Building an Arduino Controlled Lathe

Arduino Furniture & Lighting Workshop

I am the Evangelist for the Maker Shed. It seems that there is no limit to my making interests. I'm a tinkerer at heart and have a passion for solving problems and figuring out how things work. When not working for Make I can be found falling off my unicycle, running in adverse weather conditions, skiing down the nearest hill, restoring vintage motorcycles, or working on my car.

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@MichaelCMaker

September 19th, 2012 10

After picking up a vintage Delta Homecraft wood lathe from a garage sale, Chris decided to convert to CNC using an Arduino:

I found an old lathe at a garage sale and decided to turn it into a router lathe for cutting spirals, flutes and threads. Initially, I considered using a strictly mechanical mechanism to synchronize spindle rotation and cross-feed travel, but after playing with an Arduino and some stepper motors, I realized that could be a better solution, possibly even converted to a full CNC system sometime in the future. Now that I know it’s going to work, (I made the first cut today) I’m sharing some notes on the build.

I love the detail Chris put into documenting this conversion. He even explains how he prototyped the design using an Arduino, a MotorShield, and some old stepper motors to make sure everything would work on his full-sized version. Check out the entire build on Chris’s Blog. [Thanks Rob!]