DRO scale too long

Gerry fired this volley in news: snipped-for-privacy@googlegroups.com:

Gerry, it depends upon the scale material and your skills.

Some scales (the ones I prefer for custom installs) contain a strip-pole rubber magnet material in the scale, and hall-effect sensors in the head. Those scales can be cut with scissors, and are no problem to shorten.

Some others contain etched or printed glass optical scales, and use photocell and illuminator sensing in the head. Those scales CAN be shortened, but you must be skilled in scoring and snapping a very thin, long glass strip. Without practice first (on something like microscope slides), you'll likely ruin the scale.

Lloyd

If it is indeed the same as digital calipers then you can cut it shorter with no effect on the reading of the scale by the read head. Eric

t on my drill mill. It sat untouched in it's box until now. In looking to s ee if I can install it, I see that the scale is too long to easily mount on my drill mill. So I am wondering if the scale can be shortened to fit my n eeds. Not understanding exactly how the DRO works I do not want to do anyth ing until I have a better understanding. It looks to be just a larger versi on of of the digital calipers I have. Any suggestions would be appreciated. TIA

The miserable instructions says as "system" non-contact linear CAP. Does th at mean anything as to what kind it is? It has a 6" range but the scale is all of 10.5" in length. I'd like to cut a couple of inches off if I can wit hout destroying it. The mill drill is a round column Grizzly with the on/of f switch in front. I've been looking for an excuse to buy something with a square column with DRO. This may be a reason.

If it's the same as most digital calipers it's a capacitive read scale - and the "CAP" in your instructions would indicate this is what you have . They can be cut AFAIK . Here's a link to an article about someone's DRO experiences :

My mill/drill uses these scales , attached to a Shumatech DRO 350 . One thing to watch for is scale jump. This type of scale is susceptible to interference from line spikes , like when you power up the mill .

If you're talking about this sort of thing, you can cut them. I've cut a few with a hacksaw, no problems.

I've had good luck cutting glass scales without removing them from their housing with a hot wire & quench. Doesn't always make the neatest cut, but not much skill is required, and there's an inch or two of dead space at the ends of the housing that the reader head doesn't scan anyway. A TIG welder with a foot pedal with the current turned way down makes a good power supply for heating the wire. Whether this will work with a given scale depends on the configuration of the housing.

t on my drill mill. It sat untouched in it's box until now. In looking to s ee if I can install it, I see that the scale is too long to easily mount on my drill mill. So I am wondering if the scale can be shortened to fit my n eeds. Not understanding exactly how the DRO works I do not want to do anyth ing until I have a better understanding. It looks to be just a larger versi on of of the digital calipers I have. Any suggestions would be appreciated. TIA

This is exactly what I have

Gerry fired this volley in news: snipped-for-privacy@googlegroups.com:

The description sounds like it might be a magnetic scale.

Lloyd

"Lloyd E. Sponenburgh" fired this volley in news:XnsA410D5B6E5FA6lloydspmindspringcom@216.168.4.170:

But looking further, their catalog lists them as capacitive.

Lloyd

t on my drill mill. It sat untouched in it's box until now. In looking to s ee if I can install it, I see that the scale is too long to easily mount on my drill mill. So I am wondering if the scale can be shortened to fit my n eeds. Not understanding exactly how the DRO works I do not want to do anyth ing until I have a better understanding. It looks to be just a larger versi on of of the digital calipers I have. Any suggestions would be appreciated. TIA

Thanks all! I will try using a cut off blade in my Dremel tool. From the pr ices posted seems it may not cost much if I fail

Do it, Gerry! (Got my address? Recycle the old POS here. ;)

Spikes were terrorizing my buddy, Glenn, last year. He finally figured out what it was. The compressors on both his air system and HVAC units created enough noise to bump the DRO by about 0.1" right in the middle of a run. It drove us nuts when I was machining the parts for the gantry. I had 3 screw holes in the pattern and the 4th looked off to me, so we both checked it. Sure enough, it was off exactly .1". I ruined one end piece before seeing it happen again. He finally put a UPS in on the wall wart and it stopped happening altogether, but it had plagued him for a couple years, on a very maddeningly sporadic basis. Powerlines are already very noisy in Medford, OR, anyway, so the power company wasn't any help. We may have cheap power up here, but it's noisy as hell.