I finally got around to installing a quill DRO on my PM935.

[Ken226]

I wanted it to be as low profile as possible,
so I decided to cut the 6" (6.5" actual travel), down to 5.35" of actual travel.

I didn't want to pay 300$ for the Motutoyo scale and risk destroying it when I cut it down. Since I kept reading that on the Shars and Igaging readouts, the display lags, (is slow to respond to quill movement), and eats batteries like crazy, I took a chance and ordered a M-Sure display from the UK, for 50$. It responds quickly, with no noticable lag. We shall see how it does with battery life.



My quill has about 5.1" of travel, so, the cut down scale gives me 1/8" of clearance both top and bottom of the range of motion.

That also got the scale overall length down to 8.625", so the scale only protrudes 1/8" above and below the head castings where the brackets attach.

I milled angles on the brackets to match the angles of the head casting. So overall, the brackets extend .2" above and below the mounting bosses the attach to.



It was just -mocked up- in this pic. When it's finished it should stop 1/8" short of the brackets in the fully up/down positions.

After getting it all put together and making sure it works, I took it apart and cerakoted the brackets. Going with "midnight bronze". A mix of 75% burnt bronze, and 25% graphite black.

It's in the cerakote oven baking at the moment. I'll post more pics whet it's done, in 2 hours.

 

[brino]

Even the "mock-up" looks very clean!
"watching" this thread for updates.
-brino

 

[kb58]

There was a nearly identical thread a few weeks ago, and the main point seemed to be that lower cost caliper/linear scale indicators eat batteries far faster than the name brands. Oh, and of course, one group said they never had need of one, and the other group saying that wouldn't live without it, hah.

 

[Janderso]

I have the Shars, works great. I can watch the quill being pulled down while I machine parts.
It reminds me to tighten the quill.
No, really, they are very handy!

Super clean install-mock-up!

 

[Ken226]

Well, I got'er done! Glad to hear the Shars unit works fine. I had it in my Amazon cart for a couple weeks. I'd have ordered it, but those posts about it lagging scared me off.

Sounds like maybe a few guys got unlucky, and most work fine.

I took lots of pics, so bear with me while I post'em up. I'll be doing some saving and editing, as I load pics, so I don't have to re-type everything should the web browser do something weird.

Anyway, here's my pictoral update:

Here are the parts, fresh out of the cerakote oven. In "midnight bronze".


Trying for better lighting, to show the color better.


This one shows the brass pin I used to take up the slack in the transfer bar part. It's driven by a setscrew that passes through the transfer bar at an angle from the opposite side.



Shows the tapped hole for the setscrew that pushes against the brass pin.


Here is the backplate attached to the read head.


Here is a pic showing the slotted transfer bar plate. The slots allow the plate to move a little, so the transfer bar can be aligned with that hole it goes in, in that thingy on the quill.



Here's the lower bracket, attached via a m4 socket head cap screw.


The upper bracket, with the scale installed.




The slots that hold the scale are .02" wider that the scale itself, to give me some adjustment for vertical alignment. Each bracket has a setscrew in the back, to lock the scale, once vertical alignment is achieved.

I ran an indicator up and down the scale untill I had less that .001" over then length of the scale.




All aligned, so snugging the setscrews.


Tightening the setscrew that bears against that brass pin, securing the transfer bar.


Snugging the m4 socket head screws that hold the transfer bar plate to the read-head.


And, she's all done. There's no slop.. it's tight as a tick. I raised the head and run the spindle down till in contacted the vise, and set the quill to zero. Running the spindle up and down against the vise, repeated perfectly every time! now I know exactly how much travel my quill has. 5.190".

Success!











And, here's the 2inches inches I cut off the scale with my Dremel cut-off wheel.

 

[Nutfarmer]

Under the DRO is that a custom control panel for a vfd ? Looks well laid out .

 

[Winegrower]

Really nice, I don’t see how this could be done any better!

 

[Ken226]

Under the DRO is that a custom control panel for a vfd ? Looks well laid out .

Thanks. A pretty recent project as well. 1/8" aluminum sheet, cut cerakoted and engraved with a drag tool.

Really nice, I don’t see how this could be done any better!

Thank you. It took the whole day to mill out the parts, hopefully it'll be worth it.

 

[brino]

Excellent!
The final install did NOT disappoint.

There is no such thing as too many pictures.
Thanks for posting!

-brino

 

[Ken226]

My next project will be a magnetic quick detach work stop.

I've been using this magnetic jaw stop from edge technology for 6 years and it works great. It allows for quick positioning of soft jaws or custom machined fixture jaws, and repeats very accurately.



I always thought it would be handy to have one of these with a longer arm to use as a work stop. Especially for CNC work, where I'd like to machine around the perimeter of the part.

I could set the magnetic stop up for the first, touched-off part, then remove it from the vice and machine around the perimeter of the part.

When it's time for the next part, snap the magnetic work stop onto the vise, clamp in the part, remove the work-stop, and hit "cycle start".