Prolight 3000 CNC Turning Center questions

[abeship]

Does anyone on here have one of these? I just recently picked one up and it is fully functioning but I am having trouble getting the tools on centerline. No matter how small I go the height of the tool just isnt nearly high enough. It's almost like the position for T3 on the turret is at the wrong angle? I can't find anywhere in the manual that discusses this issue beyond some small "shim your tool to centerline"...

Would really appreciate if someone here who knows more about this than I do has any input. Manual can be found here for those interested. Page B-17 is where they discuss shimming the tools.







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[SCzEngrgGroup]

You probably need to put shims under the tool to get them to the correct height.

Regards,
Ray L.

[steryd]

I think the probblem is that cuttting edge is to high.
does tit occur only with T3?
Did You do the reference run with the turret?

[abeship]

I believe I have isolated the issue, I have an email into intelitek to confirm...

When I manually rotate the turret (via software) I can hear the pawl click where the tool is aligned on centerline. To "engage" the pawl, after I hear the click I reverse the turret just a hair and feel it lock up against the rack. The tool is locked in this position and on centerline.

Where the code runs into an issue is it does not reverse the turret, hence causing the tool to be far off centerline. It isn't really engaging the pawl. I am not sure if this is a software issue or possibly I have a bad stepper, hopefully intelitek will be able to provide some insight.

[MakesThings]

I have found that the intermittent failures of commands has been linked to diode failure and capacitor degradation in the light machine control box. There is a set of diodes that are on the PC board that can interfere with signals if they are out of spec from age or use, the can degrade over time and cause these types of problems. Also the capacitors used to filter the signals before they get to the IC's can degrade the signals and cause malfunction. Depending on you level of electronic skill they are repairable. Intellitek charges $$$ for these repairs.

You might also consider additional shielding on the control cables going everywhere on the system, 3M copper RF shielding tape is in order. I have added additional shielding on all cables and cable connector junctions since this machine is sensitive to errant signals. Be sure you have a solid spiked ground, not just a tab on a water pipe, and isolate the power coming into the computer and control box with backup power supply that includes filtering and surge protection.

The servo for the tool post could only be the problem if someone has taken it apart and messed up the connections, there is nothing that goes wrong with them, NEVER take any of them apart. they are easily ruined. And replacing them with "More powerful servos" is a fools errand and will make no difference in performance on this lathe. The limiting factor is the spindle drive motor and belt drive for the depth and speed of cut, stick to the OEM recommendation of 0.010 to 0.020 inches depth per pass and it will turn parts forever. If you need heavier and faster cuts then buy a Citizen.

If you start to have "loss of home" problems after tool changes when running a program the problem IS NOT in the stepper motor. It is a software problem, possibly related to the X-axis limit switch or something on the PCI board. The "loss of home" can be solved by homing the machine before each tool change, which adds just a couple of lines of code and a little extra time to running the part. I have not had any "loss of home" errors running programs on the machine since I began following this protocol.

[laheyth]

HI,
I just bought a Prolight 3000, and have the PCI card for it.
Does anyone have the software for it that I can get a copy?
It would seem cheaper to try this card with a vitual machine environment with NT and see how that goes.
Otherwise I will have to invest in Mach 3 or Mach 4. to get it running.

[steryd]

The software is available to download on intelitek website.
It works with win7.

[DSpeck]

Here is the location for downloads: Intelitekdownloads.com

[Iron-Man]

Abeship, what is the size of the turret, L W H and the approx size of the tool holder?

Thanks,

Iron-Man

[Iron-Man]

Does anyone know the approx size L x W x H of a Prolight 3000 CNC turning Center Lathe Turret?

Thanks,

Iron-Man

[abeship]

Does anyone know the approx size L x W x H of a Prolight 3000 CNC turning Center Lathe Turret?

Thanks,

Iron-Man

Do you want to know just the size of the turret? Not the machine itself?

[Iron-Man]

Do you want to know just the size of the turret? Not the machine itself?

Yes, just the size of the turret.

Thanks,

Iron-Man

[intelitek]

Enjoy.

[Iron-Man]

Thanks, the system never sent a response to me.

Iron-Man

[crazybrit]

The software is available to download on intelitek website.
It works with win7.

https://www.intelitekdownloads.com/S...olight%203000/
"Use Version 4.1.0.8 for Windows 7"

Has anyone tried it with Win 10? My expectation is that it doesn't run (esp drivers) but I've not tried it and was curious if anyone has.

[crazybrit]

[/URL]

Hi.

So the above picture has be curious. I posted a question about it here on my thread: https://www.cnczone.com/forums/bench...ml#post2471774

Intellitek told me this week they believed the style where the tooling plate hangs off the box on one side and the style where the plate is completely within the box could be freely swapped. I cannot see how that can be true unless the tooling plates are different sizes.

It seems to me that the style where the plate overhangs is only for the t-slot cross slide. And what is pictured here is only for the bolt hole cross slide.

[Jim Dawson]

Hi.

So the above picture has be curious. I posted a question about it here on my thread: https://www.cnczone.com/forums/bench...ml#post2471774

Intellitek told me this week they believed the style where the tooling plate hangs off the box on one side and the style where the plate is completely within the box could be freely swapped. I cannot see how that can be true unless the tooling plates are different sizes.

It seems to me that the style where the plate overhangs is only for the t-slot cross slide. And what is pictured here is only for the bolt hole cross slide.

Not exactly sure what I'm looking at here, but it looks like the fixed part of the slot lines up with the centerline of the spindle and that's where I would expect the tool tip to be. I can't quite see what that tool looks like, it's in the shadow.

[crazybrit]

Not exactly sure what I'm looking at here, but it looks like the fixed part of the slot lines up with the centerline of the spindle

Correct.

Consider these pictures.

There are at least 3 styles of tool changer. Pictures attached. Two where the plate is entirely within the mounting box (round and hexagonal motors). One where the tooling plate hangs off one side of the mounting box.

I've only seen the later on the lathe which has a t-slot cross slide. I'm not seeing how they could be interchangible.

[crazybrit]

Here are two more pictures. It appears to me that the cross slide with the t-slots is deeper, so it requires the tool changer where the plate hangs off one side to get back into correct alignment with the spindle.

AKA you can't mount the version in this thread onto a cross slide with t-slots.

[Jim Dawson]

It looks like the boxes are different sizes, but the motor to hub center lines looks to be the same on all of them. But without understanding the system as a whole it's a little difficult to say if they are interchangeable or not. I have never seen a machine like yours so I'm shooting in the dark here. Maybe one requires some kind of a spacer? In any case, any of them would need to be mounted such that the tool tip winds up on the spindle C/L, assuming you don't have a Y axis on your machine. If you do have a Y axis, then you could compensate with an offset.