DRO fitted.

[th62]

I made a couple of small sensor brackets out of 2mm ally today, fitted one at the front under an ally U chanel. The other bracket and sensor is fitted on the cross slide and the magnetic strip stuck on the base of the mill. If swarf presents a problem its a minor job to fabricate a guard over the top.. I also made a bracket to fit the readout and fitted it under the main control box.

The stick on strips are printed 3m, but I doubt very much they are, Chinese manufacturers aren't known for their honesty.

I assumed the sensor would have to be in contact with the stainless strip stuck on top of the magnetic strip. But no, it works with up to a 3-5 mm gap.

The sensor leads are about 3m long miles too long for this little machine, so I'll have to fab some sort of rail to tie them to so,they don't get pulled around when cleaning up.

It appears to work great, so I'll order another for the lathe. I'll get the .01mm linear scale for the lathe, that's where I need the accuracy, I'll have to figure out a way of protecting the leads, the leads got damaged on the last DRO I had on the lathe.

 

[RJSakowski]

I made my excess cable lengths into a tight loop, fixed with Nylon ties, and fastened to the back of my column with a cable clip screwed into the column.

What is the resolution of the display? 5, 10 micron?

 

[th62]

Nope, I ordered the wrong one, only measures to .1mm. Probably sufficient for the mill as most of my work on the mill is by eye. My lathe DRO got damaged some time ago, so I've been working without one for the last few years. Since this one works OK I'll order another of these for the lathe, but I'll get the .01mm linear scale next time. These are unaffected by coolant so ideal for the lathe.

This is the sort of work I do on the mill, so a more accurate DRO is probably overkill.