I am making a lathe. I would like to control spindle speed and feed speed with timing belts. For threading ect. The idea is not having to machine all of the gears and it would be nice and quiet.Also no backlash for threading. I have been looking at the timing pullies and they are expensive. I have been looking at misumi.Do i have to machine the pullies?I just do not see this being that hard. OR AM I SMOKING CRACK!Thoughts?

the worlds best lathes are driven by belts - the gear vibration doesn't come through. IMO the best would be to abandon a mechanical link between spindle and leadscrew and use separate drives for each with encoders - if you could figure out the controller and software you could then program threads, relief on taps/milling cutters, hobs, etc etc.

my thinking is that if I use belts to connect the spindle to the lead screw i could hand rotate the spindle for very fine work without back lash.I would use timing belts for the threading gear box as well.My design would also allow me to run the spnidle and lead screw indepently for cnc control. It just would be nice to hand feed back and forth to get your desired results. Thoughts?