Located in the Los Angles area, this big Cincinnati Hydrotel is a classic piece of American Iron. The large heavy duty frame and shear mass of this machine allows it to cut thru hard materials better than most new machine tools. The owner knew that the Hydrotel could really cut Titanium well and when the original CNC control died he decided to upgrade the machine with a new Centroid M400 CNC control.

The Centroid M400 CNC console was adapted to the existing operators console arm with a simple bracket. The console can swing in and out and swivel right and left so the operator can position the control at a comfortable location or move it completely out of the way to load and unload big parts. The Centroid CNC console is setup so that you can mount to arm hardware from either the top of the bottom of the console for easy adaptability to a wide variety of mounting configurations.

The Centroid M400 CNC retrofit was performed by William Atkinson of CNCmatteras.com. Will stripped the old electronics out of the stock Cincinnati electrical cabinet and installed all new components.

As you can see there is lots of room left in the updated cabinet. William used the Centroid MPU11 motion control board seen in the upper left and the Centroid GPIO4D PLC and Spindle control board seen on the left just below the MPU11. The MPU11 communicates with the Yaskawa Servo drives (seen in the lower right) via Fiber Optic Cable for reliable performance.

The rest of the retrofit cabinet consists of a row of contactors to control various accessories like Flood, Mist, etc.. and a row of circuit breakers. Centroid CNC retrofits are simple, reliable. The installer also did a nice job, this retrofit cabinet is well laid out using high quality components for years of trouble free use.

This Cincinnati Hydrotel exclusively machines aircraft parts from solid blocks Titanium. It takes a rigid machine tool to do this kind of work and the Cincinnati equipped with the new Centroid CNC control delivers.

Titanium parts right out of the machine ready for a little deburring.

A large spindle diameter combined with large high quality heavy machine tool casting provides the rigidity for nice surface finishes with Titanium.

The beefy Y axis sits on top of the machine base and moves in and out carrying the huge z axis and spindle with it.

This Centroid CNC retrofit has been in service now for 3 years and has paid for itself several times over.