DRO's

[mutley]

Whats with the third degree? I thought John had given a perfectly viable answer. If you don't want to use or trust a DRO then no one is making you do so.
Accept the fact people choose work in different ways.
This board used to be a friendly place to get advice, now it seems like you have to justify everything or conform to the views of a minority. If this keeps up then frankly I cant be bothered and will seek more sensible views else where.

Andy

[ivanp]

Thanks for the pictures Chris
I sure i will be adding them to my WM16

Many thanks
Regards
Ivan

[Chris Kelland]

Well said! Personally I like to work in clean surroundings, without straying too far off topic, I confess to having carpet on the floor in the workshop a plumbed in vac cleaner and make time to clean the machines at the end of the day.

A current interesting article is David Piddington in EIM, fitting scales to a Senior machine.

Chris.

[circlip]

Sorry Mutley, didn't mean to upset you. Don't know how you are relating a tongue in cheek remark from 2 silly old bu-- engineers to a third degree? Perhaps the red mist has blanked out the emoticons both drjohn and i put on our threads but point taken, we must take ourselves more seriously.

Best regards Ian

[modeng2000]

Of course like most people I check things freehand but it is usually with a digital device not a mechanical one these days. My micrometer and dial caliper both spend most of their time in their boxes.

I think it is a case of each to their own.

John

[Richmond]

Well here is my 2 pence....... I looked into DRO's for my current setup. The cheaper commercial ones ( Sino etc ) only had the advanced functions available when working in metric, and the scales were too pricy for my budget to. So, I went for the Shumatech systems on both lathe and mill, but used a "proper" Jenix ( Sino ) sclae on the cross slide, mainly for accuracy, but also because the cover afforded more protection from swarf and coolant. Some pics to follow ( hopefully ) if I can load them properly

Rgds
Keith

[Richmond]

Here are the pictures.......hopefully

The lathe and cross slide mounted scale...


[/img]

Topslide Scale



Carriage Scale



The Dro Mounting



The Mill Scales



Another View



The DRO itself

[Richmond]

hmmm, I cant see any pics......... I think I did it right........can an admin help me pls ? I put the weblink between the [/img] and nothing except the text appears on my screen once posted ??

[Richmond]

OK, I thought the best way is to give ppl the link to my public photo area on Picassa.

You can see the pics at picasaweb.google.co.uk/richmond100/Workshop

Rgds
Keith

[Richmond]

It sounds crazy, but i dont have enough room though John. Must be a rule that says your equipment expands to 25% larger than the space currently in use !!!

[Richmond]

Anyway, Going back to the point at hand..... The shumatech has a nice feature ( for a budget priced DRO ) in that using the 3 axis lathe version you can set it to "compensate" when angling the topslide.

So, when using the age old trick of setting topslide to 6 deg to give an infeed of 10th of a thou even the the dial reads 1 thou, setting the parameter on the DRo actually shows the effect on the of the actual cutting tip in all 3 axes. Even the the topslide moves linearly 1 thou the system knows that it affects the X, Z0 and Z1 co-ordinates. This is only "accurate" when the angle set on the topslide co-incides with the setting in the DRO though.

I've not seen this on the other cheaper systems an it also works in metric and imperial. As do all the "advanced" functions on the Mill version.

Hope this helps.

[mutley]

I have now got my DRO installed and I'm very happy with it. I need to learn how to use all the advanced features but with my quick play this morning it made it very easy to make the union links for the 9F. Having made the first the first the second was a case of machining to the numbers.

Andy

[modeng2000]

Which DRO did you end up with Andy?

John

[mutley]

I got the Sino SDS2-3MS 3 axis milling unit from machine DRO, chosen simply because they attend the model engineering shows and I'd rather deal with a person than a voice on the end of a phone.
I picked the head unit up from their Ebay site and the scales at Ally Pally, saved over £100 doing it that way.
Didn't take much to fit them once I'd striped the mill down for easy access.

Andy

[modeng2000]

Sounds like a good purchase.

John