ibuildstuff4u
Active Member
- Joined
- Oct 22, 2009
- Messages
- 30
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I bought a Prolight 3000 lathe a few months ago that was missing it's control box to run the stepper drives. I wanted to run Mach 3 on the lathe any way so the missing control box wasn't an issue. I paid $500 for the used lathe and it came with a second chuck and some tool holders in the tool changer.
The lathe has some really nice features such as precision ground ball screws, limit switches on all axises, a 8 position tool changer, an air operated door and chuck, and the spindle is set up to accept 5C collets. It also came with a 4" 3 jaw Bison chuck to replace the air operated chuck.
To build the control box I bought three Leadshine Digital DM 856 drives, a Combo breakout board from Sound Logic, a 48 volt 7.5 amp power supply to run the stepper drives, and a C-3 pulse board from CNC 4 PC to tell Mach how fast the spindle is turning. There is an encoder on the spindle motor that tells a RPM gauge on the front of the machine how fast it's turning too.
I also replaced the Z and X axis motors with some more powerful ones from Kelinginc.net to make sure I didn't have any issues with missing steps when running. The original motors were 150 oz and the new ones are 282 oz. I didn't replace the tool changer motor as it works just fine.
I'm happy to report that the lathe is running great, and I have the amps turned way down on the stepper drives as I have plenty of power on each axis. With a simple M code I can control the spindle speed, open and close the chuck and open and close the machine door. Accuracy has been really good and it looks like I can easily keep .0005 accuracy.
Here are some pictures of the machine and the new control box thats mounted on the back of the lathe.
Dale P.
The lathe has some really nice features such as precision ground ball screws, limit switches on all axises, a 8 position tool changer, an air operated door and chuck, and the spindle is set up to accept 5C collets. It also came with a 4" 3 jaw Bison chuck to replace the air operated chuck.
To build the control box I bought three Leadshine Digital DM 856 drives, a Combo breakout board from Sound Logic, a 48 volt 7.5 amp power supply to run the stepper drives, and a C-3 pulse board from CNC 4 PC to tell Mach how fast the spindle is turning. There is an encoder on the spindle motor that tells a RPM gauge on the front of the machine how fast it's turning too.
I also replaced the Z and X axis motors with some more powerful ones from Kelinginc.net to make sure I didn't have any issues with missing steps when running. The original motors were 150 oz and the new ones are 282 oz. I didn't replace the tool changer motor as it works just fine.
I'm happy to report that the lathe is running great, and I have the amps turned way down on the stepper drives as I have plenty of power on each axis. With a simple M code I can control the spindle speed, open and close the chuck and open and close the machine door. Accuracy has been really good and it looks like I can easily keep .0005 accuracy.
Here are some pictures of the machine and the new control box thats mounted on the back of the lathe.
Dale P.