DRO Clean - 1 Tiny Chip Wrecked a Part

BladesIIB

BladesIIB

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My MAGXact DRO on my PM 1440TL Lathe was not reading correctly and caused me to ruin a part I was making. When I finally had a chance to pull it apart and take a look it was just 1 tiny metal chip that caused the issue. 10 minutes of clean up and back in business.

I had not taken a look at the slides on these magnetic DRO's. There is not much to them and if you get one glitchy reading you should immediately pull off the dust cover, remove the slide reader and check for any dirt or metal that could be causing the issue. Don't wait until your part is ruined like I did.

 
My ARO does not have that issue........
 
I'm using optical DRO on the mill and never had an issue. But the optical DRO scales are very well protected, it has gaskets to prevent chips from getting into the glass in addition to its usual covers. The X axis on the mill doesn't have the cover mainly because it would not fit... but it still works fine. Magnetic is supposed to be immune to chips but then again chips are magnetic which can interfere even with magnetic scales.
 
taiwanluthiers said:
I'm using optical DRO on the mill and never had an issue. But the optical DRO scales are very well protected, it has gaskets to prevent chips from getting into the glass in addition to its usual covers. The X axis on the mill doesn't have the cover mainly because it would not fit... but it still works fine. Magnetic is supposed to be immune to chips but then again chips are magnetic which can interfere even with magnetic scales.
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Yes, I had heard the magnetic scales were much less maintenance as well. Maybe this was a fluke one off incident. I have a different model on my Mill with mag scales and have never had an issue with that one.
 
BladesIIB said:
Yes, I had heard the magnetic scales were much less maintenance as well. Maybe this was a fluke one off incident. I have a different model on my Mill with mag scales and have never had an issue with that one.
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I heard that too, that magnetic scales basically ignore chips like it's not even there, and it clearly looks like this is not the case. I mean it's kinda like you have steel chips that are magnetic which would obviously mess with things, then the nonmagnetic chips that should not (but if it wedges the sensor open then it would affect things). It makes sense since stuff like magnetic hard drive has a gap of a few microns above the platter and if ANYTHING gets between that, your data's gone (in fact hard drives are made in a clean room).

I mean optical DRO systems are cheap... can get it from China for less than 200 dollars now. I actually cracked the X scale on mine, stupid bone headed mistakes basically (I had wound the scale past its end which cracked that part of the scale), and I just mounted the scale in such a way that it would never reach that portion (the scale travel is much more than my mill travels), and so far it worked fine.

But a lathe also tends to throw chips absolutely everywhere. I've had to clean up after a lathe every single time, rather than a mill where it doesn't make as much of a mess.
 
taiwanluthiers said:
I heard that too, that magnetic scales basically ignore chips like it's not even there, and it clearly looks like this is not the case. I mean it's kinda like you have steel chips that are magnetic which would obviously mess with things, then the nonmagnetic chips that should not (but if it wedges the sensor open then it would affect things). It makes sense since stuff like magnetic hard drive has a gap of a few microns above the platter and if ANYTHING gets between that, your data's gone (in fact hard drives are made in a clean room).

I mean optical DRO systems are cheap... can get it from China for less than 200 dollars now. I actually cracked the X scale on mine, stupid bone headed mistakes basically (I had wound the scale past its end which cracked that part of the scale), and I just mounted the scale in such a way that it would never reach that portion (the scale travel is much more than my mill travels), and so far it worked fine.

But a lathe also tends to throw chips absolutely everywhere. I've had to clean up after a lathe every single time, rather than a mill where it doesn't make as much of a mess.
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Ha, I need to learn how to run a mill like you do. My lathe has a splash guard and is much easier to clean up after than my mill. The mill throws chips everywhere for me. I have a buddy with the glass scales and he is constantly having to wipe them and clean them because even coolant will throw them off. He is in a production shop so I guess every set up and situation can have different results.
 
BladesIIB said:
Ha, I need to learn how to run a mill like you do. My lathe has a splash guard and is much easier to clean up after than my mill. The mill throws chips everywhere for me. I have a buddy with the glass scales and he is constantly having to wipe them and clean them because even coolant will throw them off. He is in a production shop so I guess every set up and situation can have different results.
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Face mill throws stuff everywhere, end mill not so much. In fact with end mill you can just hold a vacuum hose next to it and it would basically catch all the chips flying off of it. For a lathe it seems it just throws chips in every direction, not sure a splash guard would help. Especially optimal cut for carbide inserts would basically cause a lathe to throw very hot chips in every direction at high speeds. Even on a face mill you can sort of control where the chip goes by the direction of the cut...
 
rabler said:
From your title, it could have been a machining chip or an electronic chip. ;)
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Yep, that kind of chip would cause problems as well. Likely not the kind I could fix either.
 
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