I am looking at a 14 X 40 manual lathe with DRO and thinking about the best way to convert it to CNC. Most of the conversions I have found on the web seem to add aadditional zero (low) backlash screws and drive them with open loop stepper motors. I am wondering why I can't use the existing drive by adding pullys and stepper motors to the existing handles. There is plenty of backlash (say 5 to 10 thou +) but the DRO has an output so I would think you could get a closed loop controller and ignore the backlash. Am I missing something here? I do not see many (any?) examples on the net that do this. Any suggestions for controller software that understands closed loop feedback?
Brian