New Machine from Thermwood

Ken Susnjara · Post by **Ken Susnjara** » Thu, Jul 12 2007, 9:05AM

We’ve looked at a CNC lathe but because you need a control, servo drives and four axes of motion it would not be much less cost than a CNC router. We also looked at sharing the control between a CNC router and a carving lathe but the cost was still too high in our opinion. We believe the most practical approach is the one we currently offer where you can use all the existing axes of a CNC router except for the actual part rotation. This gives you a full CNC router and lathe when you need it.

Forrest Chapman · Post by **Forrest Chapman** » Thu, Jul 12 2007, 9:55AM

Thanks Ken,

Most of that makes sense including the part where it shares controler, however do you really need more than 3 axis and do you need larger than a 5 HP motor? This could bring the cost down. Can the servo motor on the lathe be made to free spin and index? This would allow to do traditional round turnings very quickly and more exotics as well. Since the machine only has 3 axis the tools would have to be mounted inline behind the lathe. Sorry Ken to many ideas floating around in here.

Forrest

Ken Susnjara · Post by **Ken Susnjara** » Thu, Jul 12 2007, 10:45AM

Three axis works for regular turning but not carving. The servo drive can operate continuously like a lathe spindle, in fact we use that set-up on the metal lathe in our plant. We are planning an interface where turned parts can be designed in eCabinet Systems and the run on the rotary playback in addition to running the carving programs from our library.

Michael Kowalczyk · Post by **Michael Kowalczyk** » Thu, Jul 12 2007, 12:32PM

Hey Ken,
I saw a video while I was at the Texas woodworking show while I was working the Thermwood booth and it was amazing. I think it was someone you are working with in Canada that is doing something with prosthetics and they developed the software that allows the play back to actually spin instead of just index and carves out a piece in 25% or less time than the current method. I heard that the present servomotor on the play back may not be the correct one to have sustained spinning like that for long periods of time but with an upgrade it would be possible. Any new developments on this. The length of time it takes to cut a part on the playback unit is excruciating painful and unless you have down time, it makes it hard to promote it. I do not know if they will let you use their postprocsser but I would think that it they can do it you can do it better. Thank you for all your hard work and continued desire to keeps us on the cutting edge. (pun intended) (607)

Michael Kowalczyk · Post by **Michael Kowalczyk** » Tue, Jul 24 2007, 11:28AM

Hey Ken,
Just bumping this back to the top since it has been 12 days and no response yet. I am sure you have been very busy with the las vegas show but I would still like to know about the playback modification I wrote about in my previous post in this thread.

I hope the show was a hit for Thermwood.

Thanks,

Ken Susnjara · Post by **Ken Susnjara** » Tue, Jul 24 2007, 2:07PM

Mike, the company you referred to uses the machine to make prosthetic limbs. The particular program you saw run was a test program to make sure the software machine combination could do everything they might ever want. The rotary axis we used on that project is not the standard rotary playback axis because they need greater depth. The standard rotary playback, however, can operate like a lathe. We have played around with the idea of building a turning feature into eCabinet Systems software and then allowing you to machine it on the playback axis. We never moved ahead with the project because other things got higher priority but it is still possible.

Michael Kowalczyk · Post by **Michael Kowalczyk** » Wed, Jul 25 2007, 2:34PM

Ken,
Thanks for the quick reply. Glad to hear it is still possible. After seeing the video, my jaw dropped and I said WOW! That would make it SO MUCH more cost effective to run parts on it, for me at least, so that the time the CNC's are running we are getting the optimum hourly rate and producing many high quality parts in a day instead of only a few. I hope that now that the expansion is done and you are moved in to the new facilities that there will be some time allocated to further this part of the playback.
I hope the show was great. Sorry I missed it

Thanks and I appreciate the hard work all of you at Thermwood do.