Light Machine Corp CNC Lathe
I've got a CNC lathe manufactured by the Light Machine Corp which looks to be a slightly modified Sherline. It currently is mounted in a case with the motor control working fine and all the stepper motors look to be ok from a visual inspection. I have the controller and cables that went along with the unit, but no software or computer.
At the very least I could strip the machine down and have a nice Sherline manual lathe out of the deal; however, if it wasn't going to cost a fortune it would be kind of nice to get the machine working again as a cnc lathe. If a person was going to go this route would you work with what was their and simply try to find the software and a suitable computer and than cross your fingers and hope everything worked as it should? Or, would you replace the stepper motors and get a new controller? Would there be much of a savings going this latter route over buying a new Sherline CNC lathe? Any information would be appreciated.
info on spectralight lathe
I ran into the exact same problem with a spectralight lathe and mill right after Christmas. Another teacher had used them in the classroom and he left for another job, and the next teacher did not know anything about cnc so the machines got put up with the controllers, but that important card that was left in actual PC. I was given the equipment this year for my class and got to figure all this fun stuff out by myself. Intelitek bought light machine corporation so anything as far as parts goes can be purchased from them. I will warn you though they are very expensive. I found the software for the lathe and mill online. I got a replacement card for the PC from a company called Learning Labs Inc. They specialize in educational equipment. They were the cheapest at around $600.00, which I thought was crazy. If you want to use the stock stepper motors and controller you will have to have a certain PCI card that intelitek makes. Your other option is a retro fit with mach 2, I did not want to do a whole retro fit because I have a curriculum they students follow for this certain type of software. If you need the software or have any other questions email me at [email protected].
Re: spectra lathe treading
Mredburn,
Did you say you have NO controller. Or did you mean no spindel controll?
You need a controller and software to make use of the encoder feed back signal. you would also need to know the type of encoder to be able to interpalate the feed back signal in Mach 3.
If you look closely on the Minirak board it should have a number. They make a lot of boards but they have documintation on line for all of them. Also see if you can find some make and model info on the endcoder.
Spectra used there own motors. They were not the same as Sherline. I have not seen a 5000 rpm motor? My mill has a 10000 rpm and the lathe I had, was older but still the same motor? I believe they were made by Triem in North Carolina. In any event you will need to crawl (Hook up a controller and software) before you walk ( survive the learning curve and get every thing tuned and running ) and then you can run ( install a macro plugin to thread ). If you give me a rundown of were you are at, and were you would like to be, I will see if I can help!
BTW I made the prevous post, by mistake, on a dead profile (jkcab95). You will note that this post is by jkcab. I could not login one day and I guess I got frustrated and set up a new account. I was on the couch with the laptop last night and must have typed in the wrong user and password. I wish I could figure out how to remove that profile from this site?
Jeff