# Touch DRO on PM-25, or..??



## Dawn (Jun 19, 2018)

Looking around at different DRO's I am kind of liking the Touch DRO system. Does anyone have this on their mills here?

Or, there are some rather inexpensive options listed on ebay. What are your opinions and experiences?

Thanks!


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## coherent (Jun 19, 2018)

My mill is cnc so no experience installing DRO's on my mill, but I wanted some on my lathe and didn't want to spend a lot because I wasn't sure I really needed them on the lathe. Still don't know that I "need" them but they are handy and simplify a few things. Bought some of the inexpensive  iGaging DRO's off Amazon. Mounting wasn't too bad and they seem to be accurate, repeatable and I've had no issues so far. I've no complaints considering the price.


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## ttabbal (Jun 19, 2018)

I bought my DROs from 88490755 on ebay. They are the more typical style. I looked at Touch DRO a lot, but with the pricing on the Chinese units it's tough to go that route. I figure the glass scales aren't likely to have issues, and they should be able to be modified to work with Touch DRO later if I have problems with the display units. One thing that led me this way was that longer igauging scales get less accurate over their length. The short ones are fine, but longer units have more error. Glass scales don't do that. For the price of a set of igauging scales on ebay, I could buy the full DRO kit, and there are a lot of reviews here saying they like the Chinese DROs. There are a lot of sellers offering them. 

On the down side, the instructions are written in the finest Chinglish which makes them somewhat difficult to use. That said, it's better than my Chinese, so I guess they win there. They all seem to be made by the same couple places though, so I suspect I can get help with them from the forum here and via YouTube etc.. 

I should also mention that I haven't installed them yet. That's hopefully soon. Some quick testing shows them working well. I just need to finish up some existing projects before I can get them installed.


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## 7milesup (Jun 19, 2018)

You can look through this guys store.  A number of H-M members have purchased from him with seemingly good results.  I was going to pull the trigger on one but then summer came and my part time job went to zero time, so maybe next fall...

Ali Express Siton Store


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## Dawn (Jun 19, 2018)

ttabbal said:


> ...the instructions are written in the finest Chinglish which makes them somewhat difficult to use. That said, it's better than my Chinese, so I guess they win there.



Hahahaa! Mine's not so good either....


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## Dawn (Jun 19, 2018)

7milesup,  Thanks!!


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## wrmiller (Jun 19, 2018)

I used the smaller scales on my PM25 (G30?) and those worked well. The regular sized scales might me a problem, I'm not sure though. Might want to do some research on this, and hopefully others here will chime in on this as well.


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## Dawn (Jun 19, 2018)

wrmiller said:


> I used the smaller scales on my PM25 (G30?) and those worked well. The regular sized scales might me a problem, I'm not sure though. Might want to do some research on this, and hopefully others here will chime in on this as well.



Hi,

"Smaller scales"....? Was this on the Touch DRO system or the ebay complete units? Thanks!


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## wrmiller (Jun 19, 2018)

Mine was a different vendor/system (DroPros), but the scale size (G30) is a fairly common offering that is a smaller scale than the full-sized ones and should be offered by many DRO vendors. This is a semi-educated guess on my part, but really all you have to do is contact the DRO vendor and ask them if they offer the smaller G30 glass scale.

Hope this helps.


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## Dawn (Jun 20, 2018)

Thank you!


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## Kiwi Canuck (Jun 22, 2018)

Dawn, I purchased from the Ali Express vendor above (Siton) and was satisfied with the initial transaction and the pricing was excellent, but I ordered one of the scales incorrectly, totally my fault.

Exchanging the product was difficult and time consuming, so make sure you are sure about your order before hitting the buy button if you do buy from China.

I bought Easson ES-8A, 2 Axis  for my lathe and a 3 Axis for my mill, the Easson product is excellent and I love mine.

When ordering the scales you need to know , three things.

Length of scales (versus table travel)

Resolution of the scale, 005mm or 001mm

Size of the scale, Standard and Mini, Easson has 2 sizes, GS10 (GS11) is about 33mm tall, GS30 (GS31) is about 26mm tall.

I learned a lot from these 2 sources.

DRO Pros Videos.

http://www.dropros.com/DRO_PROS_Digital_Readout_Videos.htm

Youtube,

This one almost needs subtitles.





This one is a very nice install. (just don't like seeing him wearing gloves while using a milling machine)





Cheers and good luck.

David.


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## Dawn (Jun 22, 2018)

David,

Thank you very much! Great information!

Yes, I saw that first video during a YT search and, yes it was very hard at times to understand, though still respectfully amusing.  Second video was awesome..!


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## BFHammer (Jun 22, 2018)

I did the same as Kiwi with positive result. As he mentioned - measure twice - order once.


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## HMF (Jun 23, 2018)

*By the way, I want to remind everyone that we have our own VIDEO library where you can post videos without using YouTube:

https://www.hobby-machinist.com/gallery/categories/member-video-channels.6/

available to donating members.*


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