Over a year ago I started hunting for a DRO system for my Mill/Drill! I looked at everything offered for a system. What I found were 2 key problems system price was one and other DRO installation.
A Mill/Drill has no built in mounting points for DRO addition unlike many knee mills. I quickly found that no DRO system seller had any support or installation design for a Mill/Drill! Scale accuracy of a DRO system is absolutely dependent on its mounting system. Most reasonably priced system matched purchase cost my mill/drill and the rest were much higher!
Problems aside I still wanted the major benefits of an instrument based positioning system, repeatable accuracy and reduced layout time! Frustration is a great motivator; I ended up hunting the world for a solution. I eventually located scales that supplied needed quality and repeatable accuracy. Also now have manufactured an easy to read and use
3-axis LCD display system.I decided to form these components into a Kit! Put in the time needed to engineer a rigid mounting system and write an easy to follow installation guide. My secondary goal for a mounting system was too use existing fastening points. Complete installation requires only 2 new fastening points.
Over the past 4 months I have been selling system in limited numbers primarily on EBay. User input has been very helpful for continued development! Comments have been enthusiastic on both accuracy and value of this DRO system. Systems have been installed on machines from RF15 to RF45 and clones. One major need did become apparent in testing many users needed brackets to be supplied. Those are now included with kit purchase along with
1 year USA Warrantee and installation support. System cost is under $400.00 and can be viewed on EBay Item #3857220019 orThanks,
Ken
Kenneth A. Emmert
SMW Precision
509-216-4959