Have bought two digital readouts a few years back, with the intention to fit them to my mini lathe. As they have fairly small displays it would be quite tricky to mount them in a safe place and still be able to read them, so ever since have been investigating a suitable display.
Searching the web for information on the protocol used by these scales to communicate, I stumbled on TouchDRO by Yuriy Krushelnytskiy on his site
http://www.yuriystoys.com/ He is using a tablet as the display, communicating via Bluetooth with a controller that reads the scales.
The controller consists of a microcontroller and voltage level shifters to “translate” the scale voltage levels to that of the microcontroller.
Ordered the MSP430 Launchpad from TI and developed a suitable PCB for the controller. The PCB was made as universal as possible allowing for any scale voltage and internal or external clocking on each channel, selectable by jumpers.

Opted for USB B style connectors as this made the cabling easier. Originally I wanted to incorporate the option for sub-D connectors for glass scales, but there do not seem to be a standard pin out between different makes, so I included the option for pin headers that could be wired to sub-D connectors.
Voltage regulators are also onboard so single 7V to 25V DC supply can be used, or for a regulated 5V supply the onboard 5V regulator can be omitted and a link fitted.



The PCB was made using positive pre sensitized board.

The holes were drilled on my CNC router.

Populating the board.



And fitted in a case.



Cables was soldered to the scale boards and a decoupling capacitor soldered across the supply.

Testing the system.



The scale for the Z-axis was mounted at the front below the apron in such a way that a cover could be fitted over it to protect against dirt entry.



The X-axis was a bit more difficult and I had to loose some clearance at the rear of the saddle.


A support was also made for the tablet.


Had to replace my original tablet as it did not support the correct Bluetooth protocol but ever since I am very happy with the unit.
Many thanks to Yuriy for his ongoing effort on a great invention.
Cheers
Abraham