Hey folks, I'm thinking about adding an electronic lift to my combination jointer/planer. Converting from jointing to planing mode requires cranking a handle for about 30 seconds to raise the table to usable height. Was wondering if anyone had any input on three subjects:

1. Stepper motor vs. DC motor: Doing my initial research, thought of getting an Arduino and a stepper motor and using that to power the lift. The upside would be that I could incorporate some sort of digital display/input screen and type in the exact height and the table would automatically move to that position. But the more I read in to it, I'm not sure I could ever trust/ensure the accuracy (say to perhaps a 64th of an inch) over a long period of time. Seems like if the motor skipped once or a belt/gear had a hiccup that I would forever lose my calibration. If I'm always having to check and verify accuracy, seems like that's too much trouble.

2. How to connect the motor to my hand-crank shaft: There is plenty of room in the cabinet to drop a motor in, but the problem is that the crank shaft is solid metal. How can I attach a motor to it? I've been reading about pulleys and those notched pulley belts, etc. I guess I could attach a gear to the shaft if I could rely on a set screw to hold it firmly?? Note: the way the hand crank is attached is a simple metal pin permanently slotted through the shaft, then the plastic hand crank has two notches that engage the pin on either side.

3. How do I figure out how large the motor needs to be? Turning the crank by hand doesn't require any real effort, just time. I'm sure there's a physics calculation in there somewhere, radius of the crank is 4 inches, force to turn the crank is xxx......

My gut sense at this point is to drop all the fancy stuff and just attach a DC motor with an "up" and "down" button, then switch to hand cranking for the fine detail. But it would be so cool to have an interactive control panel!

Any thoughts on all of that?

Thanks!