Beginning my TouchDRO Journey...

[Nesse1]

First off, I'm a RANK beginner with installing, and working with, a DRO. And I'm super excited to be using @ycroosh 's TouchDRO system. Thanks so much for supporting the community, and guys like me...

I'm using a Fire 8 tablet, damn the ads, and the latest (non beta) software.

Watched the videos on Youtube, on how to calibrate the scales, only the video is way too fast, and doesn't reference what buttons are being pushed during the process. I slowed down the video to .25 speed, and that helped...but the video is outdated because the software is different now.

And when I say different, I mean better in most ways. For example, the new software version makes calibration easier. My main headache was understanding that the tiny Bluetooth symbol in the upper right of the screen, was a button, which needed to be toggled to connect the scales to the software. Who knew?

So, I'm almost done with the calibration. Or maybe I should say I know how to do it, anyway.

I had the mag scale for my cross slide installed while machining a cast iron chuck backplate, and when done there was a massive amount of iron chips/grit/dust/swarf, attached to the scale. The cross slide is too small for a glass scale, or I would have used one of those. Today's task, was to install a small L shaped shield over the mag scale. Hoping that will help, at least a little. The z axis scale, is a nice Sino 1u unit I got off eBay, for a good price. That one was more difficult to get aligned, but it's all good now. And the cover that came with it should keep swarf away nicely.

Next step is installing the tablet stand, finding a place for the DRO module, and securing the scale wires. Can the module, and extra wires be placed in a plastic box, to contain and protect and hide them?

I'm typing this while taking a beer break, before heading back to the garage. Thanks in advance for my questions to come....

 

[ycroosh]

First off, I'm a RANK beginner with installing, and working with, a DRO. And I'm super excited to be using @ycroosh 's TouchDRO system. Thanks so much for supporting the community, and guys like me...

I'm using a Fire 8 tablet, damn the ads, and the latest (non beta) software.

Watched the videos on Youtube, on how to calibrate the scales, only the video is way too fast, and doesn't reference what buttons are being pushed during the process. I slowed down the video to .25 speed, and that helped...but the video is outdated because the software is different now.

And when I say different, I mean better in most ways. For example, the new software version makes calibration easier. My main headache was understanding that the tiny Bluetooth symbol in the upper right of the screen, was a button, which needed to be toggled to connect the scales to the software. Who knew?

So, I'm almost done with the calibration. Or maybe I should say I know how to do it, anyway.

I had the mag scale for my cross slide installed while machining a cast iron chuck backplate, and when done there was a massive amount of iron chips/grit/dust/swarf, attached to the scale. The cross slide is too small for a glass scale, or I would have used one of those. Today's task, was to install a small L shaped shield over the mag scale. Hoping that will help, at least a little. The z axis scale, is a nice Sino 1u unit I got off eBay, for a good price. That one was more difficult to get aligned, but it's all good now. And the cover that came with it should keep swarf away nicely.

Next step is installing the tablet stand, finding a place for the DRO module, and securing the scale wires. Can the module, and extra wires be placed in a plastic box, to contain and protect and hide them?

I'm typing this while taking a beer break, before heading back to the garage. Thanks in advance for my questions to come....

I'm walking in a park right now, so sorry for the brief reply.
Calibration instructions (and the new video) are here: https://www.touchdro.com/resources/dro-manual/calibration.html. The video covers lathe calibration in depth.

Regards
Yuriy

 

[Nesse1]

I bought a plastic box to hide away the excessive scale cable length, and was thinking about sticking the TouchDRO module in there as well. Will the bluetooth signal go through the box?

 

[RaisedByWolves]

I bought a plastic box to hide away the excessive scale cable length, and was thinking about sticking the TouchDRO module in there as well. Will the bluetooth signal go through the box?

Shouldn't be an issue.

Think about it this way, T-DRO is already in a plastic box and so is the BT antenna on the tablet.

 

[Inferno]

One thing I'm having issues with, and maybe it's just me, but the DRO hangs onto the tablet even if you turn the tablet off. If I don't disconnect from my bluetooth, I can't connect a different device.
Just something to be wary of. It came to be a problem with me because my tablet (which was plugged in 24/7) lost it's freaking mind and thought the batter was dead-dead when it was fully charged so it wouldn't restart. I had to buy a new battery just so I could disconnect from the tablet and use a different one.
That tablet wasn't plugged in and the battery was dead for a couple weeks. I needed the DRO for a couple things and my cell phone wouldn't connect. After charging the second tablet, and then disconnected from the DRO, my phone would connect.

Mind you, I did try unplugging the DRO for a half hour also.

 

[ycroosh]

One thing I'm having issues with, and maybe it's just me, but the DRO hangs onto the tablet even if you turn the tablet off. If I don't disconnect from my bluetooth, I can't connect a different device.
Just something to be wary of. It came to be a problem with me because my tablet (which was plugged in 24/7) lost it's freaking mind and thought the batter was dead-dead when it was fully charged so it wouldn't restart. I had to buy a new battery just so I could disconnect from the tablet and use a different one.
That tablet wasn't plugged in and the battery was dead for a couple weeks. I needed the DRO for a couple things and my cell phone wouldn't connect. After charging the second tablet, and then disconnected from the DRO, my phone would connect.

Mind you, I did try unplugging the DRO for a half hour also.

So this is a bug in the firmware. It's a bit obscure (so far you are the third person that ran into this): BlueTooth can enter "congested" state when the receiver (in this case, the tablet) is busy. I check for that in TouchDRO. When the thing works as expected, congested state lasts for a fraction of a second while the tablet is reading previous stream, but in some cases when the tablet is walked out of the reception range, or dies but reports "congested" state before that, the DRO can get stuck in it. When you disconnect/reconnect, the DRO isn't sending data because congested state wasn't cleared. I don't fully understand why this happens only with some tablet/adapter combinations, but the fix is to clear congested state when a new connection is opened.
I just fixed this last week, in fact. If this bugs you, I can re-flash your unit with the update firmware.

When things work as expected, TouchDRO App will drop the connection after 5 seconds of inactivity. The delay is there to avoid unnecessary disconnects/reconnects when you flip the screen or switch between screens (in Android, changing screen orientation stops the app).

Regards
Yuriy