X and Y axis lathe DRO's

[Texatdurango]

Well we have a nice thread going on tailstock DRO's so we might get one going for the X axis (left/right travel) and Y axis (front/rear) DRO's.

I purchased a 6" and 24" Remote DRO from Grizzly and installed them on my Grizzly 9x19 lathe. These tools will fit literally anything so one must study his/her machine to determine the best way to mount the slides.

The slides can be trimmed to any length for a custom fit, I verified this with the manufacturer igaging.com.

After the units were installed I chucked up a blank and played around with the displays especially the cross slide unit and can see right now that this is going to eliminate a LOT of grabbing calipers every minute to check the diameter of the cuts. I set the tip of a cutter on the tip of a dead center and pressed ZERO then chucked up a 3/4" blank, backed the cross slide out .375", turned on the lathe and the cutter only took fuzz off so I was impressed! I can't wait to start using these displays!

Thanks to Mike (Bluwolf) for a lot of suggestions and guidance. Any questions, suggestions or comments are most welcomed and feel free to add photos of your machine as it might give others some ideas.

Here are some photos of the units mounted with some comments.....

Here is what you get, the remote display, sensor, sensor slide, brackets and screws but no instructions since they are so generic and will fit anything.

Here is the cross slide with the Y axis (front/back) slide mounted to the right of the compound base. The sensor is mounted to the cross slide.

A close up of the front of the slide. I just tapped a hole in the compound base.

This shows the rear of the slide mounted to the rear of the compound and the sensor mounted to the cross slide.

This is the rear of the lathe and the X axis (left/right) slide mounted

Here is the right side of the X axis slide mount. Note that both the X axis sensor and the Y axis slide both mount to the rear of the compound base.

Here are the two DRO's, the displays are nice and bright, can be set to inch or millimeter. I will be installing the tailstock DRO so will wait until then to see where the best location to mount all three displays.

 

[BigShed]

Looking good George, bit cheaper than a 2axis glass scale DRO setup I guess.

BTW, am I seeing this right, is that a camera lens with its' rear element exposed in the last photo (bottom right)? If it is you wouldn't want to drop any of those tools on it!!:wink:

As it is a bit hard to read on the photos, and the Grizlly site is devoid of details on these, could you tell me what functions these have? Do they have a 1/2 function so that you can read what you are taking off the diameter?
How fast is the readout, some reports say the are slow, ie 3 times a second, any idea?

 

[bluwolf]

As it is a bit hard to read on the photos, and the Grizlly site is devoid of details on these, could you tell me what functions these have? Do they have a 1/2 function so that you can read what you are taking off the diameter?
How fast is the readout, some reports say the are slow, ie 3 times a second, any idea?

Fred, I'm not George but since I'm here, there really aren't any special functions on these. For the most part they're just digital calipers with a remote display.

They switch from inch to metric, have a zero, an ABS button for setting increment relative to zero, and in the inch display mode, besides the decimal equivalent (out to 3 decimal points) you can switch between a fractional reading of 1/32, 1/64, or 1/128 that displays next to the decimal number. The website says it will measure 120" per second. HTH.

 

[bluwolf]

George, glad to see to you got the scales on. I would definitely consider putting swarf covers over them to keep the crap out. It can be as simple as some aluminum roof flashing bent into an "L" held on with a couple little magnets. Then you don't have to drill and tap any more holes.

 

[Texatdurango]

Looking good George, bit cheaper than a 2axis glass scale DRO setup I guess.

Yep, As you mentioned recently, some folks buy these machines then start spending huge amounts of money on them as if modifying machines was their main hobby rather than using the machine to support other hobbies. I'm out $70 for these two displays and now have X and Y (or Z, however you look at it) movement digitally displayed to three decimal places. We'll see how they work in real life and if they are as handy as I think they will be.

BTW, am I seeing this right, is that a camera lens with its' rear element exposed in the last photo (bottom right)? If it is you wouldn't want to drop any of those tools on it!!:wink:

Yep again, that is a camera lens. That thing has been banging around in my shop like that since 1975 and I use it for a magnifying glass! I don't know what the zoom power is but it's a lot more than 30X loop I have (and keep protected).

As it is a bit hard to read on the photos, and the Grizlly site is devoid of details on these, could you tell me what functions these have? Do they have a 1/2 function so that you can read what you are taking off the diameter?
How fast is the readout, some reports say the are slow, ie 3 times a second, any idea?

Mike already covered that so no since in repeating. Today I am going to put them through their paces to see how well they work. One test will be mounting a pen blank, zeroing out the display when the cutter is against the blank then start turning off material untill the display reads -.125" at which point I'll measure the blank with calipers and it should be 1/2" diameter. Then remove the blank, mount and start turning another blank without resetting the display just to see the repeatability of the display. Should be a fun day!

 

[Texatdurango]

George, glad to see to you got the scales on. I would definitely consider putting swarf covers over them to keep the crap out. It can be as simple as some aluminum roof flashing bent into an "L" held on with a couple little magnets. Then you don't have to drill and tap any more holes.

Now that they are in place I'm going to actually use the machine today to make sure they are where they need to be then will figure out where to route wires, mount the displays and how best to make a cover for them. I already mounted the cross slide sensor beam upside down to keep swarf from dropping on the sensor side of the beam but will see how I can apply a piece of flashing to protect the whole thing. The patio painting is complete so today is going to be a fun........ in the shop all day! :biggrin:

 

[BigShed]

Thanks Mike and George, seriously considering getting a couple of those scales for my mill, they are being sold on Ebay here in Oz for prices very similar to those in the US (very unusual) and make the $600+ price for a "proper" DRO look rather unattractive. The fact that they can be easily cut also helps.

George, one of the things I did wit hthe glass scales on my lathe was lining them up with a dial indicator to make sure that they run true. Whilst it shouldn't be as critical with these, it still wouldn't be a bad idea to check alignment like this with yours.

 

[BigShed]

Yep, As you mentioned recently, some folks buy these machines then start spending huge amounts of money on them as if modifying machines was their main hobby rather than using the machine to support other hobbies.

Just came across this on another (machining) forum, seemed appropriate:biggrin:

 

[Curly]

Sme other sources.

In post 26 of the tailstock thread I posted a couple other sources for these kind of DRO's. http://www.penturners.org/forum/showthread.php?t=86953

I've duplicated it here for convenience.

Shars tools have horizontal and vertical scales from 4" to 40" and single, double and triple axis readouts. Once you start putting a 3 axis setup together you start approaching the costs of their glass scale DRO packages.

http://www.shars.com/product_categor...gital_Readouts

CDCO also sell similar goodies.

http://www.cdcotools.com/

 

[bluwolf]

George, you've had your DROs on your lathe now for a little while. How are they working out for you? Would you do anything differently on the install? Are they accurate enough for your needs?

 

[Texatdurango]

George, you've had your DROs on your lathe now for a little while. How are they working out for you? Would you do anything differently on the install? Are they accurate enough for your needs?

Actually a little dissapointing! The x-y 24" unit is going back since it's always giving me erratic measurements. I think the sensor is faulty.

The cross slide unit is working but it's SLOW and if you are moving the handwheel in too fast, it doesn't keep up. I have to stop, go back a little then contineu to get a good reading.

Not really pleased with them so far.

 

[bluwolf]

George, you've had your DROs on your lathe now for a little while. How are they working out for you? Would you do anything differently on the install? Are they accurate enough for your needs?

Actually a little dissapointing! The x-y 24" unit is going back since it's always giving me erratic measurements. I think the sensor is faulty.

The cross slide unit is working but it's SLOW and if you are moving the handwheel in too fast, it doesn't keep up. I have to stop, go back a little then contineu to get a good reading.

Not really pleased with them so far.

Wow. I'm really sorry to hear that. I've got 3 of them in 3 different lengths and they all work great. They're supposed to read 120 inches a second. It seems odd that the cross would run slow.

Were you careful to level everything so the reader runs parallel to the two mounted ends? If there's any binding that can give you problems.

 

[BigShed]

The cross slide unit is working but it's SLOW and if you are moving the handwheel in too fast, it doesn't keep up. I have to stop, go back a little then contineu to get a good reading.

Not really pleased with them so far.

That's why I asked the question here