General Touch DRO questions

[Investigator]

First, welcome Yuri and thanks for helping out the hobby community. Second, I've been looking at the Touch DRO system for a while and wonder If I 'need' it for my machine. I'm not a trained machinist, and other than just using DROs for simple position readings I dont know what else i'm missing or what other things a full DRO is capable of.
I currently have IGageing EZView Plus readouts on all 3 axis of my RF30 clone. One thing I would love to have is a way to supply power to each readout without batteries, is there any way your system can do that?
Also, on your website are the tablet recommendations up to date?

 

[middle.road]

First, welcome Yuri and thanks for helping out the hobby community. Second, I've been looking at the Touch DRO system for a while and wonder If I 'need' it for my machine. I'm not a trained machinist, and other than just using DROs for simple position readings I dont know what else i'm missing or what other things a full DRO is capable of.
I currently have IGageing EZView Plus readouts on all 3 axis of my RF30 clone. One thing I would love to have is a way to supply power to each readout without batteries, is there any way your system can do that?
Also, on your website are the tablet recommendations up to date?

There's several ways folks have done up power supplies for their EZViews. A web search will give you a bunch of methods.
There are several here on our site, but I'm not sure if they apply to the EZViews.

 

[ycroosh]

First, welcome Yuri and thanks for helping out the hobby community. Second, I've been looking at the Touch DRO system for a while and wonder If I 'need' it for my machine. I'm not a trained machinist, and other than just using DROs for simple position readings I dont know what else i'm missing or what other things a full DRO is capable of.
I currently have IGageing EZView Plus readouts on all 3 axis of my RF30 clone. One thing I would love to have is a way to supply power to each readout without batteries, is there any way your system can do that?
Also, on your website are the tablet recommendations up to date?

You don't 'need' a DRO, but there is a decent jump in functionality from three independent readouts to a proper DRO. For me, the most used feature is the ability to store coordinates as I'm working on a part. For example, when drilling holes, it's very common to do multiple operations (spot, drill, tap, chamfer). I save the coordinates on the first pass (i.e. as I located each hole, I save the coordinate). I then switch to the "graphical view" that shows the holes and selects the closest one automatically. Each subsequent operation is basically as simple as moving the spindle in the general direction of the hole, TouchDRO then selects the hole and shows you the distance. Another thing I use frequently is the "Near Zero" warning in conjunction with stored coordinates to mill pockets. etc. If making multiples of the part, TouchDRO makes it easy to save the coordinates for the first part, then locate the subsequent ones, set the origin and repeat.
There is a lot of other stuff, but this accounts for 90% of utility I get out of TouchDRO on the mill. On the lathe, Near-Zero warning is a lifesaver for threading, especially internal. Overall, I tend to make fewer mistakes with a DRO.
As far as tablet recommendations: anything from Samsung works really well. I haven't heard of any problems with a recent name-brand tabled; older Lenovo and Asus tablets have weird BlueTooth library in Android 4. Newer OS version seems to have fixed the problem. Chinese no-name tables are a crapshoot. Stuff that runs Android 5 or newer is generally OK; Android 4 (that is ancient, but still shows up on Chinese tablets) is a basketcase.
Hope this helps
Yuriy

 

[gerritv]

Hi Yuriy
Happy user of TouchDRO on my lathe and horizontal mill. Is there an explanation somewhere of how the "Near Zero' works? My attempts to use it have failed. And searching on your forum site also came up empty.

I frequently re-zero as I move along machining a part. Some drawings are terrible with dimensions, this lets me avoid re-drawing them.
The biggest benefit is on my lathe, I touch against the work, set measured diameter into the DRO and machine away until I get to the required dimension. No stopping the lathe umpteen times to measure progress.

For middle.road, I am using a 7" Kindle Fire (probably the lowest priced name brand option) and a Samsung Tab 8 which became available after upgrading to a newer model.

 

[C-Bag]

First, welcome Yuri and thanks for helping out the hobby community. Second, I've been looking at the Touch DRO system for a while and wonder If I 'need' it for my machine. I'm not a trained machinist, and other than just using DROs for simple position readings I dont know what else i'm missing or what other things a full DRO is capable of.
I currently have IGageing EZView Plus readouts on all 3 axis of my RF30 clone. One thing I would love to have is a way to supply power to each readout without batteries, is there any way your system can do that?
Also, on your website are the tablet recommendations up to date?

As far as I'm concerned the DRO is hobby machinists best friend. It doesn't matter how worn out things are you can still know exactly where you are. I also have the EasyViews and have only found separate power supplies and don't need three separate supplies. There has been discussions about power supplies and problems after they were added. I don't remember the details but it was enough to make me put it off as everything is working as is.
The way Yuriy uses his with the ability to drop memory points as you go would be the #1 way I'd like to use mine.

 

[Weldo]

I have lots of questions about DRO in general but before I start asking, can a DRO system be added to ANY machine? I’ve got an old Atlas lathe from the 60s and it would be cool to know where the carriage is at!

 

[ycroosh]

Yes, a DRO can be added to any machine (in theory). A DRO consists of two logical components: a set of position encoders and a display of some sorts. The biggest challenge on a lathe is the cross slide encoder mounting - they take up space. On mine, I have a "slimline" glass scale mounted to the side closest to the spindle. It takes up about 3/4 of an inch.
Let me know if you need more help. It's not complicated once you see it in person.

 

[Tio Loco]

Hi Yuri,

I have an issue that I hope you can help me sort out. I've had TouchDRO on my mill since ~2015, using a DIY Arduino, running V2.2 with Igauging scales. It's served me well, but the Y axis scale seems to be possessed. It will be fine for weeks or even months, then starts randomly jumping the value by 5.12mm (I haven't tried it in inches, but coincidentally that comes out to .200".

I've done my homework, switched it to an old laptop power supply, replaced the USB cables with shielded ones and shrink wrapped the end of the scale where it mounts to the mill to insulate it from ground. The power supply solved the issue for quite a while, but now it's back and making me crazy.

I opened up the reader today and there's no swarf or lubricant inside and the scale is clean and dry. I'm to the point of thinking that the scale or reader is just bad.

Any insight would be super helpful.

One more question. Will my Arduino run the current version of TouchDRO?

 

[ycroosh]

Tio Loco,
To answer your last question - no. New TouchDRO firmware is for MSP430 microcontroller. Rysiu M. has made a lot of improvements to the firmware, though. Check out his site here: http://www.rysium.com/projects/196-arduino-dro

As far as the jumping you are seeing (0.2 inch), this was very common some time ago. It seemed to have gone away with never versions of the scales. A few things you can try (besides the new firmware):
1. Add 100uF and 0.1uf capacitors to power supply lines of each scale (0.1 uF as bypass capacitors, 100uF to prevent brownouts, etc.).
2. More radical - you can try adding a 0.1 uF capacitor directly to the scale's reading head PCB (there are pads there that make it relatively easy)
3. Try pulling up the data line to 3.3V (you can use 30Kohm and 20Kohm resistor divider for this). Some scales behave better when they are pulled up, rather than left floating or pulled down.

Let me know if this gets you anywhere.
Thank you
Yuriy

 

[Tio Loco]

Since it's only one scale, will the current Iguaging scales still work with my current setup? It might just be simpler to replace that scale...