which controller? Hust CNC Motion or Thermwood

[Guest CNC Apps Guy 1]

Also, Webby, thanks for letting me be a Mod.

 

It was a honor and pleasure to serve eMastercam in that capacity.

[Guest]

James,

 

I am sorry you felt the need to step down.

 

Thanks for ALL that you do

 

You have an opinion and it's just that an opinion, if people don't like it fine, that's their choice.

 

Truth is ultimate defense

 

Boy, I hope HAAS never gets wind of what I think of THEIR products

 

[Guest CNC Apps Guy 1]

I just felt is was more important for me personally to be able to not be a "yes" man about Thermwood's INFERIOR products and say what I need to say than to be a moderator.

 

I just hope all considering router purchases will make note of this conversation.

[ERIC14779]

AMEN

 

enough said buyer beware

[mowens]

I get a kick out of reading Thermwoods website about how "advanced" their controls are. It's obvious they haven't spent much time looking at other kinds of controls.

 

Never having had to purchase a machine or controller, are canned cycles usually an option you have to pay for? The place I am at currently spent as little money as possible. We don't have canned cycles, optional stop, block delete or spindle speed override. Is this unusual for a router or have I, too, spent too much time in metals and aerospace?

[Thee Starry™]

mowens,

 

I have used a number of different CNC Routers, and thus far, the only one I have come into contact with that those were "options" on, is Thermwood.

It seems that everything is an option on a Thermwood router.

Toolchanger that holds more than 4 tools? OPTION

Block Skip/Delete? OPTION

Spindle speed overide? OPTION

Auto Location Pins? OPTION

The list goes on, and on...

I swear to god, I own a Porter Cable router at my house for typical home projects that I paid $125 for, that has more standard features than my companies CNC Routers which we paid anywhere from $109,000 - $286,000 for.

[Zoober]

It looks like Thermwood should be happy to see what their customers have to say, instead of castigating people for their critiques. Only by knowing your target audience, can you improve. Or maybe they don't want to .........

[Thee Starry™]

When I was down at Thermwood for the training, which was mostly horrible, they asked me what my opinion was, seeing as how I have a background in CNC Routers. So I gave it to them. I letthem know that I found their machines to be loose, weak and not rigid enough, and their reaction was, and I quote, "we don't need to build boat anchors here, the other companies overbuild their machines needlessly"

And as far as the controls, I was told that they can't understand why the rest of the industry hasn't adopted their system yet and most controls give the operator too many options that are not needed.

Seemed to me that they could really care less what the customers thought, becauase the Thermwood way is the only way, in their eyes.

[ERIC14779]

Yea ....

 

That is the arrogance of thermwood.... we are right every other machine mfg. is wrong...

 

 

they prey on the uninformed !!!!!

 

[Travis_Buchanan]

Anyone ever heard of the cartesian coordinate system?

[Guest CNC Apps Guy 1]

On a machine that I programmed, we could not get the C-Axis any better than .010" eccentricity... and THAT was at the spindle nose not even out at the tool.

 

EVERYBODY knows that people push their machines to the limit, it does not matter if it's a $20 million machining cell or a $5 pencil sharpener. Machines HAVE to be as beefy as possible period, end of story! If Thermwood does not get that... well... I don;t know what to say other than, it's their customer's loss.

 

The less beefy, the more gutless ans less precise the tool is.

 

JM2C

[Zoober]

Maybe they should change their name to Fadalwood...... Just a thought

[Guest]

quote:

---

Fadalwood

---

You mean Fadalcouldn't

 

[Zoober]

how much wood could a therm cut wood, if a therm cut could cut wood?

[Guest CNC Apps Guy 1]

ROFLMAO!!!!!

[Guest CNC Apps Guy 1]

:bump:

 

So the Thermwood Trolls can get an eyeful.

 

Seems as though they've been trolling in this thread.

 

Note: Anyone that thinks 5-Axis routers are expensive should price out an equivalent travel 5-Axis SNK, Nikolas Correa, etc...

 

Routers are FAR less money.

[deckard]

Hello Everyone,

Thank you all for your honest opinions. I'm glad to see that people here are willing to speak their mind on CNC routers with no reason to repeat any adspeak or official company tagline. As I said before my CNC Machine experience has been with Thermwood exclusively. My machining needs are not as specialized as some of the individuals here on this thread but I do appreciate everyone taking the time and effort to respond. We vacuum form or thermoform plastic parts and were looking to use the machine to create our molds. We have been told that REN board and MDF were ideal materials for moldmaking and even aluminum. What would the top 5 brands or makes of CNC Router / Controller would everyone or anyone recommend? Should we start a poll or survey? I'm looking for a real world, user based opinion and not that of a salesperson. I do know that there are a few brands of CNC routers available for sale but the end users, I'm sure would be able to point me in the right direction.

Thanks in advance.

[mowens]

I don't know what kind of tolerance or finish you need to hold, but I don't think a router is what you need for moldmaking, especially in aluminum; more so if you have to remove a lot of material. This is not the kind of application they are intended for. In my opinion, you will get unsatifactory results and excessive machine wear.

As far as router recomendations, I like Komo and Fanuc.

[Guest CNC Apps Guy 1]

My 2 favorites that I've had my hands on that I can remember are Komo and Shoda. These are High End Routers that are on the pricey side and for the right work are worth every single penny and then some.

 

HTH

[Zoober]

My favorite Router is a Porter-Cable cordless. Did most of my cabinets, and a kitchen re-model.

[JohnW@Kauffman]

deckard,

 

My limited experience has been with an Onsrud 5 axis moving gantry machine. We also vacuum form plastics and use our machine for trimming, with plans to do some machining in the near future. During our search for a machine we looked at a lot of routers, including Thermwood, Komo, Shoda, and a few others. We went to the Thermwood facility and watched their machine run and felt the Thermwood wasn't rigid enough. The Komo was simply out of our budget. The Onsrud we bought is not the heaviest they build, as they also offer a heavier duty fixed gantry machine, but ours is sufficient for what we are doing so far. We've recently begun experimenting with REN board and it handles that well, the only limits so far being the fact that I'm a complete noob at surface machining, so I've got a lot to learn. For what we do, MDF only works for one off prototypes, but not if we've got to produce multiple parts. I haven't tried to machine aluminum yet. Onsrud told us that our machine was not designed for full time machining of aluminum but it would handle aluminum on a limited basis with adjusted (slower) feeds and speeds.

 

As for the control, Onsrud only offers Osai on their 5 ax machines. Having no experience on other machines I can't compare it with anything, but it has been easy for me to learn, and I can override speeds and/or feeds at the control, thus allowing me to slow it down in close areas to check my clearances before I release a program to production.

[Thee Starry™]

For my 2 cents, I would say KOMO and SHODA as well.

Simply put, they are both very well built machines, with good controllers, and in my experience, great customer service and support.

[ERIC14779]

If you can afford the 150 to 170K range a Quintax will cut ALUMINUM for Thermoforming molds Medium duty type. ISO 40 taper 12 Horsepower I do it at least once a month. As well as trimming parts.

 

tolerances average + or - .015" PLENTY good enough for THERMOFORMING molds that are large enough to justify a 5 foot by 5 foot ( or larger) machine. The formed part will vary at least twice that amount

do to processing variations.

 

Yes the high end machines are nice but do you need a Lamborghini to get to gram ma's house ???

[Guest CNC Apps Guy 1]

No but I DO need more than a skateboard!

[Guest CNC Apps Guy 1]

No Thermwood folks at Westec that I could find... bummer. Sure would have liked to lay the smack down face to face, unlike how they went behind my back crying to CNC... " waaaaa, waaaaa, waaaaaa, CNC A G is besmirching our fine producet..... waaaaa, waaaaa, waaaaaa "

 

Me thinks I'm going to have to go to a wood show sometime.