TouchDRO Plus is out (plus some loose ends)

[Christianstark]

I think the only question I need answered at this time to make a decision is this.


I see the website mentions axis summing. On my milling machine, I have 2 Z scales. One for quill and one for the knee. Can I keep that functionality? That is 4 linear scales.

@ycroosh

Thanks!

 

[DavidR8]

I think the only question I need answered at this time to make a decision is this.


I see the website mentions axis summing. On my milling machine, I have 2 Z scales. One for quill and one for the knee. Can I keep that functionality? That is 4 linear scales.

@ycroosh

Thanks!

Yes, that's possible. I was going to do that on my mill.
The second scale for that axis is connected to the 4th input on the adapter and summing is enabled on the Input section of the axis setup menu.
See the Input Settings section here:

Linear (X,Y,Z) and Angular Axis Settings

 

[ChazzC]

Human reaction time is 200 to 500 ms for a healthy young human.

Hey, I resemble the “healthy un-young human!” (Maybe this is why I am concerned about tailgaters)

 

[MidniteMachinist]

I see the website mentions axis summing. On my milling machine, I have 2 Z scales. One for quill and one for the knee. Can I keep that functionality? That is 4 linear scales.

If you need more than the 4 inputs on the TouchDRO adapter, you can also use a summing interface. It combines 2 quadrature scales into one output.

On both of my mills, I use the W axis as an angular input for my rotary table. Which is easy on the mini mill, as there's only 3 scales, and no quill. My universal mill has 4 scales: knee, table, saddle, and ram. The saddle and ram are summed, but that would take up all 4 TouchDRO inputs, and leave no place to plug in my rotary table. The summing interface solved this.

The CPI for the ram and saddle scales was slightly different, so I averaged them... This does makes the Y-axis (or Z-axis, depending on if the head is horizontal or vertical) readout slightly off, but since I use 1um scales, the error is only a couple of tenths over the entire travel of both.

 

[Christianstark]

If you need more than the 4 inputs on the TouchDRO adapter, you can also use a summing interface. It combines 2 quadrature scales into one output.

On both of my mills, I use the W axis as an angular input for my rotary table. Which is easy on the mini mill, as there's only 3 scales, and no quill. My universal mill has 4 scales: knee, table, saddle, and ram. The saddle and ram are summed, but that would take up all 4 TouchDRO inputs, and leave no place to plug in my rotary table. The summing interface solved this.

The CPI for the ram and saddle scales was slightly different, so I averaged them... This does makes the Y-axis (or Z-axis, depending on if the head is horizontal or vertical) readout slightly off, but since I use 1um scales, the error is only a couple of tenths over the entire travel of both.

Im actually using one of those now to sum my Z on the MagXact. It is a bit buggy however, with it changing directions on the quill every now and then and I will have to change the dip stick and reboot it to fix it. I think the issue may be on the MX-200 side though, as there are other bugs I am seeing, like me setting a value via the keypad for Z, and when I hit enter, it changes the value I entered to some random value like 6###.###.

 

[Christianstark]

Just ordered one of the TDA-420's for my milling machine. Looking forward to checking it out. Time to do some reading in the docs section of their website.

 

[ycroosh]

I think the only question I need answered at this time to make a decision is this.


I see the website mentions axis summing. On my milling machine, I have 2 Z scales. One for quill and one for the knee. Can I keep that functionality? That is 4 linear scales.

@ycroosh

Tha

Just ordered one of the TDA-420's for my milling machine. Looking forward to checking it out. Time to do some reading in the docs section of their website.

Hi Christian,
Sorry, I was on the road for most of the day yesterday. Got your order. It will ship over the weekend (have a bit of a backlog to deal with from the vacation...)
Regards
Yuriy

 

[Christianstark]

Hi Christian,
Sorry, I was on the road for most of the day yesterday. Got your order. It will ship over the weekend (have a bit of a backlog to deal with from the vacation...)
Regards
Yuriy

Thanks! Really looking forward to trying this out. May be quickly ordering a second one for my lathe.

 

[Christianstark]

OK so I am having an issue figuring out how to set up Z summing on here.

I have 4 linear scales. X, Y, Z, and another Z.

Touch DRO will not recognize the second Z, and if I activate Angular, It does recognize it, but I can not figure out ho0w to set it for linear, and not angular. Can someone assist?

 

[MidniteMachinist]

In the Z-axis settings, enable the secondary input, then set the "Prefix" to "w".

Then calibrate the secondary input.

It's not immediately apparent, and took me a bit to figure out the first time. The Prefix is what determines what scale a particular readout uses.

For example, my universal mill has a vertical and horizontal configuration. In vertical mode, X uses the scale on the table (left and right), Y uses the scale on the saddle (in and out), and Z uses the scale on the knee (up and down)... Pretty much as you'd think. The axis prefixes are the same as the scales.

The Z axis is normally the axis that's parallel with the spindle. This means that when in horizontal mode, Y becomes Z, and Z becomes Y. So, in the Z-axis settings, I had to change the prefix for the Y-axis input to "z", and the prefix for the Z-axis to "y".