What Dro For The Home Shop Guy... G4003g

I have the TPAC dro on my g4003. Works fine. I have a Newall C 80 on my heavy 10. The only advantage of the Newall is the scales are impervious to about everything except maybe a hammer. I have had the TPAC (2L) dro for about a year now. The manual sucks but you just can't beat the price / performance. It is not really difficult to set up and just takes a little while to figure out how it works (without using the manual :))

I am considering getting the 3L version of the dro for my mill. I don't know if the TPAC mill version has an input for a probe or not. There is no input port on the 2L version of the device. That is the only reason I would not buy one for my mill.
 
I don't recall specifying any particular length of scales. I just ordered for a 12 x 36 lathe. I just went out and looked and found that the cross slide scale is approximately 12 1/2 inches, end to end (+ or - 50 thou) I can't get to the x scale without removing the chip shield on the back of the lathe and the scale cover but end to end the scale cover is approximately 42 inches. Steve Bedair has a web site and a description of how he installed a similar dro on his 12 x 36. He milled a slot in his apron for the cable. I found that completely unnecessary. I have the scale flush with the top of the cross slide and there is plenty of clearance for the cable.
 
Well i think the X Y on the screen would drive me nuts.... Im trying to keep the budget down. so i called dro pros to see about the 2L but they are out of stock till june.

so i was checking eBay and i found the same one http://www.ebay.com/itm/SINPO-2-axis-digital-readout-kit-for-Lathe-applications-/221078186670?

but a SINPO and they they only charged me 29$ to upgrade the slim scale to 1um. .00004 for the cross slide.

so i saved a 170$ lets hope its worth it . should get it by the 8th .....

i measured the lathe and the carriage gets right around 29.5" travel and the crossslide is right around 6" travel..... so i went with a 170mm and a 850 mm
 
Dman isn't 170mm too short for the cross slide, what's the length of the read head?
 
170mm is 6.7" when i measured i was only getting 6 inches of travel...actual length is 12.3"... if i go with the next size up it would be over 14" long.
 
I ordered a Tpac 2 axis for the FrankenMill on the 24th. It will be at my door today. The nice thing about the Tpac kits are the scales come in length increments of 2" or so up to 16" so fitting one to the 8" Y on my machine was easy. We'll see how the install goes. I don't want to hi-jack this thread so i'll post a new one after I get the installation going. :)
Mark
 
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