DRO Follow-up

Just thought I would follow up my question a few weeks ago about DROs, and let you know my experience.

I took the plunge and last week got a kit from Machine-DRO to fit my Emco FB2 mill.

Fitting the scales to X and Y axes was fairly straightforward. I was about to say painless, but my mill is bench mounted with very little space behind, and a certain amount of crawling around and sticking my head in confined spaces caused the odd bruise. I got the 500 series slim scales, and the protective covers, which worked well as the machine is fairly compact. A few minor adaptions (milling the odd pocket on the back bracket of the covers to go over bolts, oiling points etc., and adapting one of the supplied brackets) was all that was required.

I bought the 3-axis version, but I have not yet fitted the Z axis scale. I'm not sure this is really necessary, on reflection I could probably have lived without it, but experience may prove otherwise. It will certainly be more fiddly to fit. I think I made a mistake in choosing the length; I was too concerned with measuring the travel of the head and getting a scale of that length (320mm). This overlooked the gap I had to bridge between column support and column head, for which a 420mm scale would have been better. In my defence, all I can say is that I had not realised how robust the protective cover rear bracket is - I could have used that as the "bridge", but I thought I would have to fit a steel or alloy bar. I guess I still can...

The kit seems good quality and works exactly as I hoped it would. The kit includes a very complete set of fastenings, and a generous supply of brackets. The fitting instructions supplied are a bit feeble, but there is quite a good .pdf on the supplier's website (at least there was a couple of weeks ago, I can't find it now - good thing I grabbed a copy when I found it!).

I'm still pondering about fitting DRO to my lathe. It would be useful, though perhaps not as useful as on the mill, but it would be more of a pain to fit on a Super 7 - the longitudinal scale would make my taper turning device unusable, and the cross feed scale would (in the only position I think it would be tolerable, i.e. the tailstock side) interfere with the saddle lock and gib strip adjustment screws. More pondering is required, besides I have spent enough for now! Perhaps a cheap horizontal scale for the tailstock barrel would be the most useful, and very cheap.

David

Reply to
David Littlewood
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probably

choosing

supply of

useful,

taper

Best thing I ever did to my Colchester Master was to fit a decent DRO - transforms working on it

AWEM

Reply to
Andrew Mawson

hi

if you give Alan a ring at Machine-Dro, I think they may have a fitting kit for the myford - they have one fitted to a myford at the shows

-Gareth

Reply to
Gareth - Chuk

In article , Gareth - Chuk writes

Thanks Gareth, I may try that. However, the .pdf on their website (or was a couple of weeks ago) has 3 alternatives, none of which is without problems. Will be interesting to see if they have some alternative ideas.

David

Reply to
David Littlewood

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