Pro Light 1000 Software As A Service
Hi all,I am brand new here and am really excited to have found such a great resource for information. I am a high school teacher that has an Intelitek Prolight 1000 mill. Recently, the proprietary PCI card that came with the mill died (as diagnosed by Intelitek ). I have been doing tons of research and learning in regards to retrofitting these mills. From what I understand, the mill itself is pretty hardy and built to last. Unfortunately, the card replacement from Intelitek is $695.With that kind of budget, I've been looking at retrofitting with this:Sounds like the Gecko 540 is the way to go and upgrading the steppers would add to the life and performance of the machine not to mention cut out the work of finding/fabricating the housing, power supply, and pre wired motors.After all of my reading and searching this forum and others, I am still apprehensive about wiring and getting this thing to work.
I've gotten the green light to either purchase the replacement card or upgrade to the above mentioned unit. I understand I will need to use Mach 3 or something other than the Intelitek software to run the mill, but beyond that I haven't been able to find any clear instructions, write-ups, or walk throughs (which I surely thought there would be out there).If anyone has done this retrofit before and would be willing to lend some advice or provide a link to any resources that I haven't already been able to find I would greatly appreciate it. I would also welcome anyone weighing the benefits of just going back with Intelitek and paying the high cost of the card.Nick.
Thanks for the info, I've read through that thread and a bunch of others. I guess what I was looking for is more specific to the Gecko 540 in relation to the prolight and settings within mach 3. I see that people reference in those threads like you linked to that they are running the exact set up so I've PM'd them and am awaiting a response. Just thought a new thread might throw out a wider net or a casual user may have seen something linked before that i've missed.I'm a high school industrial tech teacher so i'm trying to minimize the time investment here as the mill is just one of many tools/equipment to stay up on and jumping into all of these different user groups is exhausting. If I didn't care i'd just spend the $700 and buy the intelitek card and have a plug and play, but I wan to do the job right:cheers. Ok, that makes sense.
Given that the machine is simply stepper controlled, you should have no problem interfacing a G540. The one place that might be problematic is the spindle speed control, the G540 uses a VFD output scaled from 0 to 10V for spindle speed. I am not sure how this machine controls speed but looking at the description on that page the VFD should work. What software came with the machine, is it Mach or something proprietary? If Mach, you should be able to configure it for the G540 easily. If not, you will likely need a different controller. If you go with Mach, factor that cost in.
Or you could go with the open source EMC on Linux.The other consideration is, what voltage are the steppers running at currently? The Deepgroove1 box is setup with a 40V supply. You could simply reuse the power supply in the control box and buy a 'naked' G540. There is no real magic in the deepgroove1 box - it is basically a power supply (which may not be appropriate for your setup), the G540, an on off switch, an estop and a power cord plug. You probably have everything you need in your existing box. I know the founder of Light Machines but he sold the company a few years ago.There is actually a lot of info, google it. I found this here:cheers,MichaelAny chance he might still have some technical information on the servo controller used in the ProLight 2000 mill?
I'd like to get it running in stock form with Linux CNC but without knowing any special commands it uses via the serial port. But that is a fortunate thing about the 2000, there's no separate box to get lost, just plug it to a PC with a single RS232 cable and it can be run off a DOS floppy or bootable USB stick.Sure would have been nice if the company had supported the PLM 2000 with their Windows software, but that only works with the stepper motor mills. I am a robotics coach in MI and the high school we are based in gave us some older light machine that are no longer used. I have a CNC router, a Prolight Mill and A Prolight Lathe.Also planning on converting to Mach3 and i should receive a gecko g540 drive today.I am looking at the CNC lathe and i am trying to figure out my wiring for the DB9 connector to the g540. The stepper motors i have a are SLO-SYN stepping motors. M063-CS06 3.36V and 2.9 amps.
Prolight 1000 For Sale
G540 has great instruction but i am trying to figure out the wires from the motor.Any help would be appreciated.Seb. Quick Navigation. Site Areas. Forums.