Originally Posted by
Seanster
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