# Upgrade advice needed



## daCat (Oct 16, 2008)

I recently acquired an old Thermwood CNC router. 5' x '10 table, 25 hp cutting head. This machine has a dual x axis (as many of the larger tables do), with rack and pinion movement. Y axis is 1" ball screw. Z is smaller ballscrew. Right off the bat I had serious issues with the operating system, so I replaced it with a new system and new stepper motors from lowcostcncretrofit and installed Mach III software as the operating system.

Now I have accuracy problems. Bad. Today I was informed that Mach III will not operate properly unless the computer has a video hard card instead of the normal integrated one. I have ordered this, but I am still skeptical.

We had issues with x axis at first, and after some tightening of the preload on the pinion gear and some tweaking of the backlash adjustment, that seems to have been resolved.

Now we have approximately 1/8" variance in our Y axis. Preload is adjusted properly. Software backlash adjustments have had no affect.

Is anyone here familiar with this machine or operating system or both?

Any ideas on how to fix this problem?



Also, we need this thing running yesterday, so I may also in the market for a good heavy duty system capable to go to work asap.


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## ajh359 (Jul 17, 2008)

Check all the rack and pinion gears to how much wear this, use a filler gauge to see how much backlash you have there.


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