Questions on lathe DRO.

[Flyinfool]

So I am thinking about getting a lathe DRO. The DRO on the mill is just so convenient.
I have never seen in person a lathe with a DRO on it. Yes I have seen lots of pictures of installs that people have done on this site.
I think that installing it is the easy part.

My questions are more toward the use and functionality of it.

So it is given that I need a scale for the carriage and the cross slide.
I am still undecided as to whether I need or just want one for the tail stock?
What about the compound? Or even the angle of the compound?

For instance I was always taught that for threading the compound is set at 29.5° and the in feed is done with the compound. If I had a scale on the compound does the DRO have an input for its angle so that it would know just how far the tool has penetrated the work? Or with a DRO do you pretty much never use the compound and just do everything with the carriage and cross slide?

Does a DRO even help at all when you need to cut an angle to a dimension?

The manuals that I have seen tell you how to install it and set it up and operate the functions, but really give no info as to how to actually use it in the real world.

 

[Ischgl99]

For the tail stock, you can get a scale with a readout on it and use that independently. I haven’t done that yet, but that is what I plan on doing when I get time. It will be nice to be able to drill more precise depths, currently I touch off on the work piece and then count up from where I started, it will be nice to have a display I can zero out and then drill as deep as I need. I don’t see the need to integrate that into the X and Z axis readout.

I don’t use the compound on my lathe most of the time, I only put it on when I need to do tapers, so I obviously don’t have experience using a scale on that axis, but in the manual for the Ditron D80 I have on my mill shows what they call “vectoring” that uses a manual input for the compound angle to get the position of the tool when using the compound.

 

[MrWhoopee]

Just worry about the basics, carriage and cross-slide. I've never seen one on the compound and never felt I needed it. It does have a dial after all.
Same for the tailstock. More and more I am threading straight in instead of with the compound. When I bought my DRO, I really only felt I needed the carriage readout, but the cross-slide scale came with it, so I went ahead and installed it. Happy that I did, but I still set and use the dial. Same with the mill, I always zero the dials before the DRO. Old habits.....

 

[Cadillac]

I have a dro with scales on every movement. Carriage,crosslide,and compound. You can use the compound scale but it wouldn’t be a direct reading. You would have to trig it out. I installed a scale on the tailstock also which I use a lot. For the tailstock it gives more precise measurements than dashes on a dial. The quick zeroing/start point is nice also.

I’ve found the most useful is to have a scale on the carriage , crosslide and the tailstock. And all of it doesn’t matter unless you input numbers. I like most for double checking the dials.

 

[Olli-Matti]

I installed dros to my both lathes lately and used them before without one. I would not go back. Lathe does not need dro if you dont want to invest or bother the hasle but if you do you won't go back. Thats my finding anyways. I did the small lathe with 2-axis dro and bigger one with three axis (inc compund slide). Aikron dro display that I use has the functions (as do many I think) to punch in the angle of the compund and it calculates the z and x-axises automatically. Ofcourse you are only accurate as is your angle on the compound punched in vs reality. There are lots of other functions also but haven't even looked into them yet. Anyways my point is that imho you dont need one but if you do install you have upgraded useability of your lathe so much that you wont go back.

 

[Winegrower]

I've never felt the need for a tailstock readout...the Takisawa has a graduated quill where one revolution is 0.200", reads to 0.001". Two and a half turns, there's a half inch. That's about as much accuracy I've needed, but you can get it as close as you like.

 

[Ischgl99]

In my case, I’m doing 2-3” deep holes on multiple parts, so keeping track of turns of the dial is a PITA, so I go by the graduations on the quill itself, but there is not a lot of precision that way. I’m also short, so looking at something facing the side is easier than from the top on the dial.

 

[tjb]

You could make your own for the tailstock:

Tail Stock DRO

I love the Eisen 1440 lathe that I bought last year, but there's one feature on it that has been frustrating. The linear scale on the tail stock is very nearly impossible to read - especially while under power. I have toyed with the idea of trying to mount some sort of DRO but never really...

www.hobby-machinist.com

 

[Weldingrod1]

I built a cross slide dro as a challenge... fits a south bend, so it went with the lathe I sold.
I could find pictures if there was enough interest.

Yeah, it was a solution without a problem

Sent from my SM-S911U using Tapatalk

 

[dml66]

When choosing scales, I've found magnetic scales to be more free from physical hysteresis than their glass cousins. I find convergence is faster with a DRO than without one, but it's not a substitute for a micrometer or bore gage. Once I hit target, the DRO helps to monitor drift and correction, this for repetitive parts.