# poor mans' DRO on my little horizontal mill and my south bend 9



## eweissman (Dec 19, 2012)

just thought you all might get a kick out of my amateurish, diy DRO system.  not exactly something new or revolutionary, not even really 
my idea.  if nothing else, ya'll might just get a few laughs out of it.  


	

		
			
		

		
	
the dro on the mill is just a 4" digital scale i got from shars the other day.  i think i ought to make some kind of chip guard for it.  the mill was made by "northern illinois machinists" and i cant find any info on this manufacturer at all.  its a pretty simple little machine, and works fairly well.  kinda similar to some of the really small barker bench mills i have seen.  although the work envelope on it is pretty tiny.  


	

		
			
		

		
	
as you can tell, the lathe version is just a set of cheap 1" dial indicators. one mounted on a carriage stop i made, the other on a piece of 80/20 aluminum extrusion that i mounted onto the back of the carriage so that i could adjust its position of the y axis relative to the cross slide.  helps compensate for the massive amount of backlash this thing has.  its from 1942, and seems like it got used a bit.  


	

		
			
		

		
	
thanks for reading.


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## Richard King (Dec 20, 2012)

Neet...Pretty clever!


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## ranch23 (Dec 20, 2012)

I like it, and just so you know, that is what this trade, business, hobby is all about. You will find that machinists are some of the most adept people at identifying and solving problems.


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## OakRidgeGuy (Dec 20, 2012)

All that matters is that it gets the job done correctly!


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## 12bolts (Dec 20, 2012)

Nice work, nothing to be ashamed about. Like ranch says, this is what its all about.


Only thing I would look at doing here would be trying to re-orientate the carriage axis dial so it was a bit easier to read from a more natural standing position. Unless of course you are from Notre Dame?

Cheers Phil


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## rgray (Dec 20, 2012)

Nice!! and work well I'm sure...saved yourself $1000.00
I use a magnetic backed indicator on the V way for carridge travel...it's easy to slide for adjustment and the angle is good for viewing. If I forget it, there's no crash cause it just gets pushed along.


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## briank (Dec 31, 2012)

Thanks for the idea.
Just yesterday I am thinking how my eyes are getting tired looking at the small dial on the cross slide.
Will head out to the shed and see how I can make something work.
brian


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