# Fitting a DRO.



## th62 (Nov 20, 2017)

I bought a couple of Shahe DROs for my lathe a few weeks ago, a 150mm for the cross slide and a 500mm for the carriage.    The DROs were quite cheap, the 150mm was $Aust38 and the 500mm was $Aust75, both work superbly 

The longitudinal DRO I fitted a while back using a couple of spacers I made up and a bracket to attach to the reader. I also included a splash guard.   Initially I fitted the cross slide DRO using the supplied fittings but coolant soon played havoc with the reader so I milled up a couple of brackets for the bar , a couple of clamps and a splash guard.

I don't know how I ever got along without a DRO, so easy to zero and use them to turn down to exacting sizes without error.

Very, very happy with the DROs, I'll pull the cross slide DRO down when I have time, remove the bending and grinding marks and neaten up things a little.

The cross slide DRO does hinder the tailstock a little but that's easy fixed by moving the compound further forward and winding the carriage up to the head stock.   The cable is attached to the reader via a mini USB socket/plug, I was going to solder the cables directly to the reader board and route it out the side of the reader to get it out of harms way, that turned out to be not such a good idea as the four leads are all soldered to the board in about a 5mm grouping - to small for my solder iron, not to mention my tired old eyes.   Instead, I've sent off for a right angle mini USB adapter.   That should solve that problem.

Do yourselves a favour, if you haven't got a DRO on your lathe, get one, worth their weight in swarf.

Toying with modifying a vernier for use on the tailstock next.


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## Karl_T (Nov 20, 2017)

Working on a machine without a DRO is just like working in a dark room...

Once you turn on the lights, you will not work in the dark again.


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