Electronic Leadscrew Kit - Modified To Fit An Old Craftsman Lathe!

Cutting perfect threads on a metal lathe can be a challenge, but with the help of an electronic leadscrew really clean and straight cuts can be made. Other features with an ELS can include depth stops (no more painters tape on a drill bit), indexing, and keyway loops are just some of the possibilities.

ELS units do away with the need for lots of change gears (and the time involved with swapping them out and expensive large gearboxes.

Electronic leadscrews have historically been costly, complicated, and a challenge to retrofit on older lathes.

There are some great DIY builds out there, Clough42 is one of them, but I wanted to see if a relatively cheap ($219) kit could be made to fit an old basic Craftsman lathe. And after only a few days and some 3D printing, it absolutely can!

The kit was bought on aliexpress and arrived in less than a week by DHL. It was well packaged and included everything on the listing.

The 3D printed parts I made on a basic Creality 3D printer:
https://amzn.to/41nEdso

I used two programs to make and modify the 3D prints:
https://www.rs-online.com/designspark...

And, yes, good old Tinkercad:
https://www.tinkercad.com

My mini stepper driver for first leadscrew testing before installing the kit:
https://amzn.to/41wbbGW

Pulley generator:
https://www.thingiverse.com/apps/cust...

Clough42's DIY Leadscrew Design:
https://github.com/clough42/electroni...