For anyone who needs things waterjet cut (or other methods) there are a lot of metal fab shops out there, and you can get things cut cheap enough. The last water jet job I had done in a 24 hour rush was $140 for a 1 sq ft piece of aluminum 1/4" thick. It was shaped with a couple holes in it, not complex, but $140 is a long way from $6000.
For speed, this thing is slow (fine for hobby use) and you may find that other processes are more appropriate - especially if you cut a lot. I have a HD Plasma that can cut 1/4" steel plate at 282 inches per minute; compare that to the 0.4" on this machine. While my machine was $60,000 and thus 10x more money, it does cut 700x faster ..... and I am going to the Fabtech show in Vegas this week because I need to go even -faster- . http://www.fabtechexpo.com/
I totally lost my respect to IEEE as a "serious organization" when I saw they were advertising [1] their start-up event with the title
"Everything you know about startup success is wrong"
The speed of the Waser was the first thing I paid attention to upon hearing about it so long ago - I'm sure it'd be great as a toolshop or hackerspace tool, or perhaps even educational, but there's no way I could use this commercially to complement existing laser and CNC capabilities, so I'll just keep outsourcing.
A shame, as I'd really like to get on the first rung of water-cutting - it's an incredibly versatile tool.
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Your 6Kw fibre laser video has me looking at my own laser machine quite ruefully :)
Which is apples to oranges of course. One instance compared to a tool to make many. I have a startup that needs 12" by 12" plates (quite a coincidence) in small production quantities with various holes and slots. I've been studying CNC milling but this would be much simpler and possibly cheaper.
For speed, this thing is slow (fine for hobby use) and you may find that other processes are more appropriate - especially if you cut a lot. I have a HD Plasma that can cut 1/4" steel plate at 282 inches per minute; compare that to the 0.4" on this machine. While my machine was $60,000 and thus 10x more money, it does cut 700x faster ..... and I am going to the Fabtech show in Vegas this week because I need to go even -faster- . http://www.fabtechexpo.com/
Dreaming of a Kinetic machine with dual torch heads ... http://www.kineticusa.com/products/production-spindle-drilli...
Or maybe a 6KW fiber laser ... (this video is not sped up!) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B3gMM5VSQUE
Fabtech is one of those trade shows where something under a few hundred thousand dollars seems cheap!