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.

I have a D&M milling machine and is very similar to the Light Machines line. I was able to retrofit the machine to work with Mach 3 quite easily. All you really have to do is add a parallel port breakout board to the machine and hook up the stepper drives to it.

I can send you picts and instructions if you send me your E-Mail address.

Mine is dpynenberg@new.rr.com

Dale P.

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 mhaney@haywood.k12.nc.us.

Try these links, I remember the lathe software controller is in there. All you need is an older pc(probably find one in a dumpster) it has to that LSA slot(I think thats what its called)

http://www.intelitekdownloads.com/Software/WIN/CNC/SpectraLight_Mill/



http://www.intelitekdownloads.com/Software/CAD_CAM/

Now if you look on your controller somewhere there will be a serial number. Lightmachines will still give you the software for free if you have the long serial number, I think it was 8 digits or more. Good luck

P.S. Do you have the interface card? If not then you will have to get ya a new controller and use software like Mach or Turbocam

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.

I'm been trying to get a spectralight mill running using the original stepper motors with a mechatronics driver board a 24v power supply and using emc2 on an old computer. Got everything working but max feedrate I can get is not as fast as the factory spec's. so far I have about $160 invested next I thinking about getting new stepper motors with more power to see if I can get the max feedrate faster.so far it's a lot cheaper doing this then getting the pci card from light machines. hope this is some help to you.
Kevin