So by around May 2027 you could release your new CAM software... ;) This has me thinking about the possibilities of feeding the Light Machines PLM2000 CNC mill manual to an AI to create the Windows control software those mills never got. All the functions of the Animatics servo controller are well documented, and I got a bunch of software and info for it from a guy at Moog-Animatics. He was originally with Animatics and found stuff on an old backup drive he had. I've shared that archive with some other owners of PLM2000 mills but as yet I've not heard of any of them doing anything with the information.
A cursory look at that showed me there are features in the controller which Light Machines (and the company that bought them out) never touched. The PLM2000 is so old that the only control software for it runs in MS-DOS and uses EMS memory to load gcode data into. It can run with just conventional RAM, using a gcode splitter that comes with it. It inserts commands at the ends and starts of the chunks to load the next chunk, the size of which is adjustable to fit how much conventional RAM the PC has. The PLM2000 remains a popular CNC mill because it is the only benchtop bed mill of its size that 1. handles up to a 100 pound working load and 2. has servo motors on all three axes. But a lot of them have had the Animatics controller replaced (some have even had the servos replaced with steppers) due to the complete lack of modern software support. It must run under pure DOS because even with a serial port driver or utility that is supposed to guarantee a DOS program 100% total control of a COM port, Windows will still touch it periodically. ANY disturbance of the DOS program's communication with the mill triggers an instant halt. The crazy thing is that there was no need to be that fragile since the servo controller has some onboard RAM and even has the capability to be fed a decently sized gcode file and run headless and unattended. It could even have a cycle button added to repeat the code loaded into the controller. Good use of the external device control port on the mill could operate a work loader/unloader that could restart the cycle, with a sensor to stop when the supply of work runs out. The person(s) who wrote that DOS software barely scratched the capabilities of the expensive controller they chose. It just streams the canned operations with parameters to the mill, monitors the home switches and a few error codes coming back like over torquing the servos. It does not monitor the spindle speed, just commands an RPM and assumes it's going, so one must add in some wait time to ensure the spindle gets up to speed, max 5K RPM on the one I have. The spindle controller is a separate board, seems an odd choice to not use one with with feedback. It does not have linear scales, runs open loop assuming that from home positions that commanding X distance it'll get there. Thus the torque monitoring. Too much torque and it does a panic stop to avoid crashing. I assume they figured spindle feedback wasn't required because if the spindle stalls from too deep a cut at least one of the servos will over-torque. Instead of control software for Windows, a customized version of Linux CNC would be good for it. The PLM1000 was the same mill but with stepper motors, and Light Machines made windows control software for it. IIRC it'll run on windows 95 and 98. On Monday, October 12, 2026 at 04:04:30 AM MDT, Les Newell <[email protected]> wrote: There's about 6 months left on it. It may be difficult to enforce or even invalid but I signed the contract so I'll stick by it. That's just the way I am. Les On 12/10/2026 10:51, Gregg Eshelman via Emc-users wrote: > How long was the term of the non-compete clause? An indefinite term is widely > held to be illegal in the USA. The reasonableness test generally limits the > term to between 6 months to 2 years. > Some states outright ban non-competes. > > Give that contract another look, especially if it's been 2+ years. Look up > your State's laws and rules on non-compete clauses. That clause might never > have been valid. > > On Monday, October 12, 2026 at 02:48:32 AM MDT, Les Newell > <[email protected]> wrote: > > Going back to the original question I thought it would be fun to see > what Claude AI could create. In a day I had a GUI and basic 3D parallel > machining with roughing and finish strategies. All vibe coded with > probably 3-4 hours of my time actually spent working on it. The rest was > doing other stuff while the AI did it's thing. I haven't even looked at > the code let alone written any. > > The next day I put in another couple of hours and had much improved > parallel machining and waterline. The g-code files are pretty huge ATM > because it's all short line segments but it won't take much to add arc > matching for G02/G03. That should massively reduce the line count. > > Unfortunately I can't release any of the code. When I sold SheetCam the > contract included a non-compete clause. > > > _______________________________________________ > Emc-users mailing list > [email protected] > https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/emc-users _______________________________________________ Emc-users mailing list [email protected] https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/emc-users _______________________________________________ Emc-users mailing list [email protected] https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/emc-users
