Question about Blu-DRO/Touch DRO

[COMachinist]

Have a question about this accessory. I have the igagaging absolute plus stainless steel rules. I have an android tablet as well as my phone. I’m installing this now, it will be nice to use the tablet which is a 10” display. Has any one here done this up grade to their igaging. I want to hear about any problems or difficulty using this system. When I got the gages ready to plug in i found out that the 36” rule for the Z axis has an out of date mini usb conector will the X axis has a micro usb which works with the Blu-DRO hub. I have tried get in touch with igaging but so far no responce. What I m thinking is using a mini usb female to micro male adapter to conect to the hub. The hub has other banks so you can use one hub and app on other machines, like the lathe, mill and a surface grinder, realy any thing with a igaging plus dro on it. Im not associated with Blu-dro or touch dro in any way just. Looking for other users.
Thanks
CH

 

[RJSakowski]

I built the interface based on Yuriy's original Touch DRO. I would think that an adapter would work fine.
The only issue that I have is that sometimes in shutting down my 602, I get a line spike which messes up the reading. It doeswn't haqppen if I run from a battery but if I use a power supply, it occasionally occurs. I will probably need to build a custom power supply to totally eliminate the problem. Or change the OEM motor to a VFD.

 

[COMachinist]

I noticed some instability on the display when running the lathe the display will kind of jitter a bit. What I found out was the wall wort was piking up some noise. I found an old ryobi transformer type 9vdc at 2 amps. That solved the noise problem. The display is now nice and stable. I am suprised that it very accurate and repeatable. It shows repeatablity at .0008”. Nice to have that big 10 display. With old eyes like mine.
CH

 

[tweinke]

I have one I built with the MSP430 board on my lathe and also with the premade board on my mill. The premade board is much more stable. I did read that Yuri recommended at one time to plug in the power supply to a different circuit then the machine which is what I have done with the lathe and that has made a noticeable difference too.

 

[COMachinist]

Well I have some time with this unit and I must say, I don’t think it is ready forprime time in the shop. While it s a great idea I think it needs more development time. It would s intirely to unstabile in a shop enviroment. I have LED lighting in my shop, because it is much better for an unheated shop and it only has 1 window for added light. I also have a domore grinder plus about 4 grinders for different griding of metal cutting plus the 2 VFDs on the a 2x72 grinder and the mill, I use a lot. This thing goes nuts when the first lights come on and it will not stay conected to and blue tooth, display. The screen goes in to convlutions every time my cell rings or the old motor on the lathe this is used on, starts. Forget it if the PM-932m- PDF mill starts with the lathe next to it. The air compessor does not do it any good either. I think i will just go back to my igaging absolute read outs. They are fine and happy in the shop. I just had a power up grade this winter to 200 amp service. So i know it is plenty of stabile power. It doesn’t matter weather it’s paired to my Galaxy S7 or the Android tablet. It will not stay connected. My phone works fine and so does the radio, so I don’t know what the problem is. Must be some kind of noise that does not affect and thing else.
Oh well gave it a chance.
CH

 

[Briney Eye]

I'm quite happy with both of my TouchDRO installations, but I didn't expect a turnkey solution. It's a platform for someone interested in a DIY project, and the app itself works quite well for someone willing to deal with the issues. A lot of "wall wart" power supplies are extremely noisy direct line switchers that interfere with the Bluetooth connection. I've saved a box full of them over the years and found ones that worked. The scales that TouchDRO works with are designed to run on batteries, isolated from the world, and lack any power supply decoupling. Generally speaking, the stability issues can be solved by installing decoupling capacitors in the read heads (I used 0.1uf ceramics). Opening the heads, tracing signals and finding the correct points to tack the capacitor leads to exceeds many people's expertise. I enjoy solving that sort of problem, which is why I've been making a living in R&D for nearly 40 years.

If I had another machine to add readouts to I wouldn't hesitate to use TouchDRO again, but it's not for everyone.

 

[COMachinist]

I'm quite happy with both of my TouchDRO installations, but I didn't expect a turnkey solution. It's a platform for someone interested in a DIY project, and the app itself works quite well for someone willing to deal with the issues. A lot of "wall wart" power supplies are extremely noisy direct line switchers that interfere with the Bluetooth connection. I've saved a box full of them over the years and found ones that worked. The scales that TouchDRO works with are designed to run on batteries, isolated from the world, and lack any power supply decoupling. Generally speaking, the stability issues can be solved by installing decoupling capacitors in the read heads (I used 0.1uf ceramics). Opening the heads, tracing signals and finding the correct points to tack the capacitor leads to exceeds many people's expertise. I enjoy solving that sort of problem, which is why I've been making a living in R&D for nearly 40 years.

If I had another machine to add readouts to I wouldn't hesitate to use TouchDRO again, but it's not for everyone.

Sorry but I disagree with your post almost in it entirety. First off I did not buy the DIY boards I bought the Blu-DRO 4 channel box with tach input. I was told to buy igaging aboslute Plus units that do run on wall wart or batteries. Be sides the only thing that is used from the igaging DRO’s is the stainless rules which are made to run with the igaging plus units that run on ac or battery power. The problem is with the electronics and the software. What makes frustrating is that igaging has no support and selling old out dated rules with both plug types and no efort to help. Sorry but I feel this option is not workable with out electronics up dates. Not in a shop environment.
CH

 

[9t8z28]

I have read that switching to an older wall-wart transformer fixes most of these issues. I do have the problem with the tenths digit being slightly glitchy some of the time. The wall-wart is supposed to fix this. The power supply they include with the Bu-Dro kit is the problem. Yes, flourescent lights can effect the readouts and I am not trying to be rude but they are outdated and on their way out. LED’s are the way to go. Yes I understand it can be expensive to switch to LED’s and is not always practical but unfortunately the florescencent are part of the problem.
Try running the power supply from a different wall outlet or isolate it from any power source that is sharing power with a flourescent light. Lastly, sometimes the motor of these machines are not perfectly grounded any that can interfere with the scales. You can isolate the scale with a non conductive material. This helps tremendously. Oh and I also forgot, make sure the scale cables are not running or crossing a power supply or motor leads. This will effect them as well. I love my Blu-Dro and iGaging scales. They are very accurate and very very repeatable. I use them both on my mill which has a transplanted treadmill motor and my lathe with ony the occassional glitching problem on the mill, which honestly happens very little to the point that the wall-wart tranformer is not a must-do-now-mod. I also run all types of machinery in the background while the mill and lathe are running and they cause no interference

 

[BaronJ]

Hi Guys,

Any electrical equipment, even the TAB 9 itself will generate some kind of interference ! And as you have already discovered fluorescent lights and switch mode power supplies as well.

The real issue is preventing this interference from causing problems. Screening is the way to reduce radiated interference, line borne interference can be reduced by filtering. You need to start by finding out which type you have and which is the worse. Then tackle that first.

 

[9t8z28]

How can you tell the difference between the switching and non-switching power sources? I am on eBay trying to find a tranformer style wall wart and don’t want to buy the wrong thing

Hi Guys,

Any electrical equipment, even the TAB 9 itself will generate some kind of interference ! And as you have already discovered fluorescent lights and switch mode power supplies as well.

The real issue is preventing this interference from causing problems. Screening is the way to reduce radiated interference, line borne interference can be reduced by filtering. You need to start by finding out which type you have and which is the worse. Then tackle that first.