Clough42 Electronic Leadscrew integration?

[MidniteMachinist]

I'm in the process of installing the Clough42 ELS on my mini lathe, and I can't help but see how powerful it would be to combine this with TouchDRO.

James (Clough42 on YouTube) has built an adapter board that drops onto a Ti LaunchXL F280049C dev board. It uses a rotary encoder driven by the lathe spindle, and a stepper/servo to drive the lead screw. The system syncs them, and drives the leadscrew at the appropriate speed to turn basically any thread or feed rate, eliminating the need for change gears.

I see a lot of potential for using TouchDRO to vastly expand the functionality of the ELS. The spindle encoder could also be the RPM input for TouchDRO, as well as providing angular position. The TouchDRO app would definitely be a superior interface to the LED&KEY display that James uses.

Though the biggest thing, in my mind, would be the use of the linear encoder inputs. As is, the ELS doesn't know where the carriage is in space, so threading to a shoulder, or turning a metric thread on an imperial lathe (or vice-versa), involve leaving the half nuts engaged, and reversing the lathe after each cut. The ELS knowing where the carriage is in space, and being able to compensate, would allow disengaging the half nuts, saving time and wear.

There is also the possibility of defining virtual "stops". Have button to set a stop at the current position, or long press to type in the desired dimension to stop at, and it would disengage the leadscrew at that point (though I realize that acceleration/deceleration would have to be accounted for).

It could also allow for specifying a particular SFM in the app, then automatically adjusting the feed rate based on RPM, diameter, and cross-slide position. It could even have the RPM readout turn red, then turn green once you've adjusted it to the proper speed. Maybe even with a "material library", with user-defined presets for particular materials.

My mind has been more or less fixated on the possibilities. Thoughts/comments?

[Yuriy]

I'm in the process of installing the Clough42 ELS on my mini lathe, and I can't help but see how powerful it would be to combine this with TouchDRO.

James (Clough42 on YouTube) has built an adapter board that drops onto a Ti LaunchXL F280049C dev board. It uses a rotary encoder driven by the lathe spindle, and a stepper/servo to drive the lead screw. The system syncs them, and drives the leadscrew at the appropriate speed to turn basically any thread or feed rate, eliminating the need for change gears.

I see a lot of potential for using TouchDRO to vastly expand the functionality of the ELS. The spindle encoder could also be the RPM input for TouchDRO, as well as providing angular position. The TouchDRO app would definitely be a superior interface to the LED&KEY display that James uses.

Though the biggest thing, in my mind, would be the use of the linear encoder inputs. As is, the ELS doesn't know where the carriage is in space, so threading to a shoulder, or turning a metric thread on an imperial lathe (or vice-versa), involve leaving the half nuts engaged, and reversing the lathe after each cut. The ELS knowing where the carriage is in space, and being able to compensate, would allow disengaging the half nuts, saving time and wear.

There is also the possibility of defining virtual "stops". Have button to set a stop at the current position, or long press to type in the desired dimension to stop at, and it would disengage the leadscrew at that point (though I realize that acceleration/deceleration would have to be accounted for).

It could also allow for specifying a particular SFM in the app, then automatically adjusting the feed rate based on RPM, diameter, and cross-slide position. It could even have the RPM readout turn red, then turn green once you've adjusted it to the proper speed. Maybe even with a "material library", with user-defined presets for particular materials.

My mind has been more or less fixated on the possibilities. Thoughts/comments?

I've though about this and there definintely is a lot of potential in marrying the two. The problem is time. I barely have enough hours in a day to just keep my nose above the water, so to say. I have probably year's worth of work for the "Plus" version, so ELS integration is probably not in the cards for at least a couple of years (and that is if I can consider James to even talk to me in the first place  )

Regards
Yuriy