Our company has acquired a very old lathe that we are looking to convert to CNC. There is very little information about this lathe online as the company went out of business many years ago. It's a cool machine with a badge dating back to 1901. It's a 16 foot motor lathe from the Hamilton Machine Company. I've been trying to search across the forum to find the information I need but I haven't been able to find quite all of my answers. Thus, I'm going to ask for all the help I can get in this conversion. I have been running CNC machines for over 10 years but have yet to do a manual to CNC conversion. Biggest questions I have is what size and length ball screw that is needed. Is it the same length as the Acme screw? Here's the information I've been able to gather so far so please correct me if I am wrong or if there is a better direction. This is what I believe I need:
1. Stepper motors
2. Limit switches
3. Slideway to support ballnut
4. Rotating Ballnut
5. Ball screw
6. Software to act as NC controller
7. Controller to communicate from computer to motors