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- Oct 5, 2010
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A while back I posted, on several forums, that I was looking for a good medium priced DRO for my mill. The response I got back wasn't particularly helpful for my situation. After some research I decided upon a DRO Pros 3- axis model.
I purchased it through EBay and I arrived pretty quickly. It was well packaged very well and all components seemed to be included. The documentation was good, but could have been better. It was written by someone who spoke American English as a primary language. It had a DVD demonstrating themany features. The instructor was someone who did not have an educational background and was very repetitive.
I stripped off the old DRO from my Astro Bridgeport clone. None of the original mounting hardware was good for the new unit. The DRO Pro unit came with many mounting brackets. Unfortunately I still had to make several during my installation.
The installation is not for the faint hearted. The installation manual used a table top mill as its example. They really should include an installation of a Bridgey type knee mill too. The X and Y axises weren't too bad. Had I checked the box better, I would have found a nice premade mounting bracket for the Y axis. I didn't so I ended up making my own. The Z- axis was a witch. It took what seem like forever. There were no machined surfaces to mount the scale. After multiple attempts I fabricated a bracket that provided the required positioning and adjustment to get the Z scale sufficiently true. Then I got to fabricate 2 more brackets to attach the scale slide to the knee.
The final installation looks pretty good and is very secure. I proved that by almost immediately slamming the Y axis slide bracket into the table during traverse. Luckily, no harm to anything.
The DRO seems to be as accurate as claimed (plus and minus .0005"). For more money they had more accurate units, but for my uses, that was more than enough. Everything matches up with my dials, the full length of travel. The unit has far more features than I will ever use, but basically the same functions as the Big Boys and the DVD and written documentation explain how the employ them. I have just started using it, so I cannot give a long term use at this time. Folks can PM me in the future for updates. If anything significant happens, I will post.
In all, I am very satisfied with the DRO Pros unit. I have attached some pictures.
Since I am having way too much difficulty posting these large pictures, lets try it this way. There should be 4 photos
http://s640.photobucket.com/albums/...rrent=DRODisplay.jpg&evt=user_media_share
Randy
A while back I posted, on several forums, that I was looking for a good medium priced DRO for my mill. The response I got back wasn't particularly helpful for my situation. After some research I decided upon a DRO Pros 3- axis model.
I purchased it through EBay and I arrived pretty quickly. It was well packaged very well and all components seemed to be included. The documentation was good, but could have been better. It was written by someone who spoke American English as a primary language. It had a DVD demonstrating themany features. The instructor was someone who did not have an educational background and was very repetitive.
I stripped off the old DRO from my Astro Bridgeport clone. None of the original mounting hardware was good for the new unit. The DRO Pro unit came with many mounting brackets. Unfortunately I still had to make several during my installation.
The installation is not for the faint hearted. The installation manual used a table top mill as its example. They really should include an installation of a Bridgey type knee mill too. The X and Y axises weren't too bad. Had I checked the box better, I would have found a nice premade mounting bracket for the Y axis. I didn't so I ended up making my own. The Z- axis was a witch. It took what seem like forever. There were no machined surfaces to mount the scale. After multiple attempts I fabricated a bracket that provided the required positioning and adjustment to get the Z scale sufficiently true. Then I got to fabricate 2 more brackets to attach the scale slide to the knee.
The final installation looks pretty good and is very secure. I proved that by almost immediately slamming the Y axis slide bracket into the table during traverse. Luckily, no harm to anything.
The DRO seems to be as accurate as claimed (plus and minus .0005"). For more money they had more accurate units, but for my uses, that was more than enough. Everything matches up with my dials, the full length of travel. The unit has far more features than I will ever use, but basically the same functions as the Big Boys and the DVD and written documentation explain how the employ them. I have just started using it, so I cannot give a long term use at this time. Folks can PM me in the future for updates. If anything significant happens, I will post.
In all, I am very satisfied with the DRO Pros unit. I have attached some pictures.
Since I am having way too much difficulty posting these large pictures, lets try it this way. There should be 4 photos
http://s640.photobucket.com/albums/...rrent=DRODisplay.jpg&evt=user_media_share
Randy
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