Machine units=inches-Lead screw=metric

Hello from Dixie to all you Linux guru's. Newbie here doing a CNC mini lathe conversion with a question. Looking over LinuxCNC as a control software in the "Base Information" machine units would be inches, as that is what I'm familiar with. Further down the config screen under "Axis X (Y) the "Lead Screw Pitch" is set for inches/rev. Searching for upgrading my lead screws to Ball Screws, most of which are metric. Hence my question, can I do the metric to inch conversion for the Lead Screw Pitch entry. Example: 5mm ball screw, 1 start = .196850 inches/rev = 5.08 rev/inch.
Note: As I stated i am a newbie to the CNC word and Linux, but been a machinist for many moons. All help is great is greatly appreciated and thanks for having me.

kim

Thanks Andy. Do my figures look correct? How many decimal point will Linux let you enter in the lead screw field. My reasoning is the more decimal points, the more accurate the result.
Again, thanks for the reply and the help.

Andy, thanks again. For us new guys it really means a lot to have someone with knowledge help lead the way.The only problem is I was really shooting for that A-tomic radius. Oh well, maybe not such a good idea for a 7X10 import lathe.
As for the INI file, what would be the purpose of changing that. Newbie question I know, this is really all new to me. Are you saying that after entering my conversion number for the lead screw, to check the INI file and adjust the the steps-per-inch to match the true number?
Or am I missing something here?

andypugh wrote:

LinuxCNC uses double-precision, so that's about 15 significant digits.
Inside the travel of a typical machine you don't need that. You can stop at one atomic radius

I got curious about how many decimal places is required to reach that atomic radius. According to Wikipedia, the radius of an aluminium atom is about 125 pm, or 0.000000005 inch.

For a 0.5 m long axis, that's one part if 4 billion, so you'd need 10 decimal places to get the required precision. Obviously I'm very relieved that LinuxCNC has the precision required to handle this.

Can Linuxcnc calculate probability & wave functions ? Atoms aren't quite close enough for me.

BeagleBrainz wrote:

Can Linuxcnc calculate probability & wave functions ? Atoms aren't quite close enough for me.

I'm glad to be using metric units I think. I am happy with microns so milimetres to 3 decimals is enough for me

Yeah but you're using fire

Anything hot & bright = fire