I am posting this reluctantly because I really like the idea of a desktop waterjet machine for the small shop. I have owned the Wazer for a little over a year. It is really cool what it can do when it is actually working and I have the patience to deal with the horrible software and work-arounds.
I did not do my homework before buying the Wazer or I might have known how horrible the necessary software that makes gcode files for the machine is. I own and have built several CNC machines so I know the good bad and the ugly.
My favorite machines are my CNC router and laser engravers. Both are a joy to operate using a variety of programs for creating gcode files.
LightBurn is a well though out versatile program suitable for both amateur and advanced users, pretty much the opposite of WAM (the program provided by Wazer)
The garbage software that comes with the Wazer is an embarrassment. I have given them many opportunities to improve it. Many owners agree with me that the software it badly written to say the least and forces the user to spend much more time making test cuts etc instead of just making the parts they want.
The firmware that drives the machine is equally horrible treating the user as a total moron and requiring a lot of wasted time and provides few useful options.
This is a hobby machine at best forget about fine degrees of control or precision without a lot of extra effort.
If you are making stained glass and your requirements for precision are low this might be the machine for you. If you want to make precise prototypes prior to professional manufacturing or for one offs that need to be accurate, basically forget it. You are better off with some files, chisels and a other hand tools.
In order to placate those who want a reasonable degree of control over the design and cutting process, Wazer offered me a plugin for Corel Draw that was contracted by their European Distributor. This offers some degree of improvement but they have not been able to get the plugin to work with the new 2024 version of Corel that I bought specifically for this purpose. It has been six months and no success yet. I did get the plugin to work on an older hacked version of Corel but at some point in experimentation the installer for the plugin (I am not making this up and have never seen this before) erased the contents of the activation code file. So at this point I can not even use the hacked version and multiple communications have not prompted Wazer to do anything about it.
It is interesting that Wazer now has a new model that supposedly fixes some of the issues with the older version. They are offering a new version and have not bothered to improve their crap software first? Yes they did fix a few bugs but the whole program is a joke.
There was also an issue with the display blanking out during a cut and although it was possible to finish the cut there was no control such as speed override or pausing without a display. The problem is pretty obviously caused by electrical interference due to bad design of the communication between the display and the main control module. I was jerked around for months over this and finally was given an add on dongle to replace the display. This does work but it is going to make it difficult to sell this thing if I am able to at all. Makes it look a lot more like the piece of junk that it is.
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