DRO's, which display type to choose?

[Investigator]

I will be in the market for a DRO for my B'port clone mill in the near future. I've been reading and trying to research as best I can. I've pretty much come to the conclusion that glass scales in the 5um from Aliexpress are good enough for me. What I don't know and what I can't seem to find are some differences in the displays themselves. I can see some obvious stuff like the big LCD display vs the more standard digital display. But are there any functional differences? which display should I choose, does it matter?

 

[RandyWilson]

The same Asian glass scales and DRO heads are available on ebay. Same money, faster US based shipping, and someone to yell at if things go wrong. Functionality, it seems they all do the same thing. I have read that they mostly use the same controller boards, only the case and layout changes. I have a SNS-3V on my mill, and just ordered a SNS-2V for the lathe.

 

[DavidR8]

I have one of the large LCD displays on my mill and it’s fantastic. Not only is it easy to read but setting up bolt circles etc. is graphical and not via mysterious codes.

 

[Ken226]

I have an LCD on my mill and a standard type on the lathe.

I much prefer the LCD, as it's still easily readable with the sunlight reflection glaring off it through the window. The current led display is hard to read when the sunlight pours in through the window.

I'll be buying a Ditron LCD display for the lathe as soon as I get back home from my current involuntary out of town work trip.

 

[Investigator]

Thank you gentlemen. So really it's all looks, and no difference in functionality?

 

[Ken226]

Thank you gentlemen. So really it's all looks, and no difference in functionality?

Yes, functionally they are pretty much the same.

Another small advantage to the LCD displays have to do with bolt circles, patterns and arrays. The LCD gives a nice visual representation of the pattern and hole layout where the standard display just lets you cycle through the coordinates.

 

[7milesup]

Get the LCD display. If you really want the standard display I should sell you mine...

 

[graham-xrf]

I will be in the market for a DRO for my B'port clone mill in the near future. I've been reading and trying to research as best I can. I've pretty much come to the conclusion that glass scales in the 5um from Aliexpress are good enough for me. What I don't know and what I can't seem to find are some differences in the displays themselves. I can see some obvious stuff like the big LCD display vs the more standard digital display. But are there any functional differences? which display should I choose, does it matter?

I bought DRO kit to add to my mill drill. I bought the glass scales separately from the display, and it was all via eBay.

A fine detail you can discover when you move the minimum distance to get the last decimal number to change, especially if you have the units set to inches, is that the displays all have enough digits to show down to 1 micron steps ( that's about 40 millionths), but the glass scales normally come with the option of either 5 micron or 1 micron resolution. The 1 micron type costs very slightly more. The majority advertised, especially those bundled with displays, are usually the 5 micron type, but I found a seller where I could select the type.

All the glass scales are inherently metric, and for folk who use inches, the conversion is built in to the display option when you set the units. For nearly everything most of us would do, it does not matter at all. To miss the two tenths still gets you respect, even if you are regularly lapping the stuff you turn to as close as you can measure. In inches, 5 micron steps are 0.0001968 inches. I guess it's easy enough to work with the approximately 2 ten-thousandths leaps.

The reason I went for the 1 micron scale is that I use millimetres, and I preferred the minimum increment change to cause the last display decimal place to alter sensibly. One can grind a telescope mirror accurate to within a twentieth the wavelength of green light, but I know I don't yet have the skill to make stuff to the kind of accuracy implied by the number of display decimal places.

 

[graham-xrf]

I will be in the market for a DRO for my B'port clone mill in the near future. I've been reading and trying to research as best I can. I've pretty much come to the conclusion that glass scales in the 5um from Aliexpress are good enough for me. What I don't know and what I can't seem to find are some differences in the displays themselves. I can see some obvious stuff like the big LCD display vs the more standard digital display. But are there any functional differences? which display should I choose, does it matter?

Of course, I am a fan of Quinn Dunki.
The whole deal, everything you need to know about choosing, buying, and installing DROs is here..

 

[akjeff]

Another thing to watch for is that the connectors on the display match the connectors on the scales you choose, so you don't have to fool with adaptors or compatibility issues. Some use DB-9 which is probably the most common, and some have a round Cannon plug type( bayonet or thread on ). Some of the Chinesium stuff I've seen are still round and require adaptors to use DB-9 scales. If you source your display and scales from different vendors, do lots of homework first, to insure they play nice together.