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Author Topic: Spectralight or Inteltek lathe question  (Read 3852 times)

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Spectralight or Inteltek lathe question
« on: March 01, 2008, 11:12:31 PM »
I am setting up a Spectralight lathe now known as Intelitek. I have have removed the original control board and installed an Easy-cnc driver board bought from ebay. From what I have been reading these machines were made by Sherline. Do I need to check the Sherline option in pins and ports to run this lathe? Also how do I connect and program the tool turret? Do I connect it to the Y axis?  Thank you

Offline jimpinder

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Re: Spectralight or Inteltek lathe question
« Reply #1 on: March 02, 2008, 08:13:20 AM »
No - Ports and Pins have nothing to do with what machine you are using. The Sherline mode was to do with Sherline, but you seem to be saying that you have ripped out all the old electronics and substituted some board you bought on E-Bay.

I will assume the machine has stepper motors. You should wire it up, therefore, according to the instructions that come with your Easy CNC Driver board.

Since to board comes with a 25 pin socket to take the lead from your computer, the connections to the socket will be pre-wired. The LPT1 socket from your computer has four sets of pins. 1) Pins 2 - 9 outputs to the driver - usually used to drive the axis (one step and one direction each) maximum 4 axis. 2) Pins 1,14,16 17 - another four output pins - usually used for spindle motor control and coolant. 3) Pins 10 - 13, 15 - Five input pins - usually from home switches and limit switches or spindle rpm counter. 4) Pins 18 - 25 - These are signal ground (0v) connections to the computer and have no other use.

You will have to read the documentation and find out  how pins are allocated - particularly pins 2 - 9. You can then set up Configuration/Posts and Pins accordingly.

If you have a lathe - is this a two driver board, or a three driver board. If it only has two driver cards in it, then you will have spare output pins available (probably 6 - 9) to drive other things, (3 driver - 2 spare pins) if you can get to them.

You are leaping on a bit - how does the tool turret drive - if this is a stepper motor as well, then the answer is yes - you can drive it using the spare output (if you have bought the three driver card). You may have to write your own software - or someone on the forum will help. A simple way would be to designate it as the A axis, and set the number of steps per unit to a figure that moves the turret by one position. You could simply use G Code to move the tool - G0 A1, G0 A2 etc - but I would leave that til you get the two main axis up and working
Not me driving the engine - I'm better looking.