Homemade DIY Electronic Lathe conversion with ball screws - amazing transformation.

There are many ELS (Electronic Lead Screw) and Lathe CNC projects on the net. This video shows my take on it, which uses ballscrews. It is a lathe ball screw conversion which I guess is between ELS and CNC. I just call it an electronic lathe. I did not start out to build this but the project just grew. Some time back I converted the cross slide ACME screw to ball screw. That is described in this video    • Lathe cross feed conversion to a ball screw.   I was so pleased with the smoothness and precision that I decided to replace the main Z axis leadscrew also. The ball screws do not have half nuts so it meant that it would have to be motorised and that meant that I would need motor drivers and some form of control. I thought that if I was doing that to the Z axis I might as well do it to the X axis also. Then I would have all the hardware needed for a CNC conversion except for a CNC controller which are available quite cheaply. I did not want a full CNC. I wanted to retain full manual control but with some common lathe tasks automated. An Arduino was my first thought for being the controller brains but the base models could not produce a high enough pulse rate for the rapid movements or the coordinated movements of turning tapers or ball ends. I chose to use an ESP32 micro, which is like an Arduino on steroids. Here is a list of the lathe's automatic functions; Multipass turning, boring and facing in either direction. Multipass RH or LH threading, external/internal, in either direction and taper threading. Tapers, big to small and small to big Curve machining, concave or convex. Enjoy the video and please like and share. Do not forget to subscribe to the channel and click the bell shaped icon to ensure that you get notified when the other videos in the series get published. #CNC, #ballscrew, #ELS, #ElectronicLeadScrew, #Lathe, #Leadscrew, #crossslide, #backlash, #bearings