- Joined
- Jan 1, 2014
- Messages
- 233
I put a YADRO setup on my bench mill in 2010 which has worked reliably ever since. The DRO made such a change to using the mill that I wanted a DRO on the lathe as well.
Chinese kits are becoming very very cheap, however, having one YADRO already I figured I'd put another one on the lathe. The plus side is that the scales have a small profile and the cables are just wires, so easy to route. The downside is that the display laptop is big and storage room is needed for the power bricks, no biggy, and certainly not a show stopper. Hobbymetrix where I got the mill DRO is no longer vending DROs, but had enough stock to supply the parts I needed, so picked them up.
My 1963 SB doesn't have a flat surface on it anywhere which was the biggest issue, also, any side mount on the cross-slide would also limit tailstock travel which is at a premium with a 3' 6" bed, as it is there is only 17" of Z travel between the headstock and where the threading dial runs into the lead screw end carrier. So, for the cross-slide I made a longer connecting arm out of steel channel and mounted the scale further aft. This clears the tailstock in every configuration. For the Z scale there is room under the taper attachment for the 1/4" x 2" x 2" AL mounting angle. To get around the lack of flat surfaces on the side of the bed I used setscrews against the attachment bolts to get everything true and square. Lots of runs with the DI. For the display I just clamped the mount (with a built-in wire box) to the corner of the chip tray which is handy, but far enough away from flying chips.
Looking forward to using the DRO, especially on the Z axis!
Cheers.
Chinese kits are becoming very very cheap, however, having one YADRO already I figured I'd put another one on the lathe. The plus side is that the scales have a small profile and the cables are just wires, so easy to route. The downside is that the display laptop is big and storage room is needed for the power bricks, no biggy, and certainly not a show stopper. Hobbymetrix where I got the mill DRO is no longer vending DROs, but had enough stock to supply the parts I needed, so picked them up.
My 1963 SB doesn't have a flat surface on it anywhere which was the biggest issue, also, any side mount on the cross-slide would also limit tailstock travel which is at a premium with a 3' 6" bed, as it is there is only 17" of Z travel between the headstock and where the threading dial runs into the lead screw end carrier. So, for the cross-slide I made a longer connecting arm out of steel channel and mounted the scale further aft. This clears the tailstock in every configuration. For the Z scale there is room under the taper attachment for the 1/4" x 2" x 2" AL mounting angle. To get around the lack of flat surfaces on the side of the bed I used setscrews against the attachment bolts to get everything true and square. Lots of runs with the DI. For the display I just clamped the mount (with a built-in wire box) to the corner of the chip tray which is handy, but far enough away from flying chips.
Looking forward to using the DRO, especially on the Z axis!
Cheers.