# Need multiple DRO's



## Charley Davidson (Jul 5, 2013)

Bad eye sight will be forcing me to buy DRO's for all of my machinery so I need opinions on what I should get for each machine. Bridgeport, Logan lathe, Doall T&C grinder, Harig 612 Surface grinder. Quality & Price considerations, 1,2 or 3 axis for each machine. Full blown functions or just readouts for the grinders? Type of scales for each application. Anything else you can think of I may need to consider.


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## davidh (Jul 5, 2013)

shamelessly I will tell you that I have had no complaints on the igaging ones I have been offering.   they are pretty simple to mount, 
seem to be quite forgiving, but they don't do any of the fancy math stuff.  they just work as a guide.  on the downside, the longest one is for reading 36"+ but they can be shortened easily and are quite inexpensive. . .  I have many. . . 
davidh


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## Old Iron (Jul 5, 2013)

Charley

Check mout the Sinpo and the sino on ebay.

Paul

Sino http://www.ebay.com/itm/SINO-2-axis...20978361781?hash=item4abbcd1db5#ht_3336wt_679

Sinpo http://www.ebay.com/itm/SINPO-2-axi...pment_Parts&hash=item4abb2dcf53#ht_4577wt_876


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## Charley Davidson (Jul 5, 2013)

davidh said:


> shamelessly I will tell you that I have had no complaints on the igaging ones I have been offering.   they are pretty simple to mount,
> seem to be quite forgiving, but they don't do any of the fancy math stuff.  they just work as a guide.  on the downside, the longest one is for reading 36"+ but they can be shortened easily and are quite inexpensive. . .  I have many. . .
> davidh



Give me a link to the ones you sell, I may use at least one 2 axis unit for my surface grinder I really don't see any need for 3 axis or any bells & whistles on it.



Old Iron said:


> Charley
> 
> Check mout the Sinpo and the sino on ebay.
> 
> ...



Was looking at them last night, was kinda waiting to hear more from you on both your issue with yours and a review after you've used it for a while. I also guess I could us a 3 axis no bells or whistles one on my T&C grinder.


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## Ray C (Jul 5, 2013)

Charlie,

I haven't been keeping-up on your thread here but, a thought does occur to me...  

If at all possible, stick with similar brands if possible.  That way, you won't need to learn the programming and details about a bunch of different units.  Case in point, I have 4 different VFDs and each time I need to make a tweak or use one of the less common functions, I need to find the darn instruction manual and read (often with difficulty) to refresh my memory...

Just a thought that might cost a few bucks up front but save you time/money in the long run.


Ray


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## billabx (Jul 5, 2013)

Check out Yuriy's projects. I just finished mounting the scales on my mill/drill and it looks like it's going to work well. The display is as big and bright as your tablet and you don't have to spring for multiple displays.

Bill

www.yuriystoys.com


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## Charley Davidson (Jul 5, 2013)

Ray C said:


> Charlie,
> 
> I haven't been keeping-up on your thread here but, a thought does occur to me...
> 
> ...



Good idea, I will probably go with the no frills units from David on my grinders & 2 of the same brand (Sino or Sinpo) units for my lathes & mills.


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## truckin23 (Jul 5, 2013)

billabx said:


> Check out Yuriy's projects. I just finished mounting the scales on my mill/drill and it looks like it's going to work well. The display is as big and bright as your tablet and you don't have to spring for multiple displays.
> 
> Bill
> 
> www.yuriystoys.com



Bill I'm looking to do the same thing I'm in contact with David right now for scales for lathe and mill
and also found a Viewsonic 10in tablet with Bluetooth 2.1 ,Android 2.2 which if I'm correct and be upgraded to 4.0
looks to be a pretty straight forward idea . By the way I'm just north of you in Santa Clara

Bob


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## 8ntsane (Jul 5, 2013)

Hi Charley
I have been down the road with eye sight problems, and at first tried to re-do the grads on the dials. Then thought ok, I will just make new dials with deeper grads thinking that would help. It did, but was marginal at best. The mill got a DRO years ago. The lathe has had one now for a few yrs.

The milling machine has the Newall C-80 3-axis. The scales are those stainless steel tubes with balls inside them. They are the ones they claimed could be submerged in coolant, and not bothered by chips and such. I was a very pricey DRO and have not had any troubles with it. The price of that DRO made me re think about the purchase of the next one for the lathe.

The lathe has a SINO 2-axis DRO, with glass scales. The Sino has all the features of the hi-buck unit, but at a much lower cost. The glass scales did come with much better shielding than the Newall did. Im assuming they needed it. I was a bit paranoid with the sino,s glass scales at first, thinking that might be the first thing to fail, but they havnt so far, touch wood, haha. I do clean my machines after each days use with the shop vac. The may help the DRO live a little longer, don,t know.

The Newall was installed far enough back when the eyes were fine. I just hated dealing with back lash. The Sino was installed because of eye sight problems. I had looked at the lower cost setups like Igaging, but the reader heads remind me of what I see on a digital caliper, and find they are not lit up, and hard for me to see. Atleast they were back then, maybe they have changed now, dunno.

Eye sight good, or bad. The DRO will make your life so much easyer. I think I would choose your DRO according to how bad the envirment is. I would think a surface grinder would need something really well shielded.


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## billabx (Jul 6, 2013)

truckin23 said:


> Bill I'm looking to do the same thing I'm in contact with David right now for scales for lathe and milland also found a Viewsonic 10in tablet with Bluetooth 2.1 ,Android 2.2 which if I'm correct and be upgraded to 4.0looks to be a pretty straight forward idea . By the way I'm just north of you in Santa ClaraBob


The scales were fairly straightforward to mount and I think the system will be a good addition. Like most home brew projects, there were minor glitches here and there. Overall it has gone pretty smooth.


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## PurpLev (Jul 6, 2013)

I just installed a DRO on my mill after a long time considering it and wrote about it here:

<meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8">http://www.hobby-machinist.com/showthread.php/15934-New-DRO-Install-on-a-G0619-SX3

my reason for going with that unit is that it was somewhat affordable (compared to other alternatives) but still with a good resolution (.0002) which is what I didn't really like about the iGaging scales (advertized resolution of .002). For the mill I also wanted a DRO that would have at least some basic functionalities like - calculate half distance (center parts), multiple hole patterns, and combination of those functions over X+Y axis which the less expensive units don't offer.


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## Charley Davidson (Jul 6, 2013)

Old Iron said:


> Charley
> 
> Check mout the Sinpo and the sino on ebay.
> 
> ...



Sino wanted $120.00 for shipping, think I'll pass on that one.


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## Tony Wells (Jul 6, 2013)

I'll just make one comment on the subject, Charley. On grinding equipment, most of them are designed to do precision work and the dials are marked in small units. Some read directly in tenths, some split tenths. Not all DRO units are equal to the intended and original design precision that your machines can do. I wouldn't be happy "downgrading" the capability to split tenths if my machine was capable of doing it just to save a few bucks on the readouts. Just food for thought.


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