HI Group:
I just wanted to offer an opinion on the VERY good deal on DRO for a mill... I am NOT affilitate with the company, no relation, no shilling, yada yada yada.... just one very happy customer.
I saw this UNIQ brand DRO at the Birmingham Machine tool booth at this year's WESTEC show in LA. Price complete was $550 with shipping.
I had been looking for about a year now to find/build a DRO for my Millrite. It is Chinese built, but it seems to be of very high quality. I bought one on the spot with some trepidation -- Chinese junk or Chinese decent????
Have been using it for the last month. Man, what a difference a DRO makes. Simply outstanding accuracy as measured by both my handwheel dials and a Starret 2" dial indicator. Will not say this is the best ever for commercial use, but for me, it is SOOOO nice!
It has all the bells and whistles you see in the high end units from Newall, Sony, et all : glass scales, with high end software --- 50 micrometer resolution, bolt hole circles, incline holes, 1/2 button, Metric/inch, trig functions, ability to set 200 "zeroes", absolute/incremental mode, etc etc.
Yesterday, I used the bolt hold circle function to drill 4 holes for a chuck backplate... literally a 5-10 minute exercise start to finish 1-2 minutes to program and the rest to actually drill the holes. Unbelievably easy. Decent owners manual too -- not total "Chingleesh" . Installation was very straightforward.. just drilling and tapping holes for the scales.
Net for a hobbyist, $500.00 give or take is the best deal I have ever found on a "real" DRO for my Millrite.
I built the Shuma Tech 350 late last year and never really comletelely hooked it up simply becuase I was waiting for a good deal on an X axis scales. (I have one 12" and one 6" scale, to make sure my soldering skills worked, but needed a 30-36 inch scale for the X axis and those are expensive). I will now shift the Shuma Tech to my lathe. (When you add all the costs, the Shuma Tech is an easy 300 -400 bucks --or more if you use Jenix scales -- and not counting your time to build/troubleshoot)
Anyway, I just saw on Ebay what seems to have the same unit (item number
7523417252) for $499 plus shipping -- complete with reader unit, glass scales, mounting hardware, etc.My opinion only, but this is the best deal I have seen. YMMV... don't want to start any flame wars....
Steve Koschmann Boulder, CO