends a list of core components with part numbers and photographs. Ask suppliers for the same information.
What we will not do is win on price alone.
Ten questions to ask every supplier. Including us.
- What is the continuous operating pressure — not the peak?
- When you quote "3 × 2 m", is that the actual cutting travel or the frame size? And what floor space does the complete machine need, pump, tank and abrasive feed included?
- Which brand and model are the linear guides, the ballscrews and the servos — and can you send me a photograph of the nameplates?
- Before the machine ships, will you send the list of core components, with part numbers and photographs?
- Are the orifice and the mixing tube standard parts, or proprietary to you?
- If a high-pressure seal fails in year three, when does the replacement ship — and from where?
- Who installs and trains, where, for how many days, in what language — and is it in the price or billed separately? If it is billed, what exactly am I paying for?
- What CNC am I getting, and will I need to buy separate CAM software for the work I actually do?
- What else do I have to buy before this machine can make its first cut, and what does each item cost?
- Can you put me in touch with someone who has been running your machine for five years or more?
We have answered most of these already, in the sections above where they belong — that is what this page has been doing from the top. Ask us the rest directly, and ask the same ten questions of everyone else you are talking to.
The answer to the last one is yes. We have a number of customers past the ten-year mark. We ask their permission before passing on any contact details, which is why we cannot simply list them here.
What our quotation looks like.
Options are chosen against what you actually cut, not bundled in advance, and we will tell you which ones we think you do not need. Machines are quoted FOB or CIF as standard, and door to door if you ask for it. Installation and training are priced as a separate line, never folded into the machine price: if you want our engineer on site you are paying for his time, his visa, his flights, and his food and lodging while he is with you, each one itemised. If your people are good with their hands, we can take you through installation and commissioning remotely instead. Every item appears on its own line, so you can see what you are paying for and take anything off it.
To start, we need three things: the material, the thickness, and roughly how much of it per day. That is enough for a first quotation. Everything after that is a conversation.