About to bite the bullet and put a DRO on my 8520. Is one of these better than the other? I read Yuri's account of them but it's a little dated I think and the new igaging scales are stainless also. The accuremote is certainly cheaper but do their controllers work as well as the igaging? The igaging seems to have more reviews on this board than the others.
Since you said they're stainless, I assume you're referring to the iGaging Absolute DRO
Plus scales.
If you decide to go that way, make
SURE you're not ordering the iGaging Absolute Origin scales.
While the Absolute Origin Plus scales work with Yuri's Touch DRO, the Absolute Origin scales do not.
I know because that's the scales I originally bought with the intension of using them with Touch DRO. As far as I know, no-one has yet been able to hack the protocol those scales use, although I'm still working toward that end.
A friend of mine at work uses the Digimatic scales with Touch DRO and loves it and they are cheaper.
I have an 8520 as well and either of these scales are easy to mount on it.
Oh, a couple more things to consider.
1. My friend told me the cables on his Digimatic scales were not shielded so if you go with them you'll have to order replacement shielded cables unless they changed to shielded cables.
2. If the Absolute Origin Plus scales are like mine, the refresh rate is 10 Hz. This causes a slight delay in position update if you're moving fast possibly causing you to overshoot.
3. One positive for the Absolute Origin Plus scales is they are ABSOLUTE. A loss of power will not result in loss of position. Yuri's site shows how to build a cheap battery back-up for the Digimatic scales, but this won't work for any quadrature style scales for anything more than a quick flicker in power loss.
