Quill dro

[ziggo_2]

Hello. I currently have the touchdro with glass ditron scales. Been thinking of adding one to the quill. But of course I have questions...

1. Do I need to use a glass ditron scale to work with my current touchdro set up?

2. Is it worth it? Since it will be bulky with glass scale is it worth doing or would a cheaper, smaller stand alone unit be better?

 

[SouthernChap]

Hello. I currently have the touchdro with glass ditron scales. Been thinking of adding one to the quill. But of course I have questions...

1. Do I need to use a glass ditron scale to work with my current touchdro set up?

2. Is it worth it? Since it will be bulky with glass scale is it worth doing or would a cheaper, smaller stand alone unit be better?

You can use capacitive scales (iGaging and the like, probably what you were thinking off as a stand alone unit, but obviously you'd need one with output) as an input for TouchDRO, but I think you'd need the little capacitive scale adaptor Yuriy sells (or I guess you could build your own, I expect Yuriy has the information to do so somewhere on his website).

The Z axis summing looks like a capability you'd want so whether you did it with a glass scale or a capacitive scale, I'd say you probably want your quill scale to be talking to TouchDRO.

(I have a spare smallish glass scale so I'll be doing mine with that in the New Year. My TouchDRO should hopefully be arriving today; Royal Mail willing! So making the brackets, fitting the glass scales and making a tablet holder are all projects that are going to be bumped to the top of my 'machine tool upgrade/modification' list)

 

[RJSakowski]

Mill or lathe? Small or big? Answers to these questions determine the path, I added stand-alone capacitive scales to quills on both an RF30 clone and and my 10 x 22 lathe. I later used the lathe scale for an early TouchDRO install but replaced the capacitive scale on the mill with a glass scale for a 3 axis DRO install.

The glass scale for the mill quill install was not obtrusive but it would be on the lathe tailstock. I would opt for a magnetic scale for that.

 

[Eddyde]

Adding a scale to my quill was well worth the effort. I use it way more than when I only had the Z on the Head. I also installed a summing interface to combine the Z quill and Z head (or knee) into one output, so no matter if I move the head or the quill the Z reference, stays the same.

I used a slim glass scale, a magnetic could possibly be even more compact.

Here's how I did my installation:

[How-To] Thread 'Mounting a Z axis DRO on a Bridgeport (Clone) Quill'

Mar 30, 2023

Hi All,

A few years back I completed the DRO installation on my mill by adding the Z Axis to the head, that is my mill is a bed style where the head raises and lowers not the knee or table. However, I found it not be as useful or at least user friendly as I thought, mainly due to the fine adjustment hand wheel being mounted high on the column, towards the back of the machine. And while the head height is also motorized, it moves too fast for precision adjustment. The solution was to mount a scale on the quill and use that for the Z Axis read instead of the head height. Ultimately...

• Eddyde

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