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Abrasive Delivery Systems

Throughout the years, abrasivejet systems featured a variety of complex abrasive metering systems. This complexity originated from the belief that the abrasive flow rate needed to be adjusted for different material types and thicknesses. Nowadays, the preferred approach is to use a simple fixed ratio of abrasive flow to water flow for the full range of materials to be cut, and to change only the nozzle cutting speed. Nozzle speed is easily altered by the X-Y table control system.

This means that a simple fixed abrasive flow rate is all that's needed for smooth, accurate cutting. Modern abrasive feed systems are eliminating the trouble-prone vibratory feeders and solids metering valves of earlier systems and using a simple fixed-diameter orifice to meter the abrasive flow from the bottom of a small feed hopper located immediately adjacent to the nozzle on the Y-axis carriage. An orifice metering system is extremely reliable and extremely repeatable. Once the flow of abrasive through the orifice is measured during machine set-up, the value can be entered into the control computer program and no adjustment or fine tuning of abrasive flow will ever be needed.

The small abrasive hopper located on the Y-axis carriage typically holds about a 45-minute supply of abrasive and can be refilled with a hand scoop while cutting is underway. This simple manual system is used by many owners of small cutting systems, such as the OMAX Model 2652 and 2626. On larger cutting tables such as the OMAX Model 55100, 80160, 60120, and 80X the small hopper may be difficult to reach during operation. In addition, some small-system owners fear they may forget to refill their abrasive hoppers on a regular basis.


The abrasive hopper mounted to an OMAX Jetmachining Center

For these reasons, OMAX offers a bulk abrasive feed hopper that can be located anywhere in the vicinity of the cutting table. This can be operated with shop air to move abrasive from the bulk hopper to the small Y-axis-mounted hopper whenever the level of abrasive in the small hopper drops below a pre-determined level.