Quote Originally Posted by albertq View Post
As I'm no good with electronics I left the connection of steppers, drivers and panel to my electrical engineer nephew. I prefer toggle & push-button switches and rotating potentiometer knobs to a touch screen for this application, as I can eyeball the speed I want while making the adjustment.
I used steppers for their compactness and torque rather than for exact positioning, as I always intended on using DRO.

The CNC for cam profiling is a great idea as you can easily change the profiles or size. Way beyond my skill set, as I usually make expensive smoke with electronics.
From 8 yo to 16 yo my hobby was electronics, then I left it alone for several decades except for when needs required it. Although my knowledge quickly got outdated more recently these sort of projects have become much easier with the advent of really cheap micros. These have largely replaced a need for circuit design skills with programming. You just get an Arduino, Pi, teensy or ESP32 for a few dollars and in effect it becomes any circuit that you programme it to be.

I have a Bridgeport mill which came to me with a very old CNC controller. The axis were powered by top quality servos, there were various suggestions to change these for steppers when I wanted to upgrade the controller. i just did not like the affordable steppers at that time. Since then the closed loop steppers have dropped in price and my opinion has changed. You may like my not-CNC lathe conversion which is controlled with a $5 ESP32 board and closed loop steppers. It has exceeded my expectations in all respects. I fitted ball screws on both axis, and as you have pointed out, the accuracy is improved. Here is a link to a post on this forum. Ball screw and electronic lathe conversion and a follow up More on my lathe conversion