Installing a Magnetic DRO scale on my Grizzly G9729 Lathe/Mill (also Harbor Freight 44142)

LynnEdwards

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Here is what I did to install a DroPros (www.DroPros.com) magnetic DRO on my Grizzly G9729 Lathe/Mill/Drill Combo. I searched the internet and couldn't find any good examples on how others did this on this particular machine, so I forged ahead on my own. It is now installed and working great.

This is my third DRO installaition (all from DroPros), and this was the most difficult – but definitely worth it!. It is also my own machine - the other two installations were on a much larger Grizzly Lathe and and large Enco Mill - both at work. Below are a set of pictures documenting the process on my machine. I hope this will help others contemplating the same installation.

My Grizzly lathe/mill/drill is about 18 years old and has been heavily used. It is still currently available from Grizzly today. Harbor freight used to sell a nearly identical mcahine under model 44142, only it was painted red instead of green. There are other companies selling the same machine only with a shorter bed.

When trying out a few picture posts in the practice forum I caused some confusion about using double sided tape and/or magnets to sttache the DRO scale. This was in response to following DroPros video procedure for determining the scale location. It is temporary only for initial locating purposes. The scales are later aligned and secured with real screws.

010 Y Axis (existing) plus ER40 Collet Upgrade.jpg

020 Lathe Motor Removed and Rotated Out of the Way.jpg

050 Z Axis Read Head Getting Aligned plus Mighty Mag.jpg
060 Rear End of Z Axis Scale plus second Mighty Mag.jpg
070 X Axis Read Head Mounting Block Machined.jpg
080 Cross Slide Moved to Bed End for easy Drilling & Tapping.jpg
090 Problem! Read Head Mount Hole Collision.jpg
100 Remachining the X Axis Read Head Mount Block.jpg

110 X Axis Read Head is Mounted.jpg
120 X Axis Complete.jpg
130 Rear View Complete.jpg
 
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