[Norsksea]

I wonder if this thread would have more participation if the title had said "Light Machine" instead of "Light Madhine".

Yes you are right but I couldn't edit the title
Frank

[rbjem]

Hi Frank, thanks for this great refurbish/improvement log, it has helped me immensely (especially your wiring diagrams). I am currently in the process of fixing up an old TMC-1000 and converting it to run with Mach3. I am posting to see if you could shed some light on a question I have.

On the main block (dont know what else to call it) beneath the t-slot table that holds the carriages and nuts for the X and Y have little one way ball bearing lube holes. Do you lube the rails this way and if so, is there a special tool/technique or tye of lube to use?

Also, how does one lube the ballscrew and ballnut on this thing? I can only figure it is done by lifting the bellows and manually applying some oil to the screw. Is this right? Thanks for your help and hopefully one day, my machine will be as functional as yours.

[Norsksea]

I lubed the ball screws by running the screw to all the way out then filling the hole with grease the plugged the hole and ran the screw into the grease. This forced the grease to work through the ball screw pushing out the old grease with the new stuff.
I don't remember to type of grease thought but I called Prolight and asked them what to use.
Frank

[canwong]

Waiting for the finish one, and see how it works.

[rbjem]

I had to reread your procedure a few times to figure it out, but it seems pretty simple. One question though: when you ran the screw all the way out, was there any risk of the balls in the nut falling out? I would like to avoid that risk if possible.


Also, I contacted intelitek to see what they recommend for lube.
The ballscrew takes light lithium grease.
The linear guides take 10W motor oil.

[Norsksea]

I just meant to the stops.
Frank

[carman2002]

Did you make the jog handles on your machine or are they standard parts ? Which model of stepper motors did you decide to go with?

[tbadger]

I guess I am late to the party but I used to install / train / repair these babies in the early 90's back when it was a Light Machines TMC-1000 & beginning of the prolight marketing. There was a quick-change version with basically an extra 4" (or so) block of steel so it could sit up higher for the extra clearance required.

They were a great machine. I did lots of stuff from milling aluminum parts to fine engraving on plastics. Every now and them someone would fry a stepper motor driver in the control box and I'd have to replace it. (Keep the motor connectors secured) Other than that they were quite reliable.

I have the old, old dos software and maybe a manual for it. No hardware or parts. Probably no schematics, never really used 'em. The dos software was actually quite good in those days. It would handle a decent selection of G-codes and allowed chaining so you were not limited to the size of a program file. Has some I/O for interfacing to robots to load/unload or whatever.

I had written software to convert hp plotter files to g-code. You could use corel draw or autocad to "print" to a plotter and then convert it to run on the mill for engraving.

The dos software that controls the mill had a good 2 1/2 D virtual mode where you could watch your g-code run on-screen and see the results.

There was a separate CAM software package from light machines that was quite easy to use for the education market. Autosketch was normally used with that back then. Any CAD/CAM could be used really you'd just have the control software run the g-code.

-Sean

I just picked up a Prolight 1000 with the 4 bit ATC - X & Y work fine, but Z will only go down, not up. How can you test/troubleshoot the driver in the control box? If it only goes down (pressing up OR down) on the keyboard or on-screen controls, suggesting maybe the driver is bad.