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Thermwood C53 5x10 Router to Acorn

Posted: Wed Dec 08, 2021 11:27 am
by kentonsj
I have finally got to the point that I'm calling my retrofit complete. In reality, there are still plans for more tweaking but it's making parts and I now have to tackle this list of projects that was growing while I did the retrofit.

My donor machine was a 1997 Thermwood C53 5x10 router. It came from an auction and the buyer had already stripped off the 480V control system and servo motors. Perfect, my garage shop doesn't have 480V three-phase anyway. The machine was stored outside for a while under a tarp and one-half of the X-axis linear bearings were toast. I replaced them and used the good parts of the original X-axis bearings to upgrade the Z-axis to linear bearings. The original Z-axis used turcite beveled ways and was totally shot, I could move the axis in the slop of the ways by at least an 1/8 of an inch. The Z-axis conversion worked out pretty well, I managed to re-use all the old components with a bit of machining. My brother has a CNC milling machine and we managed to fit the Thermwood Z-axis casting on the table for the modifications. An air cylinder was added for counterbalance force.

Next was mounting the new servos. I used DMM DYN4 servos on this retrofit. The Y-axis dual gantry drive uses a pair of the biggest 1.8kW motors, the X-axis uses a 1.0kW motor and the Z-axis uses the 750W direct coupled 86M motor with a 24VDC brake. DMM recommended braking resistors on the larger motors. Some laser-cut servo mounts made use of the original servo mounting holes. I'm using the DB25 port and I don't like the look of breakout boards, so I used some help from this forum to design an interface board to take the DB25 port signals and convert them to a differential signal for my DMM drives. I used DB9 ports on that board and make custom shielded cables that give me a clean install. I'm running at 400khz without any hiccups. The board I designed would be available for sale assembled and tested in my machine or as a kit, if anyone is interested.

I managed to track down a 10HP Travaini vacuum pump from a 4x8 CNC here in town. I decided to try something new with this CNC and placed the 4x8 vacuum table in the middle and set some low profile unistrut along the edges. I do a mix of large slab flattening and it works awesome clamping these slabs using the strut system. It's also great for longer 3D machining operations where I don't want the 10HP vacuum pump running in my residential neighborhood for 32 hours straight.

From the same source as the vacuum pump I have an HSD tool change spindle that is the next phase of this project. I'm needing to upgrade my shop air system before that happens.

Good luck to all the retrofitters out there.
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Re: Thermwood C53 5x10 Router to Acorn

Posted: Wed Dec 08, 2021 11:29 am
by kentonsj
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Re: Thermwood C53 5x10 Router to Acorn

Posted: Wed Dec 08, 2021 11:30 am
by kentonsj
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Re: Thermwood C53 5x10 Router to Acorn

Posted: Wed Dec 08, 2021 11:46 am
by slodat
Exceptional work! That's a hell of a machine!

Re: Thermwood C53 5x10 Router to Acorn

Posted: Wed Dec 08, 2021 12:07 pm
by martyscncgarage
Nice job! Beefy machine!

Re: Thermwood C53 5x10 Router to Acorn

Posted: Wed Dec 08, 2021 1:43 pm
by cnckeith
nice work! beefy machine!

Re: Thermwood C53 5x10 Router to Acorn

Posted: Wed Jan 05, 2022 12:29 am
by Manic-Mechanic
Wow !
Thank you for posting up your project results here!

Just planning out my Acorn retrofit and great to see some clean router retrofit examples.

LOVE the laser cut servo brackets!!
The Unit-strut idea is sharp as well ;)

Re: Thermwood C53 5x10 Router to Acorn

Posted: Sat Jan 29, 2022 5:30 pm
by DAYTRIP
Sweet machine. Very cool upgrade!