Hello Richard,

Welcome to the forum.

It depends both on how much you are ready to pay and what level of accuracy you are looking for. Do you have a rough idea of budget?

Neil

Not sure I'd agree with all of that, Neil.

For a start, everywhere I've looked optical scales are cheaper than magnetic ones (just an economy of scale thing, I think). Unless you mean some sort of magnetic scales I'm not aware of. Do you mean e.g. these?

And even before contemplating buying from China direct (from e.g. Siton Tech on Aliexpress) you can get a two axis optical scale package for barely over £300 from the likes of Machine DRO (and it's under £300 with the Black Friday discount). EMS-i offer similar kits but you'll have to ask for a price. No doubt many other suppliers too.

Personally for a decent lathe like the 280 I would not even consider capacitative (i.e. using same tech as digital calipers). Even if it stretches the budget, I'd go for a 'proper DRO' with optical scales, although it would probably make for a neater install to use one of the compact magnetic scales on the cross slide if budget permits (e.g. £15 extra at Machine DRO).

Also, ideally you'd get a 1 micron resolution scale for the cross slide rather than the standard 5 micron, again if budget permits. The reading is doubled to give diameter read-out, and the extra resolution compensates. Probably a few tens of pounds extra again.

Edited By Bikepete on 25/11/2016 15:57:33

You have to watch not just the resolution (say 5 micron) but the accuracy as well (say +/- 0.015mm = 15 micron)

I have fitted one of the magnetic three axis kits from machine-dro.co.uk to my 254 and its good. Because I have the VMA attached I had to make custom fittings with an auxilliary beam behind the bed for the main feed readout and I fitted the cross slide readout in front to take it down low enough to allow a myford milling baseblock to fit. Picturesattached.