Digital Readouts

[Deltic007Participant @deltic007]

 

Hi,

Can anyone recommend a readout for my Warco mill and boxford Lathe, I have seen these ones but i could do with some feedback from others before i take the plunge.

 

Thanks

 

Mike

 

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/250977826565?ssPageName=STRK:MEWAX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1423.l2649#ht_2093wt_1392

 

http://www.chronos.ltd.uk/acatalog/Digital_Scale_Units_for_Lathes___Milling_Machines.html

[Deltic007Participant @deltic007]

[John Stevenson 1Participant @johnstevenson1]

Arc was selling these for £28 inclusive before he sold the whole container load out.

Might be worth a phone call to see when they are back in again?

[NJHParticipant @njh]

Hi Mike

 

Yes I can confirm John’s post – £ 28 inc vat from ARC. I got one from them for the “Y” axis of my Warco mill in December to join the longer one I’ve had on the “X” axis for a couple of years.You might also check out the price of any similar item  from Warco as ( without research)  £40 + seems to me a little on the high side.

 

They are fine but, of course, are not waterproof so beware of any suds application.

Cheers

 

Norman

Edited By NJH on 05/02/2012 19:43:47

[Ian PParticipant @ianp]

I wanted to by some of these scales and rang ArcEuro as the website showed them as out of stock. They told me that they expect to have them again in March.

 

I bought two off eBay which arrived yesterday. Easy to fit, I put them on my Emco mill in a couple of hours although I still have to put some form of covers over them to keep swarf out.

 

You need to be realistic with your expectations of accuracy. They are based on the same technology as used in the ubiquitous Chinese calipers (which I find perform better than their published specs) but these igaging scales are aimed at woodworking machinery which is why the ‘seals’ are only intended to keep out dust.

 

I have only done a very rough and ready check on the X axis scale and compared the digital value with the handwheel graduations. I got no discernible error over short distances but over the total travel of the table (400mm) there is a 0.4mm difference! Until I investigate further I don’t know the cause so it might even be the leadscrew.

 

 

Ian P

 

 

 

[NilochParticipant @niloch]

A totally different animal to the item shown on your ebay link but I just wanted to say that I have recently completed the installation of a DRO from the company who advertises on the right here with 100% success. It has transformed my 50 year old Centec 2B milling machine.

 

Don’t forget also MEW 180 where Dr.Dick Stephen writes on the installation of magnetic strip read outs and MEW 181 where David Haythornthwaite writes on the BW Electronics system.

[JonParticipant @jon]

I’ll tell you exactly what it is Ian having compared accuracy of cheap scales like these to glass and magnetic scales the other month.

 

Theres movement which can be quite alarming.

[Ian PParticipant @ianp]

I wasn’t complaining about the accuracy. My post was just to point out the fact that they are what they are, and not to expect silk purse quality.

 

I would love to have proper scales (glass, balls in a tube, or whatever) but I just do not have the budget.

 

The igaging ones, even at the higher eBay cost, are still good value for money.

 

Jon, What do you refer to when you mentioned movement?

 

Ian P

Edited By Ian P on 05/02/2012 21:55:38

[Gone AwayParticipant @goneaway]

Posted by Ian P on 05/02/2012 21:54:14:

I would love to have proper scales (glass, balls in a tube, or whatever) but I just do not have the budget.

You can get Ditron glass scales for US$53 in just about any length you are likely to want:

 

Ditron Scales

 

 

 

[Paul LousickParticipant @paullousick59116]

Just fitted 2 of these to my Seig SX3.

As stated earlier, these are not precision instruments by make milling a whole lot easier for general machining. You can still use a vernier and the rotary scales on your mill for more accurate work.

PaulJ.

[Stephen BensonParticipant @stephenbenson75261]

As it has been said these cheap scales are not great for better than bolt hole accuracy, but what they are great for is getting you close enough so you can use your machine dials for perfect accuracy as long as you understand backlash of course.

I have cheapo scales with a read out on my mill and it does play up in the Winter I find you have to clean the battery compartments and also the wipe down the scales with Hafords contact cleaner then they are good for another year.

Edited By Stephen Benson on 06/02/2012 08:36:04

[V8EngParticipant @v8eng]

At recent exhibitions, I notice the Allendale group seem to have various machine scales, encoders and remote readouts, etc, at reasonable prices.

 

http://www.machine-dro.co.uk/

 

[JoParticipant @jo]

I put two 8″ versions on my Prazimat lathe. Other than problems with them turning themselves on due to the cold they work ok. For £54 the pair delivered I cannot complain.

 

 

 

 

[JonParticipant @jon]

I see no reason why that cant be made accurate, just do away with the supplied mounting bracket/s and fix rigid.

The culprit are the reader brackets, they flex.

[Ex contributorParticipant @mgnbuk]

You can still use a vernier and the rotary scales on your mill for more accurate work.

 

you can use your machine dials for perfect accuracy

 

You think your leadscrews are “perfect” ? Precision ground ballscrews are not “perfect” – let alone acme screws on budget machines !

 

Near as I can tell, the X axis screw on my Taiwanese FB2 clone is out by around 0.002″ per rev of the screw. This is better than the last one, which I measured at 0.003″ error per rev.

 

That is on an 8TPI screw. I have a stainless steel capacitive scale fitted to that axis, which checks out as accurate (as near as I can measure) to slip gauges. The scale clearly shows the dials on the leadscrew to be consistantly inaccurate i.e. take out backlash, set dial & scale to zero. Wind on exactly 1 rev of the screw – scale shows 0.127″. Adding another rev comes up as 0.254″ etc. Ignorance was bliss – hadn’t twigged until I was checking up on the scale !

 

I have installed an Allendale Budget glass scale setup on a Harrison lathe at work – easy to install & has been working for probably 3 years in an industrial environment without problems. Cheaper than the “big brand” DROs, but still not cheap, though. But I do trust glass scales rather more than the capacitive stuff & the installation has the advantage of not eating batteries, no auto turn-off, pre-settable displays etc. You do get what you pay for !

 

Regards,

 

Nigel B.

 

[Les Jones 1Participant @lesjones1]

Hi Nigel,

You can use the capacitive scales with a Shumatec DRO350 DRO550 which are DRO’s that you build yourself. I have a DRO350 on my lathe and mill and find them very useful.

Les.

[Stephen BensonParticipant @stephenbenson75261]

Posted by Nigel Barraclough on 06/02/2012 16:19:48:

you can use your machine dials for perfect accuracy

 

You think your leadscrews are “perfect” ? Precision ground ballscrews are not “perfect” – let alone acme screws on budget machines !

 

Near as I can tell, the X axis screw on my Taiwanese FB2 clone is out by around 0.002″ per rev of the screw. This is better than the last one, which I measured at 0.003″ error per rev.

 

Regards,

 

Nigel B.

 

Hi Nigel your experience of budget mills certainly exceeds mine, my mill is Downham MKIII jig borer and the dials read in 0.01 metric (the final 0.05 is split into a vernier scale) and I would trust the lead screw over the cheap scales any day.

However the only other mill I have used is a Bridgeport with high end glass Anilam scales they always agreed with the dials . I would never of believed that the Taiwanese lead screws were so bad I guess you learn something new everyday.

Edited By Stephen Benson on 06/02/2012 20:24:13

[Ex contributorParticipant @mgnbuk]

You can use the capacitive scales with a Shumatec DRO350 DRO550

Hi Les,

I was aware of the Shumatec displays, but it (they) seem expensive for supposedly “budget” units.

Only the original (and now obsolete, according to the Shumatec site) DRO350 kit is available from MEDW at around £150 posted. MEDW suggests that the board for the 550 is only available from Shumatec in the USA, but they show no availability. The Shumatec site gives a description for a “budget” DRO375 but, again, no details of availabilty or price.

 

I have not followed the ins & outs of the DRO350 project but, IIRC, there were some “issues” with it that were only cured by the 550 re-design ?

 

As a comparison, a “Budget ” 3 axis console from Allendale is £156.50 + delivery – assembled, ready to go & warranted – just add glass scales or the magnetic alternatives (which worked out more expensive than glass scales for another project at work – replacing Trimos capacitive readouts on a tool pre-setter. But they were easier to fit in the space vacated by the Trimos arrangement, so purchased anyway).

 

The 3 glass scales do add another £380 or so for my mill, though, where the equivalent capacitive scales from Arc would be around £80. If the DRO350 is reliable, it might be worth considering – whether or not my soldering skills are good enough to build it reliably is another matter !

 

Regards,

 

Nigel B.

[Les Jones 1Participant @lesjones1]

Hi Nigel,

I only bought the PCB and keypad overlay from MEDW I bought most of the other components from Farnell. I did not add up the total cost but I felt it was about £60 – £70

There are a small number minor firmware bugs. I have fixed some of them on my units but Scott has asked me not to distribute modified code. I think the glass scales are a better long term investment and they could be trusted more to be accurate. If you decided on the DRO550 (Or 375) then these are mostly pre assembled as they use surface mount components. They are only available from the Shumatech site and only when a batch is ordered.

 

Les.

[AlaninOzParticipant @alaninoz]

At last I can contribute something.

 

I am fitting what looks to be the identical unit to my mill & lathe. The only difference is mine have no brand name. Cost was $40 ~26.80 pounds for a 600 mm and $60 ~40.20 pounds for a metre one, including delivery from Adelaide to Perth ( about Cairo to Glasgow ) no other sizes available, just cut down to size to fit.

 

I have a relatively cheapo mill, Hafco HM35, the only thing I regret is that I did not buy the rack version, instead of the pillar one. It does everything I want, mainly making tractor & mower spares. So far I have fitted the X & X axis DRO’s X = metre & Z = 600 cut down to 500, Y is more difficult as I have to drill & tap for mounting brackets. The first use was to mill the slot in the tailstock ram of my small lathe ( Sieg C1 ) about 15 mm longer. It was so nice to be able to mill to a zero mark instead of having to measure each cut as I do not trust the accuracy of the handle gauges due to a bit of slop ( 0.2 mm ? ) It worked perfectly.

 

Next is the larger lathe ( Hafco AL330A 300 x 900 ) I test fitted the metre one on the front of the lathe, between the power feed rods but the protective cover I fitted scraped on the feed half nuts, so it has to go on the back, maybe tomorrow evening, it is too stinking hot in the shed during the day, 45C+, sitting here indoors with air con on it is a comfortable 25C. I will fit a cut down 600 mm for the cross feed. the hardest part is working out where to put a protective cover to keep coolant off. I am using 40 x 40 aluminium C channel for the covers.

 

Alan in a rather warm Darling Downs

[NJHParticipant @njh]

Good grief Alan !

 

Here it was 2.7 C in the workshop last night and 0.3 C in the ajoining (unheated and uninsulated) garage.

Comfortable 25C? – it didn’t reach that even in the summer last year!

 

Off now to put another log on the fire – no progress on ME projects today I think!

 

Regards

 

Norman ( in deepest Devon)

[Sub MandrelParticipant @submandrel]

> I have cheapo scales with a read out on my mill and it does play up in the Winter

The little 1.5 cells for the digital scales (and lots of other things)hate low temperatures and go flat really flat if used in these conditions. I have to replace those in every single measuring device each spring.

 

Neil

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