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

48 inches? They may have shorter lengths for less money, if you can use them. Ken.

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?