DRO Pros DRO Review

randyjaco

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Oct 5, 2010
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A while back I posted, on several forums, that I was looking for a good medium priced DRO for my mill. The response I got back wasn't particularly helpful for my situation. After some research I decided upon a DRO Pros 3- axis model.
I purchased it through EBay and I arrived pretty quickly. It was well packaged very well and all components seemed to be included. The documentation was good, but could have been better. It was written by someone who spoke American English as a primary language. It had a DVD demonstrating themany features. The instructor was someone who did not have an educational background and was very repetitive.
I stripped off the old DRO from my Astro Bridgeport clone. None of the original mounting hardware was good for the new unit. The DRO Pro unit came with many mounting brackets. Unfortunately I still had to make several during my installation.
The installation is not for the faint hearted. The installation manual used a table top mill as its example. They really should include an installation of a Bridgey type knee mill too. The X and Y axises weren't too bad. Had I checked the box better, I would have found a nice premade mounting bracket for the Y axis. I didn't so I ended up making my own. The Z- axis was a witch. It took what seem like forever. There were no machined surfaces to mount the scale. After multiple attempts I fabricated a bracket that provided the required positioning and adjustment to get the Z scale sufficiently true. Then I got to fabricate 2 more brackets to attach the scale slide to the knee.
The final installation looks pretty good and is very secure. I proved that by almost immediately slamming the Y axis slide bracket into the table during traverse. Luckily, no harm to anything.
The DRO seems to be as accurate as claimed (plus and minus .0005"). For more money they had more accurate units, but for my uses, that was more than enough. Everything matches up with my dials, the full length of travel. The unit has far more features than I will ever use, but basically the same functions as the Big Boys and the DVD and written documentation explain how the employ them. I have just started using it, so I cannot give a long term use at this time. Folks can PM me in the future for updates. If anything significant happens, I will post.
In all, I am very satisfied with the DRO Pros unit. I have attached some pictures.
Since I am having way too much difficulty posting these large pictures, lets try it this way. There should be 4 photos
http://s640.photobucket.com/albums/...rrent=DRODisplay.jpg&evt=user_media_share

Randy

Mill DRO.jpg DRO Display.jpg
 
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OK, How do I attach the rest of my photos?

Randy
 
Randy,

Another quick way to attach photos on here is to have us make you a folder in the gallery, and then just post links to the individual photos.

Just let us know if you need a folder.

Best,


Nelson
 
Yeah Ed I don't know that they have "correct brackets". I believe that they send out generic brackets that just fit many machines. The brackets they sent me were a variety of nicely cast generic brackets. Some I modified, others I just had to make myself. In the end I got the job done.

I believe that they need to take a lesson from a competitor Shooting Star. About 10 years ago I equipped my Sharp mill with one of their 3 axis units. Shooting Star's website had hundreds of pictures of their equipment mounted on all sorts of machine tools. It was very easy to visualize what I needed to do to set up mine. While I am at it, I'd like to give a plug to Shooting Star. About 2 years after the warranty was out. they sent me a brand new Y axis, because mine had quit. So for those of you who want an easier set up and excellent customer service Shooting Star is a good choice. I used that Shooting Star unit for 9 years with the only problem, the Y axis going out, which they replaced for free when I called back to PURCHASE a replacement.

It looks like the system will only accept one of my pictures at a time. Here is one more

DRO X&Y 2.jpg
 
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Yeah Nelson,
Let's try some gallery space. I used my wife's fancy camera instead of my old worn out Olympus. Her camera is way Hi Rez. The last picture just refused to go through

Thanks
Randy
 
I have always mounted the X axis on the back. The stops and switches make mounting in front tedious. There is plenty of clearance in the back, so it seems like the logical place. Also I was always afraid of heavy vises, rotary tables, etc might bang the scale during mounting if the scale was up front.

Wow where were all these BP mounting pictures when I was trying to figure out how to mount mine? ;D

Randy
 
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