Trying to set up a trav-a-dial or dro on modified planner miller

T

Tomj2020

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Hello it is my first time posting on here I work in a factory as a mechanic certainly not a machinist but I assist our semi retired machinist in the shop all we use are shop for is our own on house repairs and projects etc

So we have an old planer miller modified with a bridgeport head. It had acu rite readouts installed on it and over the years the scales have both stopped working so the machinist has been using it by setting up indicators and using giant verniers and so on to get by for quite awhile the owner had contacted a company about installing readouts on the machine but it was very expensive so recently the machinist and I got to talking and he mentioned that he used to run a large boring mill that had trav-a-dials that ran to a box as readouts so I went online and i can find plenty of trav-a-dials but very few with cords and I havent been able to find anything with a box so my questions would be are there certain types of Trav-a-dials that can be hooked to a box? Does anyone know what kind of box they hook to or even better where I could find one? I apologize in advance if I am not being clear enough. I am going to try to post some pictures of the machine
 

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I also meant to add also if anyone has any other thoughts or ideas i am very open to suggestions thanks again
 
I'd think a trava-dial would be hard to setup and be repeatable on the long bed travel. I missed how long it is?
 
The table is about ten ft by four and a half feet. I know the machinist here used the trav-a-dials on a very large jig boring machine not sure how comparable the travel distances are but i got the impression that the jig borer was pretty long also i can confirm with him tomorrow
 
He also did say that they weren't super super accurate maybe within a couple thousands but for what we do here that would be plenty good enough
 
This is a perfect application for magnetic scales. Virtually unlimited length, very compact, bullet proof, 1 micron resolution, and inexpensive.

I use these on all of my machines.

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Magnetic tape is about $40/meter
Read heads are about $100 each
DRO is about $100
 
Hey jim that sounds great! Is it difficult to set up? Do you have a source where I can get this stuff?
 
Very easy to install. The DRO manual is very well written by a native English speaker, and quite possibly a machinist.

Not sure what the pricing is today, maybe about the same as when I purchased a couple years ago.
You would be buying direct from the manufacturer in China.

Jaeger Hou
sales@dcoee.com

D100-3V 3axis DRO
DMR200 1um Read heads, 3 req
MS200-2M 2+2 Magnetic tape + cover band

On the tape, the -2M is the 2 meter length I ordered. You would want to order enough to do your whole machine. I think you can buy it in lengths up to 100 meters.

Make sure Jaeger understands you only want the tape and cover band. Not the mounting rail. I think he understands this now, we had some missed communication on this before.

Feel free to use my name when you contact Jaeger, it might smooth the ordering process a bit.
 
Wow this could be the answer we've needed for awhile! Our machinist will be back in the morning so I'm going to go over all of this with him and see if he has any questions thanks alot for the information and your time i appreciate it
 
+1 on the tape! I direct mounted Magnetic tape on the side of my Hardimge cross slide. Use Loctite Black Max when you stick it in place...

Sent from my SM-G892A using Tapatalk
 
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