Glass Scales

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kingmt01

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I'm looking into getting glass scales from China. I found some with what seems like a good price but having no experience with them in not sure. Every thing sounds fine & the only concern is that they use plastic bushings as guides. I see others advertised with bearings but at 2-3x the price. I have talked to a few manufacturers & get about the same impressions from them all. They have higher dollar scales also but I'm thinking that savings $300 might be worth while. I wouldn't think a good plastic bushings would ware quickly against a smooth aluminum or even a cheap plastic got that matter.

Anyone have any first hand knowledge using both? Anyone want to give your opinion?
 
Can you provide a link to what you are looking at?

If I remember correctly, you mentioned that you were going to build your own DRO. Let me offer an alternative system for the scales. I have been using Renishaw magnetic scales for about 3 years on two machines and have been very satisfied with them. http://www.ebay.com/itm/Renishaw-LM10-Linear-Magnetic-Encoder-/121817888334

I don't know how these compare in cost to the scales you are looking at, but they seem to be pretty bullet proof. These are 5V, differential quadrature output, which means that they are compatible with just about any encoder input device.

X-axis scale
upload_2015-12-17_10-36-12.png
 
I can give a link to the style but the information is in a file the manufacturer sent me. Ordering from the manufacturer the scales are half that price. They are even cheaper then the iGaugeing scales I use now.

http://pages.ebay.com/link/?nav=item.view&id=291630086197&alt=web
The ones they make has plastic bushings instead of bearings. Three of the scales are about $50 the other 4 are $70 & under & $100 to ship all 7 of them.
 
I guess the price is right. If they work out of the box, they will probably give reasonable service. I don't see much advantage of ball bearings over plastic guides. This should not be a high wear area.
 
kingmt01 said:
I can give a link to the style but the information is in a file the manufacturer sent me. Ordering from the manufacturer the scales are half that price. They are even cheaper then the iGaugeing scales I use now.

http://pages.ebay.com/link/?nav=item.view&id=291630086197&alt=web
The ones they make has plastic bushings instead of bearings. Three of the scales are about $50 the other 4 are $70 & under & $100 to ship all 7 of them.
Click to expand...
That link doesn't work for me. Gives "Page no longer available".
 
I would think that the issue regarding ball bearings vs. plastic bushings is more to do with the fit. Ball bearings can be preloaded to give zero or close to zero clearance while a sliding bushing necessarily requires some clearance to slide. Any clearance introduces the possibility of error.
 
kingmt01 said:
I can give a link to the style but the information is in a file the manufacturer sent me. Ordering from the manufacturer the scales are half that price. They are even cheaper then the iGaugeing scales I use now.

http://pages.ebay.com/link/?nav=item.view&id=291630086197&alt=web
The ones they make has plastic bushings instead of bearings. Three of the scales are about $50 the other 4 are $70 & under & $100 to ship all 7 of them.
Click to expand...
I am pretty sure those do not have plastic bushings. The description even says they have stainless ball bearings. I'm no expert on DRO's but I am pretty certain none of them use bushings.
They look just like the scales I have and mine have little ball bearing rollers that have a spring suspension to keep them aligned.
The red plastic thing between the read head and the scale is a spacer used both for shipping and for setting up the scale. The spacer acts as a shim for getting the correct space between the read head and the scale, and is removed after installation.

I spent a lot of time trying to source scales for the TouchDRO system. I wanted glass scales because the magnetic ones are super expensive, and the Igaging scales have really bad specs.
I wound up getting mine on Alliexpress.
http://www.aliexpress.com/item/3-ax...achine-3-pcs-1um-linear-scale/1556577283.html

That price for the magnetic read head is a seriously good price BTW. If you are considering going this route, I would jump on that really hard before it is gone.
 
As I said those aren't the scales I'm talking about but similar. The manufacturers number for the scales is EP1. Is was wrong on one of the prices also. The one scale that is over 40" is $91.
 
If it is the diltron scales you are looking at. I haven't used them yet. But I have read a lot of post from people who has and every one seams to be pleased with them and has gotten good service from the manufacture.
 
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