DRO - Shooting star scales Q

What protocol do the heads you have transmit ? Once you know that , we can determine what will work . F'r instance , the Chinese scales sold by Shars mostly transmit 24 bit binary code , glass scales use quadrature encoding ... My cables are soldered to the contact pads on the PC board in the reader head , because that was the most reliable ... BTW , I'm using Chinese scales and a Shumatech DRO350 . -- Snag Learning keeps you young !

Snag, I have no idea what protocol they use.

I poked around a little , didn't find it with a google search . I can ask if anyone over at the shumatech group knows if you'd like . Chances are that since it's a rotary encoder it's quadrature . Or this might be one more of the many times I've been wrong ...

I installed the Shooting Star on my Bridgeport mill.... I really like it, and I think if I was in your shoes I would just bite the bullet and buy the scale.... the seem to work very well. Do you really need

I have one - for maybe 10 years now - on my 11" Sheldon 11-44 lathe.

It is nice when boring or turning down a length.

I saw a 24" caliper with ?sps? cable to computer. It was > I have a Shooting Star DRO setup that someone has tried to mount to a

Actually the X travel is only about 24", but I believe they only show two lengths, 48" and something like 15" IIRC

The rack looks like a piece of 1/4" drill rod with sawteeth milled into one side.

I actually have almost nothing in the DRO setup. I bought a minilathe at a bargain price and the DRO kit was included. So another $135 would represent my total investment. But what made me reconsider is that I found the resolution to be .001", where others for less money claim .0002"

Of course, the sorts of projects I have done in most cases one thou would have been fine. For many a yardstick would have given me enough accuracy ;)

I need to use it with my millrite so need a longer scale. This uses a fine-tooth rack that the encoder reads.

Shooting Star wants $100 for a 48" length of this rack, plus $35 shipping. Seems high, but maybe that's the going price. Is there an alternate source that might be cheaper?