For this assignment, we just had to use the water jet cutter to cut two diamonds. There weren’t any fresh pieces of metal, so a TA and I rumaged through the scrap pile to look for a piece that would fit in the water jet cutter.
This piece of scrap was just a tad too big, so the actually piece I used was half this size
In the wet lab, I just followed the quick start guide (note: adding instructions to the quick start guide on how to adjust the thickness of the metal in ProtoMAX Make would be helpful). I had a good chat with a TA while we waited for the water to fill up (maybe 5 minutes? The water level was REALLY low), but the actually time the water jet cutter ran for was less than 2 minutes. The assignment probably would have taken 30 minutes total if the computer didn’t freeze and have to be restarted twice.
After the pieces were cut, I went into the machine shop and used a file and some sand paper to post-process the two diamonds in the rough.
Before post-processing
After post processing
I then gave them to some fellow BIOE’s (if you see these being thrown around though — not my fault).
Cost Analysis:
- Material: Scrap metal – Free
- Labor: $15 (1 hour @ $15/hour)
- Access to water jet cutter: $25
Total: $40
