Digital Readout Question

Gallery, Projects and General > How do I??

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ibuildstuff4u:
Thanks for the replies. I had a feeling that the scales would be a problem with the coolant and swarf. It's a shame as the units are cheap to pick up. I could add a two axis DRO to my lathe for under $100.00 with shipping included.

My lathe is a 9X20 and my mill is a small X2 so adding glass scales to these little machines is out of the question. I will save my money for larger equipment in the future and just keep using the graduated dials and dial indicators to keep track of my movment.

I will still add a 12" scale to my Z axis on the mill as the scale can be mounted out of harms way and it's the hardest axis for me to set up an indicator to.

Thanks again for the help,

Dale P.

Bogstandard:
Don't get me wrong Dale, for some people, scales like you mentioned are the only way for some people to afford a basic DRO system.

If you never used liquids on your machines, and kept everything spotlessly clean, plus fitted good guards, you might get a reasonable, but relatively short lived system. You only have to look at how quickly cheap digiverns can go bottoms up, and they are usually kept fairly well propected and clean.

Once you have used DRO's though, you would never want to go back to manual methods.

Bogs

kwackers:
I had cheap Chinese scales fitted to my lathe for years with no problems - basically you have to protect them!

Take a look at glass scales, they fit inside a U tube whose opening is at the bottom (thus protected from ingress from above), and have a set of wipers around that opening to prevent anything being flicked up. If you mount them in the 'recommended' mounts then you add a further U tube to help prevent crap getting in.
When I mounted my Chinese scales to my lathe I used exactly the same mechanisms to make them 'crap-tight'.

Since I've got rid of that lathe I've since moved over to glass scales on my mill (apart from the quill which is a Chinese scale) and the lathe has a magnetic strip on the cross slide because it's smaller and doesn't foul anything and also has no mechanical coupling between the read head and the strip so I can easily remove the cross slide for cleaning etc.

Having used both (with a Shumatech DRO) the only advantage the glass scales have is they're more resistant to 'jitter', on the other hand the Chinese scales seem more robust (not that I've broken a glass one yet) and narrower making them easier to fit in some locations.

I'd highly recommend the Shumatech DRO - it allows both types of scales to be used simultaneously so you can pick and choose whatever suits.

Jonny:
If its any use i fitted those vernier type scales to the small mill around 10 years ago.
I made the effort to cover in aluminium angle so no debri or liquids could get at them, how wrong was i. Even got aluminium in the open sockets protected from above.

This was when a 24" was over £130 exactly the same as first post from Arc Eurotrade. Three scales for 3 axis and a Warc digital 3 axis readout amounted to £330. Price has dropped the last 6 years but still pointless. Todays pricing looking around £280.
Just ordered a proper 3 axis for the new lathe 650 travel and magnetic strip for cross, the tailstock will come later £437 delivered or would be about £450 for 3 axis in th estandard C type glass scales and covers- no contest had them on the bigger mill for 4 year snow no probs from Allendale.

All three scales packed up several times over plus the intermitant failure to power on whilst connected to Warco. Had to buy batteries in bulk lasted approx 2 to 3 weeks each SR44.
Plug leads useless as well.
Coolant or spot liquids kill. Usually three repairs then scrap. Some verniers are the same electronics, bought a few when on offer at Aldi £5 to replace the units, still packed up in no time.

Total waste of money.

Also noticed none of above piccies are using on Z axis in true sense, why not off the quill thats where the fine feed is!

ibuildstuff4u:
I'm taking some night school classes and all of the machines have DRO's on them. They are really nice to use, but I almost feel like I'm cheating when I use them. Sometimes feel that I should master using the marks on the hand cranks and the use of indicators first, but I'm sure 99.9% of the machine shops out there have DRO's on all of their machines and it would be better to know how to use them rather than old school methods. It still feels like I'm cheating.

Glass scales are out of the question for my little machines so I will just get a new 2" dial indicator for the lathe. Some day I will get some bigger machines and put DRO's on them but for now my methods will do. I will probably add a scale to the Z axis on my mill as it can be mounted out of the way and stay clean, but the rest of the axises are just too hard to protect as I use a lot of coolant when cutting.

Jonny, The reason you don't see Z axis scales on the quill is because the X2 mill doesn't have one. The column is the only part that moves in the Z axis so it's the only place to put the scale.

Thanks again for all of the help, Dale P.

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