Earlier than Wazer got here alongside, “water jet cutting” and “affordable” didn’t belong in the identical sentence. That modified in 2016, when the corporate launched the world’s first desktop water jet cutter, pre-selling $1.3 million price of items.
Quick-forward to as we speak, and Wazer says it has over 3,000 cutters within the subject throughout 60 international locations, utilized by everybody from small workshop house owners to main firms like SpaceX and Tesla. The corporate as we speak introduced it’s launching Wazer Professional, representing an improve over its predecessor.
The corporate’s journey started in 2012 as a analysis challenge at Penn Engineering, when co-founders Nisan Lerea and Matt Nowicki had been decided to create a low-cost, small-format water jet for the college’s machine store. The objective was to supply college students with a device able to chopping exact components in varied supplies. This concept rapidly gained traction, and by 2016, Wazer had launched the world’s first-ever desktop water jet on Kickstarter, elevating over $1.3 million.
The largest criticism in regards to the unique Wazer was that upkeep could possibly be a little bit of a ache — eradicating the slurry from the underside of the cutter, for instance, had some room for enchancment. Therefore the Professional mannequin. Based on Lerea, this new mannequin is designed mainly to handle the suggestions from the present buyer base. The shoppers wished extra energy, extra productiveness and the flexibility to chop thicker supplies. In order that’s what the corporate delivered, providing over twice the chopping energy of the unique Wazer machine. This interprets to a 2x to 4x enchancment in chopping pace and the flexibility to deal with thicker supplies, together with aluminum, glass, plastic, tile and as much as ⅜-inch thick metal.
Lerea likens the Wazer Professional to a Twenty first-century model of the band noticed, a staple in workshops for over a century.
“We’re reinventing the band saw. It’s a tool that’s been around for 100 years, unchanged. You are still manually feeding in sheets of material,” says Lerea. “A water jet, because it can cut any material, it really is the right technology for a universal 21st-century band saw.”
As somebody who’s used industrial-scale water jets regularly as a part of prototyping and lightweight fabrication, I agree: Water jets are higher in lots of use instances, however they’ve historically been reserved for terribly well-equipped workshops. Making high-precision chopping accessible to extra customers and functions is genuinely thrilling.
Extra productiveness, extra energy
“This machine has the least amount of maintenance required of any water jet, which really increases productivity,” Lerea mentioned. The Wazer Professional additionally options a complicated abrasive assortment system, which collects all of the abrasive materials through the chopping course of. This implies customers can merely dump the collected materials and proceed working with out main interruptions.
For current Wazer Desktop customers, the corporate says the transition to the Wazer Professional shall be seamless. The brand new machine makes use of the identical software program, making it simple for customers to adapt. Moreover, Wazer affords a trade-up program, enabling present clients to obtain a major low cost on the Wazer Professional by buying and selling of their outdated machines.
“We want our existing customers to benefit from the productivity improvements without shelling out an additional $19,000,” Lerea defined, earlier than reiterating that the improve program advantages the shoppers, however the facet impact is that it permits Wazer to refurbish and resell the traded-in items.
Priced at $18,999, the Wazer Professional stays considerably extra reasonably priced than conventional water jet cutters, costing upward of $100,000. After all, a $100,000 unit can have options that Wazer doesn’t — a far bigger chopping mattress being the obvious one — but it surely seems that many individuals merely don’t want an infinite water cutter.
Wazer’s progress has been spectacular, with the corporate now using round 40 individuals break up between its R&D facility in New York and its manufacturing facility in Shenzhen, China. Since its final funding spherical in 2019, Wazer has been worthwhile, funding its operations and improvement via money stream. This monetary independence has enabled them to innovate and develop with out the fixed stress of in search of exterior funding.
Seeking to the long run, Lerea sees many alternatives for additional innovation within the water jet area, suggesting that Wazer envisions a complete product line of water jets tailor-made to varied functions and person wants.
One shocking market phase that has embraced Wazer’s expertise is the world of artwork and design. Lerea shared the story of Alison Eden, a glass artist in Brooklyn who makes use of the Wazer to chop intricate glass items in her studio.
“Every single piece used to be cut by hand, but with the Wazer, she can produce four times as much,” Lerea mentioned. Eden, by the way, is the right instance of the type of person who wouldn’t want an industrial-size water jet however who can improve their throughput with a desktop-size gadget.
With the launch of the Wazer Professional, Wazer continues to make life attention-grabbing for the water-cutting incumbents.