Old c70 Cartesian 5

[Karl Wittnebel]

Anyone have experience programming older 5-axis Thermwood routers, c1985? I need to mill some curved hydrofoils and tooling prototypes from solid carbon starting with rhino and Solidworks models and I'm wondering if it's possible for an older 5-axis Thermwood to do this without extensive hands on programming and whether the control could be upgraded to a more modern standard to make it a bit more straightforward. Can one even get parts for these older machines? Are the motors dc? What's the oldest machine that would be suitable for this sort of work without extensive mods? Thanks in advance.

[Ryan Hochgesang]

Hi Karl,

Programming support on a control model of this yr. will be limited. Thermwood does provide control upgrades for existing Thermwood machines. You can contact our retrofit dept. for details. You will need to have your machine serial number handy when contacting. The latest model Thermwood controls are running on a Windows platform.

phone: 1800 221 3865 ext. 251 or 319
email: service@thermwood.com

[Dave Eno]

I'm guessing that this problem has been solved already. I programmed one of these machines for several years. It may be difficult to achieve a decent surface finish if the moves in the CNC program are small. If you are working with "big, lofty" surfaces that allow the moves length to be larger (>1 inch?), then you might be OK. Are / were your parts quite large?

I might be able to provide some advice if you still need it.

Dave