The case for TouchDRO in 2022?

[axa88]

Yikes I hope this thread doesnt induce a sense of quit Yuri.
The whole eco system is great and as i mentioned having designed similar systems myself i know that doing it on your own is a labor of love more than its going to pay the bills.

As you well know my original problems were in choosing capacitive scales, working with cheap a flaky bluetooth chipset and trying to do everything myself really. I understand the esp32 bluetooth is solid, its my go to in commercial applications that require BT BLE, along with glass scales i suppose there is no reason to doubt a robust system.
But as you already addressed, when pricing everything for multiple machines, especially if robustness depends on a decent panels i dont already own, the costs add up compared to the alternatives.

Fwiw, and not that it would make sense for TouchDro, but sometimes i think it might actually be beneficial if part of a project was open sourced, im sure many like me would love to build upon it and contribute, and speed up feature and release cycles. Especially when the project can generating all income from other avenues, hardware in this case.

Anyway, i didnt imagine this thread would get discouraging, its way to impressive a project.

 

[mchasal]

Just to add on to what some others have said, I don't think it's entirely fair to compare TouchDRO to the bottom end options. With the cheapest ones, you're getting those 7 segment non-graphic displays. Which are fine, but just not the same thing. If you'd go looking for a traditional DRO with a graphical display, the price comes up and I think that's a more fair comparison.

I also really like the wireless nature of the TouchDRO approach. I have the tablet mounted on a home brew clamp that I can move around. I can put it right next to the work if I'm doing something small, move it to either side or monitor the power feed from my recliner (ok, kidding about that last one). It's also nice to have access to other tools like FSWizard right on the same tablet to look up speeds and feeds or even being able to do an internet search for "how to remove a broken tap".

Regarding the dirty hands/gloves issue. It hasn't bothered my setup, but I'm not usually doing stuff that's extremely oily. One solution could be to grab a stylus and keep it nearby to use when dirt or gloves make it otherwise difficult to operate.

 

[axa88]

Sold!

 

[RJSakowski]

I went with the Touch DRO for my Grizzly 0602 in 2015 for three reasons. First, the glass scales available at the time would not fit the cross slide. Second, I already had an iGaging scale mounted on my tailstock. Third, the cost was very attractive. Less than $150 additional outlay. I wired up the adapter board per instructions for a cost of around $10 and used my Android phone for a user interface. Since then, I have purchased a dedicated tablet for $50.

The installation only made one compromise to the capacity of the lathe and that was reducing travel of the tailstock by about an inch. This would only affect possible use of a dead center in the tailstock. There have been some issues with the Touch DRO. The readout would be affected bu turning off the lathe motor. Ferrite chokes helped some and installation of bypass capacitors in the iGaging pickup heads did as well. A final solution was to replace the mechanical power switch with a solid state relay. Since then, I have upgraded to a DC brush motor with PWM control and have no interference problems. There were some issues with competition from the other resources in the tablet. Turning off WiFi helped. There is still one issue remaining which is annoying in that the display will freeze for about a second every seven seconds. When it returns, the readings are correct so the only impact would be if you were watching the readout to indicate a stop position as you were advancing feed. I suspect that another app on the tablet is demanding service for this to occur. A final issue which isn't that great is that the scales have a resolution of .10 microns or .0004". I have my display set for four decimal place resolution and the reading doubled for diameter on the X scale which means that it displays on .0008 increments. This is only critical for tight tolerance work and I use a micrometer for checking dimension when I get close anyway.

Another Lathe Dro Install

I just finished the installation of a set of iGaging DigiMag DRO's on my G0602 lathe. I chose the iGaging because of their ability to fit the lathe without loss of machining capability and being able to install them with serious modification of the OEM lathe. They also work with Yuriy's...

www.hobby-machinist.com

 

[axa88]

The installation only made one compromise to the capacity of the lathe and that was reducing travel of the tailstock by about an inch. This would only affect possible use of a dead center in the tailstock.

I thought about his and ruled it out as i wouldnt be able to get jammed tooling out of the tailstock quill.
How do you get jammed tooling out if you cant back the quill all the way back?

 

[Zertsman]

Have the igaging board and printed my own enclosure from the website. All was easy and awesome. If you need better, get better scales, but the TouchDRO app and a cheap tablet is very very hard to beat. Plus, you send a question and get an answer. This doesn't happen out of china.

TouchDRO for the win!

 

[RJSakowski]

I thought about his and ruled it out as i wouldnt be able to get jammed tooling out of the tailstock quill.
How do you get jammed tooling out if you cant back the quill all the way back?

It doesn't affect quill travel. The tailstock can't push forward to the cross feed completely as I have a stop installed to protect the pickup head. The stop is the fillister head screw below the pickup head shown in the 9th photo in the link in my above post. It would only be a problem turning a short piece between centers and using the dead center in the tailstock. I have yet to run into a situation like that.

 

[axa88]

It doesn't affect quill travel. The tailstock can't push forward to the cross feed completely as I have a stop installed to protect the pickup head. The stop is the fillister head screw below the pickup head shown in the 9th photo in the link in my above post. It would only be a problem turning a short piece between centers and using the dead center in the tailstock. I have yet to run into a situation like that.

Seems I misunderstood. On my lathe if I want to put a scale on the tailstock, I would both loose travel and wouldn't be able to retreat the quill all the way back into the tail and push out jammed tooling. A double issue. The quill receeds completely in the body, The only thing i think I could do is take material away from the tailstock body to mount the bracket, . Yuck!

 

[RJSakowski]

Seems I misunderstood. On my lathe if I want to put a scale on the tailstock, I would loose travel and wouldn't be able to retreat the quill all the way back into the tail and push out jammed tooling. A double issue. Only think I could do is take material away from the tailstock body to mount the bracket. Yuck!

My bad. I misunderstood also. Yes, I may have lost about 1/8" on the tailstock travel but it didn't affect anything. I have actually ground the ends of all my tailstock tooling so that they release about .050" before the end of quill travel to maximize available quill travel. The exception is the dead center which releases at .65" before full quill retraction. I could cut the end down on it but it would only affect the maximum length that I could turn between centers. so I haven't bothered.

My tailstock quill was proud of the tailstock by about .050". The mounting bracket for the tailstock bracket below was counterbored to a depth of .170". If there were a problem extracting a tool, the bracket can easily be be removed temporarily.

 

[Tomzo]

I just built the DIY version of the TouchDRO that I bought from Yuriy and it was pretty straight forward and cost ~$40. A couple of USB breakout boards were something like $6 from Amazon. Soldering was simple, the firmware was preloaded, and worked without me having to ask for help. In my case that is a pretty big accomplishment.

One of the things that drew me to this was the ability to use the same tablet on my mill - where this first DRO will go - and eventually add scales to my lathe. I also look forward to the Android app adding functionality over time. I had considered the cheap Chinese DROs but these features - and being able to do some soldering - is what brought me to TouchDRO.