Quill dro

[ziggo_2]

I made a video a while back, demonstrating how quick the touch probe/tool library makes machining a cube:

I think your trying to push me further down the rabbit hole. You might be a bad influence on me. Lol!

 

[MidniteMachinist]

Me? Bad influence? No...

To be honest, using TouchDRO as a simple readout is only scratching the surface of what it can do. Granted, there's more to it than just the adapter and some scales, but once you go down the path of quick-change, repeatable tooling, it's hard to go back.

I recently restored an old Bridgeport for my local makerspace, and going back to reading dials, counting turns, manual edge finding, and touching off tools... Oof. Made me appreciate my own shop, and how I've set up the workflow, all the more. And it's essentially centered around TouchDRO.

If you watched my vid, you can see how quickly I can change tools in my mill. In addition to buying (and making a few) tool holders, I also made a quill lock for my mill (there's also a vid about that on my channel), specifically to improve my workflow. I also modified the spindle nose of my other mill, to work with the TTS holders. I even made a quick-change tool post for my little shaper, so I can use the TouchDRO tool library on that machine, too (vid series on that one, too).

My mini lathe has not only the usual X and Z scales, it also has a scale on the tailstock quill. This isn't terribly uncommon... But I took it a step further: I added a read head to the Z scale, attached it to the tailstock body, and summed that scale with the quill scale. This way, I never lose position when drilling a hole, even if I move the tailstock to clear chips (also a vid series on that... Sorry, not trying to plug my channel). This wouldnt be possible without TouchDRO.

 

[SouthernChap]

I added a read head to the Z scale, attached it to the tailstock body, and summed that scale with the quill scale.

So you have two read heads on the longitudinal scale of your lathe? One being used for carriage travel and one being used for tailstock travel (which is summed with the tailstock quill scale)?

If I've got that right, that's genius.

 

[MidniteMachinist]

So you have two read heads on the longitudinal scale of your lathe? One being used for carriage travel and one being used for tailstock travel (which is summed with the tailstock quill scale)?

If I've got that right, that's genius.

Spot on!

I figured, the scale itself is passive... All the magic happens in the read head. No reason there can't be multiple read heads on one scale. Tested it, and it worked a treat. All I had to do then, was make a bracket.

Here's the first video in the series, if you're interested. Granted, that was a number of years ago, and I've since gone to glass scales on my lathe now, rather than the iGaging ones... But I did the same thing with those, and it also works great. Just had to buy an additional scale to rob the read head from.

Also, thanks!

Edit: I also made a rotary table encoder adapter to have angular readout on my mill, using a hollow shaft encoder and a one-way bearing. There's a video series on that too haha. Though I'll admit, in use, it's not as accurate as I'd hoped... But I think that's more a failing of the cheapo rotary table, than the encoder setup (too much play in the table bore).

 

[ycroosh]

I think your trying to push me further down the rabbit hole. You might be a bad influence on me. Lol!

That is not a rabbit hole by any means. That is basic functionality A rabbit hole would be a guy turning a mini mill into a full blown optical comparator/coordinate measurement machine (by replacing the spindle with a cheap USB microscope) and mounting a probe next to it. He now uses it to digitize vintage motorcycle parts, apparently. That is a rabit hole... Using a probe to find a workpiece is what you paid for.

The whole point of TouchDRO is that you can duct tape all sorts of weird sh..t to it, and it will do something with it.