Another Chinese Magnetic Scales Thread

[DavieJ75]

That's a neat way to breadboard- who sells that stuff?

You can get the strip boards from hobby sites, amazon, ebay. I have used them for years they are super convenient for prototyping. You can cut the lines simply by drilling an 1/8th drill to take off the copper and you have another trace.

 

[markba633csi]

Ah, I see them on Amazon. No ground plane so not for very high frequency circuits, but very handy anyhow-

 

[ycroosh]

You really want to test every scale that comes through and then deal with the rejects? My experience is shipping from China is cheap, the return trip is expensive and may be quite delayed, so probably more than the cost of the tape you are returning. Then you need to deal with inventory and shipping, just not enough margin there for the effort. What I usually see is many people end up buying the cheapest DRO/scales they can find, most will not even care about the tape error let alone have 18" of travel on mini this and mini that. Alternative is to just setup a pass through link to Ditron/AliExpress with the higher resolution specifications outlined, and then they can directly order "the high precision model" and see if Ditron can add it to the pull down menu or have it tied to your link.

Magnetic DRO Scales | Ditron

Ditron is China's leading manufacturer of DRO system,magnetic dro scales ,we can provide you with high quality magnetic scales.

www.ditron-dro.com

Ditron's price for an 18" 1um magnetic scale is around $176, add another $30-50 to that for high precision and you are priced out of the market, and that is with you having to deal with all the headaches and probably a loss revenue wise. It is less expensive to order it the Machine DRO, 1 micron head is an extra $20, you deduct VAT and shipping was not too expensive in the past. If you want high linear resolution, glass scales are much cheaper and for the most part pretty decent. I know at least a dozen people that have ordered complete DRO kits with magnetic scales for Machine DRO, not aware of any of them complaining about the scale accuracies (both 1 and 5um).

M-DRO EHC Series Compact Head with 465mm (18 5/16 inch) Reading Length Magnetic Tape Encoder

The M-DRO EHC Series compact linear magnetic encoder with 465mm (18 5/16 inch) reading length tape. 5 Micron (0.005mm) resolution. Featuring the DRO-MG-EH-05C Compact reading head, which offers a smaller reading head size compared with our standard EH series head. The dimensions of the compact...

www.machine-dro.co.uk

Your review of the different scales on your website is very helpful, would be a real PTA to have a high expense item when there is little to no profit margin. People can choose based on the information you have provided. Unless you plan to go into full blown production and have more of a margin, I just can't see trying to add this to your pile of thing to do.... Just an opinion.

Recommended Scales and Touch Probes

Adding a decent electronic edge finder that works with your DRO kit, may be worthwhile and/ot a link to those that you recommend.

I've been thinking about your post... You hit the nail on the head about people looking for cheapest DRO they can find. That is definitely a thing, and it's pretty frustrating at time. The reason I am thinking about biting the bullet and selling decent scales is to reduce my chance of dealing with this sort of a customer, frankly. I suspect most people who buy $50 scales from AliExpress probably consider TouchDRO to be overprices anyway. There is definitely a market for more premium product. I know it because my most sold model is the TDA-420, and the most popular tablet in Samsung A9 Plus (was Lenovo M10 HD until recently). With mounting hardware that places the TouchDRO display at $600.

I finally got a quote from EMS (still not sure I want to deal with them, though). Their wholesale prices are not that much higher than Ditron "high precision" scale, and performance is almost identical among the samples I have. Currently DRO Pros charges upwards of $250 for 10" MagnaSlim scale, ordering them takes a week+ of phone calls, and they are perpetually out of stock. I suspect that if I sell the scales for the same price and make it easier to buy, I will already "win". The thing is that I don't want to discourage people from buying individual scales, so I don't need to jack the price up to $250 per shortest scale. I can't tell you the cost (under an NDA), but there is a LOT of margin for me to test the scales, deal with rejects, extend the warranty to 5 years, and still make enough profit to make this a worth while exercise. At least this is my working hypothesis. If I'm wrong, I will have a bucket of scales to offload on eBay

As far as the touch probe goes, I am lobbying Drewtronics to sell a premade cable for his probe. That is the best bang for the buck, and the quality is way above anything I tested from China. I can ask if hed's sell them to me at bulk pricing, but I suspect he doesn't hav enough margin there to make this work.

I'm going to keep chewing on this, but thank you for your input. Much appreciated.

 

[ycroosh]

I run a completely different kind of business. But i do think some of my experience is relevant. If i were in this situation i would completely understand your approach to getting a quality product out there at a price that seems good - this is who i am too. But the profit would need to be there. It took me a long time to get to where i charge profit at a rate that seems appropriate. I just had a hard time bringing myself to do it, wanting to be 'fair' to customers, and being a crankee yankee i have some inherent value to dollar that doesn't line up i with my customers. For them price is hardly the concern it is all about timelines and quality, cost is what it is to get those first two criteria met. I have literally lost jobs for not charging enough. by a lot.

For your specific situation if you can make a decent profit one each scale even after testing and returns to supplier perhaps it is worth it. Do you want to spend all your time testing and mailing? will it not actually be that much time? will it be way more? probably impossible to know until you are through a first batch. Why is the supplier reluctant to meet your specs? my experience has taught me that gut feelings about suppliers are shockingly accurate. ive been screwed by people who i could talk to in perfect native American that seemed fine and assured me in writing they could provide what was needed but felt 'off' more than once. custom parts from nonamechinaebayspecial come through faster than promised and perfect.

Can you figure out what other outfits are getting for profit margins? i have had a heck of a time figuring this out myself, or even the competitions 'shop rate'. Mechanics and plumbers have to tell you their hourly rate, apparently woodshops dont. You may be able to have a smaller pofit multiplier if it is just you, and limited inventory, as you built to better margins and larger volume. Or you may not. Finding where it works for you is key i think. I know you have said youd like to take this on full time, and the profit would need to be there. Profit from volume or higher markups are the ways to get there. The subscription portion of TouchDRO can help there too im sure - not my world. But you still need to be profitable on each part. Selling scales at cost or loss does not seem viable to me. Intro software at a loss (or free) to get people hooked seems more reasonable if you want to do that.

A few random thoughts:
-Finance a first trial batch of personally garanteed scales as you describe with pre-sales. ill buy a complete kit from you today. i bet there are others on here that will too.
-As much as i dislike the influencer crap - know one? know someone who does know one? get them a full kit and babysit them through it so they put it front and center on some channel that will buy your product. Touch DRO does seem built for that market.
-another member here and i spoke about a tool im working on and his thoughts on kickstarter etc. were insightful. essentially he saw i was comitted to getting my tool to production ready prototype with pricing. essentially a micro-run to see how it would work. i thought i would try and sell them at cost to others i know who could test them out. The big point i took away from his perspective on an online crowdfund simulaneously was that i would have a much better guage of interest outside my small sphere, and i could potentially increase sales at little to no rist to actually become profitable. Again, TouchDRO seems made for this. Price the full scale/touchDRO/software/1yr subscription bundle and put it out there.
-i have not used your software or system (but will soon!). i am not a machinist. But how the heck have bigger shops/production facilities not seen the value in your software systems for their production! it seems obvious to me. like almost as good as jumping from a WWII bridgeport to CNC. there has to be a way to get to that market meaninfully. I pay $$thousands a year for CAD programs and im a one man shop! find ten of me that need your software/hardware and you a almost to full time.

Thank you for a thoughtful reply. This makes a lot of sense.
I've noodled on this a lot over the last year, and at this point the technical side of testing is pretty straightforward. I can automate most of it, and my wife can do the rest. It takes about 3 minutes of human time per 3 scales, plus 20-30 minutes of robot time. I can tweak the software to dump out a test report, etc. Right now I can test up to 18", but that's because I mounted the interferometer on a 24x18 plate. I can get 48x18 plate off ebay (or larger) if needed, so that is just a matter of more money. If it comes to it, i can probably just calibrate some 48" 1um glass scales (I have three Acu-Rite SENC 48" sitting on the shelf) and check the Ditron scaeles against those. It would be much faster too - I can run glass scales at 10 meters per minute with no issues; to run the interferometer at that speed I'd been a super-computer (the resolution is a bit insane, but I don't need 19nm resolution to test +/-10um scales. )

Regarding influencers - I've tried I sent two sets to Quinn (Blondihacks) and she did a nice video about her lathe. Hasn't mounted the mill kit yet. James from Clough42 uses TouchDRO, but it's not showing up in his videos (except one). They both gave me a TON of really good feedback, but I didn't see a huge spike in sales outside of the first one or two days after the video came out. The rest of the machinists youtubers ether didn't respond, or were not interested.

I don't really need the kickstarter, TBH. I did think about it, but it's more headache/stress than I want in my life. I'm taking about relatively small amounts of money - order of 5-7K$ for a small batch. The price difference between 50 scales and 500 scales is not that huge, surprisingly. I can live with having that much money tied up for several months. In the worst case, I will loose my "sweat equity", but will be able to recoup the cost on eBay

About 20% of my orders are from "professional" machine shops. Ironically, that is a really hard market to deal with. Counterintuitively, an ideal "professional DRO" is very basic. Pros won't spend hours machining a complex part on a manual mill - they will either run it on CNC, or outsource to someone who will. I spent hours "shadowing" a machinist at a local shop, and he used the manual mill for super basic stuff. Along the lines of "I need to elongate this hole". Even when he needed to flatten two 18" aluminum bars, he ran that on CNC.

I think realistically, hobby machinists are a much better fit for TouchDRO. This is the crowd that enjoys machining, and will pay money to get a DRO that they will enjoy to use. Sort of how most professional carpenters use "job site" Dewalt saws and cheapest chisels they can find; SawStop and Festool live off the hobby market (speaking from experience - I cried, but paid for a SawStop cabinet table saw a few years ago)

 

[jlficken]

If you do sell the EMS scales I’d be interested in a pair for X and Y on my mill.

I did find an old tablet of my wife’s but it’s just a Samsung SM-T813 running Android 7 so I’m not sure how well it’ll work.

 

[borges1]

SawStop and Festool live off the hobby market

Y - glad you found some use in my thoughts. Your comments all make perfect sense, especially about influeners, pro shops and cnc vs manual uses and touch DRO,,,, except the above.

i set off my sawstop with my thumb for the first time last week and now i still have a thumb. Ive used a TS for thousands of hours and over 20 years, but still have a digit thanks to the tech. i've been an advocate for the tech (not the company) for ages. i truly feel any professional running a jobsite or shop without finger saving saws is irresponsible. ive seen other fingers run through saws (and then to the hospital in a cup with me driving). ive had friends loose them all. accidents happen, that is why they are accidents. my recent incident was a freak accident, not just me being dumb. The biggest local shop had one finger get nicked and replaced ALL their saws immediately. it was a cost saving measure after those medical bills. so yes, pros use sawstop or something similar. i'd say its more unusual to see a non-sawstop in a proffesional shop around here now. my partner does othopedics and sees plenty of TS injuries - most preventable with sawstop saws that cost the same as similar un-smart saws. Like your fingers, or your employees? businesses are doing that math real fast. amatuers cheap out and regret it, except they cost the same so that just stupid or stubborn. rant over.

i also own a lot of greenish import tools (festool). yeah there are a lot of rich dudes with sparkling clean systainers in display room shops, but more and more pros are using them. they are overpriced, but are definitely quality. I was a local early adopter and if i got commission i'd have a new martin from all the sales i know have been from guys seeing the tracks saws and domino in action. for a segment of the pro market the efficiency the festool systems can bring is worth the costs. Im in and out, cleaner than anyone else, and did 'more work' in half a day than most trim crews get done in a week - at least that is how it seems from the jobsite guys perspective. perhaps the biggests bonus is no-one will 'borrow' your festools since they dont want to break 'em/.

 

[carl0s]

That's a neat way to breadboard- who sells that stuff?

It's stripboard or what I used to know as veroboard as a kid

 

[ChazzC]

Thank you for a thoughtful reply. This makes a lot of sense.


Regarding influencers - I've tried I sent two sets to Quinn (Blondihacks) and she did a nice video about her lathe. Hasn't mounted the mill kit yet. James from Clough42 uses TouchDRO, but it's not showing up in his videos (except one). They both gave me a TON of really good feedback, but I didn't see a huge spike in sales outside of the first one or two days after the video came out. The rest of the machinists youtubers ether didn't respond, or were not interested.

Don't consider myself an "influencer," but I'm doing what I can in my small way by pointing folks on the "other" sites to the TouchDRO website and the TouchDRO Forum on this site whenever the topic of "What DRO should I get for my . . . ?" comes up. I have included the use of TouchDRO Systems in my HSM articles on installing scales on my Mini-Mill (Nov-Dec 2022) & Mini-Lathe (Jan-Feb 2024) and also have some screen recordings of using TouchDRO in my video of fitting a backplate to my Accusize 5" 3-Jaw [and "No," I'm not looking for anything in return; in fact, you know you have an open invitation to a Yuengling Lager on me if you ever get East].

I think realistically, hobby machinists are a much better fit for TouchDRO. This is the crowd that enjoys machining, and will pay money to get a DRO that they will enjoy to use.

Yes; however, I think if "professional" machinists would do some research they should see that TouchDRO is a better choice than a cheap import (or an expensive traditional) DRO package.

Vendor space at Cabin Fever isn't too expensive (even in the Lobby which is somewhat quieter that the big hall), so that's another reason to come East!