Building a Digital Readout For a Lathe From Scratch

Zach Hipps is hoping to get into wood turning on a lathe. Unfortunately, he got his lathe at the beginning of winter and his shop is cold, so his excitement is a bit muted for a while. He came up with an idea for a project to hold him over till the warmer weather that might also help with his wood turning aspirations.

Using a hall effect sensor and some clever engineering, Zach added a digital RPM display to his lathe. You can follow along in the video above or read details on his website to see what he tried, what worked, and what didn’t.