When it comes to waterjet glass cutting, many people tend to dismiss or put aside the importance of the quality of water and its temperature. These factors are important to be looked into first before beginning to operate your waterjet machine because they have a substantial role to play in the life of your waterjet system, particularly to its components.
If you seriously want to save significant amounts of money, you must know how to implement a good level of control on the temperature of the water and it’s quality. By getting into this habit, you will, in the process, extend the service life of your waterjet parts.
Total Dissolved Solids
Even when you think that your water is seemingly pure and immaculate in its form, they always have some impurities in them that need to be filtered out. Allowing them to linger in your water runs the risk of posing harm or induce damage to your waterjet machine’s cutting head or high-pressure line.
Water impurities are so small, so tiny, that they can’t be possibly seen by the naked eye. But they can be measured in parts per million, or ppm. These impurities are usually consisting of suspended and dissolved solids.
The dissolved solids or TDS in average tap water would be ranging anywhere between 140-400 ppm. Beyond 500 ppm, experts are warning us that this level is already alarming and is highly unsafe for human consumption. Water impurities reaching this range can be detrimental to human health.
Suspended Solids
Filtering water for suspended solid particles is important. These random solid particles suspended in water run the risk of getting trapped by a filter but dissolved solid particles will just simply pass through the filter.
There is a wide array of materials that may constitute suspended solids, and this would include decaying plant matter silt, or sometimes even industrial waste and many others. In short, suspended solids consist of a plethora of materials and not just one or two materials but many.
Suspended solids finding their way to your waterjet glass cutting machine pump run the risk of shortening down their anticipated pump life. This goes well also for the nozzles and seals. Besides, if these suspended particles find their way to your machine’s high-pressure stream, they will behave like abrasive particles, eventually inducing damage to your high-pressure equipment.
Pre-filtration and final filtering are available for this purpose, depending on the particle size that must be taken out. You will easily find these filters nestled inside the pump itself, right before the intensifier.
You can easily change them by the hand when you need to. The pump PLC will send out a notification advising you that it is about time to replace your clogged filter.
pH Level
The pH level of water is as important as the totality of suspended and dissolved solids in it. If ingressing water for your waterjet glass cutting system is characterized by having a low pH level, the odds are high that it is very acidic and thus would have a damaging effect on the high-pressure tubing. With this scenario in mind, it would necessitate that you replace it more than necessary.
If the inlet water comes with high pH, it inherently comes then with basic characteristics which makes it prone to developing scaly calcium carbonate buildup. This can be seen usually on the inner linings of your system’s high-pressure tubing.
Water Temperature
Believe it or not, your water’s temperature can have a significant impact on the longevity of the components of your waterjet system. Water that gets its way into your machines high-pressure pumps should be kept cold, at least below 70* F, otherwise, it will have a damaging effect.
Water directly taken from the tap may be cool enough for some systems. If not, these brands should be suggesting instead a particular chiller system for this purpose.Rainfall and surrounding temperature can also affect the water temperature. If you are in this kind of situation, waterjet professionals may recommend a closed-loop system that is equipped with chillers that will help a lot in keeping things at a steady or constant temperature.