# DRO/scale communication?



## GunsOfNavarone (May 5, 2020)

Hey all, this should be easy for someone skilled at DRO/scale setup. My scales read fine, my EASSON DRO works fine, however, I came across an LCD DRO which I just prefer greatly over the ole' timey readout of the Easson. The resolution is set to .005 just as the Easson, they both are TTL square wave, set to linear scale (not rotary) Voltage output of both are the same (15v). I mean they are pretty straight forward...this is being used for  3 axis mill, and the DRO is also setup for..that's right, a 3 axis mill. Are there any other pertinent settings? When moving the table, the last # just jumps that increment its set to (.005 to .000 back and forth)
Thank guys and good night!


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## mksj (May 6, 2020)

What is the model of the older DRO and what brand/model did you replace it with. Some scales/head units have different pin connections and may require an adapter interface to change the connections. Have you verified the scale resolution, what is the actual movement of the axis vs. the display readout. TTL signal is 5V. A lot of unknowns here.


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## macardoso (May 6, 2020)

Which LCD DRO did you get? I only know of one and I just got one.


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## GunsOfNavarone (May 6, 2020)

It's this one..but 3 axis LCD.. My glass scales are the TTL squarewave...everything should be as needed, don't know why it's jot jiving.
3 axis LCD


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## macardoso (May 6, 2020)

Yup, that’s the one I have. I’ll look up the pin out and see if I can help you.


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## GunsOfNavarone (May 6, 2020)

That's awesome! I assume you got yours working? I guess I don't know much about the inner workings/wiring of these things. I'm surprised it's not plug and play as long as we are talking apples to apples on requirements. I really though, change the resolution and go....no so lucky. I can return it, but would love it if it worked,


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## GunsOfNavarone (May 6, 2020)

His pictures are the green background, mine are the others. They appear to be the same wiring/pin positions.


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## macardoso (May 7, 2020)

Yes, my display and scales are working great. Really impressed with the unit.

Pictures are a bit tough to see but it looks like they are correct.

Granted there is no guarantee that your wire colors are the same signals but I would guess they probably are.  Let me try to find the display pin outs for both displays and compare them.


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## macardoso (May 7, 2020)

Which Easson DRO model do you have?


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## GunsOfNavarone (May 7, 2020)

I think my EASSON is a DR8. They (the LCD company) day to cut that ground wire that you can see has been cut in their pictures. IF that doesn’t fix it, I’d have to solder those wires back...don’t really want to do that, just hope they aren’t blowing smoke.


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## macardoso (May 7, 2020)

GunsOfNavarone said:


> I think my EASSON is a DR8. They (the LCD company) day to cut that ground wire that you can see has been cut in their pictures. IF that doesn’t fix it, I’d have to solder those wires back...don’t really want to do that, just hope they aren’t blowing smoke.



I would not cut it. If you had to remove it, you probably want to desolder it.

I'm having a hard time finding a pinout on the Easson. Here is the one for the LCD DRO. I'm still looking for the other one.




Edit I found a seller making a cable that is supposedly compatible with Easson DROs that uses the exact same pinout.


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## macardoso (May 7, 2020)

Do you have an oscilloscope or at a minimum a multimeter? We might need to figure out what your wires are doing.


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## GunsOfNavarone (May 7, 2020)

Everything seems to be as the EASSON wire/pin requirements. I may test on just one of the Rs-232 connectors and desolder that ground. I got a feeling it will also require found the same to the 2nd ground that you can see they removed on theirs that mine still has (soldered to the actual metal case. I have to pose this question, Easson found it necessary to have these two grounds, for noise, looping...I don’t know. How solid is yours preforming? No glitches of any sort? My EASSON DRO is great, does everything, works great, it’s just this is so much easier on the eyes...I really am surprised the limited options of LCD for DRO. I’d love to do the DRO PRO setup but have NO INTEREST in building/programming. I just want plug and play.


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## macardoso (May 7, 2020)

GunsOfNavarone said:


> Everything seems to be as the EASSON wire/pin requirements. I may test on just one of the Rs-232 connectors and desolder that ground. I got a feeling it will also require found the same to the 2nd ground that you can see they removed on theirs that mine still has (soldered to the actual metal case. I have to pose this question, Easson found it necessary to have these two grounds, for noise, looping...I don’t know. How solid is yours preforming? No glitches of any sort? My EASSON DRO is great, does everything, works great, it’s just this is so much easier on the eyes...I really am surprised the limited options of LCD for DRO. I’d love to do the DRO PRO setup but have NO INTEREST in building/programming. I just want plug and play.



No glitching whatsoever. The scales also have a filtering option that reduces the update rate on the screen to use a rolling average. They say it is good when you are using it on a grinder with very high resolution scales.

I purchased my scales from the Yihao Factory directly when I got the DRO. If you can't get this figured out, I'll crack one of mine open to get a picture. I'd rather hold off on doing that for now since I don't want to risk breaking it.

I have mine on a lathe with a 1 micron scale (1u) on the cross slide so it reads out in .0001" diameter increments. My only complaint is that selecting 1u also adds a fifth digit that can't be turned off. A small piece of electrical tape solved that.


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## GunsOfNavarone (May 7, 2020)

Removing that ground did the job...weird. Anyway, was able to use its articulating arm to extend the current arm. Someday I'll find something better (up/down/left/right/in/out) I'll post a picture later. If that's the only LCD screen out there, maybe this thread will be of some value to the next buyer. Seems almost too sensitive, you said you turned the filter on, or were you saying you COULD? @macardoso 
Thank you for your input as well!


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## macardoso (May 7, 2020)

I find the sensitivity fine. My lathe doesn’t really move more than a tenth or two while cutting and honestly I want to see if that is happening.  

I do not have it turned on, but the filtering is turned on by pressing the F1 key from the main screen and setting “Shake” to “ON”


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## macardoso (May 7, 2020)

Congrats by the way! Good troubleshooting work.


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