Which DRO for 833TV

[f350ca]

Thats the one Ken, forget the actual price, with shipping and duties and exchange it was just under $150 cdn.

 

[Ken226]

Thats the one Ken, forget the actual price, with shipping and duties and exchange it was just under $150 cdn.

Yup! I'm loving it so far.

Originally, I had a Yihao display on both machines. Awhile back I decided to upgrade my lathes x axis scale to a Sino low profile 1 micron scale. But, the scale ended up being rs422 push/pull quadrature, and my Yihao display wouldn't read it.

None of the other half dozen Chinese displays I had in my junk cabinet would read the Sino scale either, except the ToAuto, when I re-pinned its 0v, 5v A and B reads to the appropriate pins. And that display had non-functional axis zero keys, so it was out.
I ended up with an Amazon ToAuto TTL 4 wire scale on my z, and a Sino RS422 9 wire scale on my X.

I contacted DRO Pros, and they mentioned that this Ditron D80 would read both open ended TTL and RS422 push/pull quadrature signals simultaneously. So, I ordered it, swapped in their glass scale ribbons, and re-pinned my ToAuto scales db9 plug to match the Ditron scale. It's been running great so far.

I think there's a bit of confusion amongst Chinese manufacturers and sellers about the definition of TTL RS422. They seem to have seperate the two, and are calling push/pull TTL signal rs422, and the open ended signals TTL. Once I figured this out, it was alot easier to figure out which scales would run on which displays.

It was an educational experience. All my experimenting resulted in a pile of cheap Chinese displays and scales. Ive cut various scales down to custom sizes, swapped and rewired the read heads and displays internal connections. Most of them, I ended up rewiring into functional kits and giving away to friends. I still have 3 displays and 2-1/2 scales for spare parts/backup units.

 

[j-becker]

J-becker, PM does have the newer graphical displays available now. It hasn't made it on to the website yet, but I called and upgraded both DRO's to the graphical. If you look at lathe DRO's you can see what it looks like, it just hasn't been listed on the mill pages yet.

https://www.precisionmatthews.com/shop/magxact-magnetic-mx-200l-2-axis-lathe-lcd-dro-10x60-inch-scales/

Thanks a lot for that info, Christian! I assume that it is similar to the EL700 (EL750) display. I have reached out again to PM. Funny that they didn't mention that when I asked for the Eason display a few weeks ago.

 

[Christianstark]

Thanks a lot for that info, Christian! I assume that it is similar to the EL700 (EL750) display. I have reached out again to PM. Funny that they didn't mention that when I asked for the Eason display a few weeks ago.

It looks to be a rebranded EL7##

 

[Dallas]

I got the same one. It's a Ditron D80 display. Oddly, DRO Pros was blowing out the 2 axis version for 59$. I had to swap in the internal cables for the glass scales, but it's been running like a champ.


I went and verified it in my manuals since my memory isn't so great. On the Ditron, it's the F5 sine wave button that filters the last digit flicker



On my Yihao, it's the one that says "shake".

The acu-rite VUE flickered when the mill was running or not . maybe there is a setting for it.... not that i can find in the manual

 

[EVMiller]

You could make your own with 1 micron Ditron magnetic scales and a TouchDRO (and support a board sponsor as well) for around $4-450 for the hardware:
Ditron magnetic scales
TouchDro

You will also need an Android device for a touch screen or a Raspberry PI 4 running an Android rom like LineageOS if you prefer a regular keyboard and monitor. I used 32ish inches of angle iron and 1 inch bar I had lying around for the mounts. Ugly as heck and super simple but they work perfectly!

The Ditron heads and Yuriy's dro work great together, no flickering digits even at .0001.

 

[Cletus]

As David said, opinions differ greatly. At first I wanted an Easson 12B but it was not available to come in the crate with my mill. I have PM's new 3-axis LCD DRO and glass scales coming with my knee mill. But, I also bought this display on Amazon for $103 (was a really great price) and hope to use it with the PM scales.
Yesterday, I ordered a Shars' 6" Quill DRO also.

 

[j-becker]

Thanks a lot for all the great input on the options. I approached PM again and they offer a graphical version of their MagXact DRO for the 833 (thanks again, Christian) -- I ordered that one for the mill.

I looked long and hard at the TouchDRO. They seems to work well when combined with reasonable quality scales like Ditron. However, I have already a few projects lined up where I want to use the mill and did not want to add another one. But I bought a Ditron glass scale cheap on ebay from DROPRos and want to give it a try.

 

[bollie7]

I haven't had time to read all of these posts so my apologies if I repeat some thing that has already been said.
So, in 2019 I bought a 3 axis DRO from Aliexpress. It looks the same as the one shown in Post no 27. At the time a 4 axis was considerably more expensive than the 3 axis so I was also going to use a battery powered on on the quill. What I ended up doing though was to buy another scale for the quill and a computer serial port switch. So now I can switch between the knee scale and the quill scale on the Z axis. I figured I probably wouldn't be wanting to use both DRO on by knee and quill at the same time. I just made an aluminium bracket to pick up the unused mounting holes on the back of the DRO and the serial switch is mounted vertically on the LHS of the dro display. Unfortunately I cant find any pics just at the moment.
Peter

 

[Cletus]

I just made-up three 9-pin (DB9) adapters so the PM glass scales I'm getting may work with the YH-800-3 DRO Display, we'll soon see how this works out:
DB9 (male) DB9 (female)
1 ----------------> 7
2 ----------------> 2
3 ----------------> 6
4 ----------------> 8