When I ordered from China the sales said it was stored in Germany so no charges but what will happen after brexit I don't know.

David

Edited By David George 1 on 30/01/2020 09:43:35

Bought one a couple of weeks ago from fleabay, Looked round, found a Chinese seller but had a Portsmouth location so no extra charges

It was this DRO. Ignore the " Last One" for some reason they stick it on all their listings. 7 day delivery, half decent user manual in English not Chinglish, no fitting instructions but plenty on youtube if you need them. Just bear in mind as with most you order the read length you want but it comes 140mm ish longer to allow for the head to be able to cover the read length.

Hi Mick,

Thanks for your reply ! I've been meaning to get a DRO for the mill for quite a while. A readout and a couple of scales for that price seems particularly good value. Did you have any issues with fitting them ?

Try this seller on aliexpress: **LINK**

Shipped from spain so no duty or VAT etc. Cheaper than any of the ebay sellers. Mine arrived in about 9 days and I have no complaints. Pay with paypal and you get all the same protections as buying from ebay.

My lathe DRO was cheaper (free) from ebay, but I was just unlucky/lucky to choose a clueless muppet from china who didn't understand ebay's rules.

Aliexpress generally beats ebay for all your tooling needs, as many actual manufacturers have stores on aliexpress. Anything that I can't get or can't get at a sensible price in the UK I go to aliexpress for. Most, but not all, stuff from the normal model engineering suppliers is actually fairly sensibly priced. But I seem to want odd things far too often. Just last week I needed a specific tapered end mill. The only UK supplier I could find quoted £56 with a six week lead time. From aliexpress it was £7 for two, available immediately, £26 for two day shipping but still cheaper and better service.

Regarding Brexit – as far as I know, while Brexit had already happened, UK remains the EU customs union until the end of the year. So wouldn't need to pay any customs duties for any goods sent between UK and EU for now. What happens next year depends on the kind of trade deal (if any) that will be negotiated.

Gene, who lives in Luxembourg and loves to order vintage woodworking tools from eBay UK, and so cares about this topic quite a lot!

What kind of DRO would be useful to have on a small lathe (Hobbymat MD65 – 65 mm center height, 300 mm between centres)? 2 axis – one for saddle travel, one for cross slide? What about top slide?

I am risk averse on such things but an issue for me was the postage cost if I had to return the item to China under warranty. Something to bear in mind if (like me) the cost of one unit was at the very limits of my hobby budget.

My mantra with tools tends to be 'buy right, buy once' – so I often end up buying high quality tools second hand and look after them (treating them as investments). Not easy to do with DROs though!