Remote display sources for DRO Chinese calipers

OMG

What do you mean?

Hi OMG,
Ditron scales are glass scales. They are popular with users of the Shumatech DRO350 an DRO550 People on the Shumatech forum tend to group buy them in the USA to save on postage. From reports on that forum the scales are very good and Ditron are good to deal with. When any of my capacitive scales fail I will probably buy some glass scales from them to use with my DRO350s

Paul,
OMG is asking the type of scales that Ditron supply. There are glass and magnetic scales which have quadrature output and and capacitive scales which use several different protocols. For example 2 x 24 bit (The original Chinese calipers), 21 bit (Used on iGaging / Shahe scales) there are a few other less common protocols also used.

Les.

Les,

Lester is working on a PCB for the MPS430 version. My names down for them.

Paul,

Hope you will be doing a follow-up post once you have fitted the system.

Sausage making day today, and yes, that includes Boerewors. Skins have been soaking overnight.

Geoff - Multi talented am I.

Hi Geoff,
I am not planning on either fitting glass scales to my DRO350s or changing over to Yuriy's Android DRO at the moment. I have bought an Arduino UNO board so I can play round with Yuriy's DRO using the old 2 x 24 bit Chinese scales. I will have to write code for the Arduino to read the old Chinese scales as Yuriy's code for the Arduino only reads the iGaging scale (21 bit) protocol.

Les.

Hi Les,

I have some AVR code for the 24-bit chinese scales I wrote, also some stuff on the data & button protocols.

PM me with your email if this would be useful for you.

Neil

Hi Les,

Yes, I know. I have a bunch purchased a while ago via the Ditron contact in the Shumatech group (direct purchase not a group buy) for my DRO550. My comment was just to put Paul's statement and costs into perspective for anyone here who didn't realise they were glass scales rather than the cheaper capacitive ones.

Yes, the Ditron rep (Echo)  is very good to deal with and the scales are great. (AFAIK you need the adapters to use them with the DRO350)

Edited By OMG on 22/11/2013 18:36:11

OMG/Les.

Yes they are glass scales. 5 um. I bought 2 of the DC10 which are the standard size and 1 DC10F which has a smaller cross section and a slighly higher spec. I delt with the sales lady (Grace) direct and she was very helpful. The total DRO package was around 275 dollars plus 115 dollars for shipping and 17 dollars paypal charge.

Paul

Oops, sorry Les, that post was meant for Paul.

Hi Neil,
Thanks for you offer of the information on your Atmel code for reading scales. I have sent you a PM with my email address.

Les.

Neil,

I'm Yuriy from "Yiriy's Toys". I've received an email (presumably from a member of this forum) that told me about your Atmel code that can read Chinese scales...

I just posted the new version of MSP430 firmware that can read the standard "Chinese" scales, and am working on a version that can read a mix of different scales. Apparently there is a lot of interest in an Arduino-based controller that can do the same. I don't think Arduino can handle the task (due to all the overhead posed by the abstraction layer) and I don't have enough experience with AVR programming. Moreover, at this point I have more on my plate with this project that I can handle in my free time... Would you consider either sharing your code, or somehow making the precompiled firmware available to the community? (I can host the files on my blog or link to your URL).

Please feel free to PM/email me at ycroosh at gmail.com (or respond here).

Thank you in advance

Yuriy

There is some interesting reading here

... especially the comment by Hans U. Meyer

MichaelG.

.

P.S.  You can find his Patents on espacenet

Inventor = MEYER HANS ULRICH [CH]

Edited By Michael Gilligan on 27/11/2013 22:45:31

Michael,

Thank you for the link. Frankly, I agree 100% with his comments.

When I started with the project, iGaging scales were all I could afford. I have glass scales on my mill now, but you can't imagine how many emails I get per week asking for the "Chinese Scale" version. For people on a budget iGaging and "Chinese" scales offer a good compromise, and the total cost can be under 100 Pounds ($150 USD or so) if you already have a tablet or an old phone. I used iGaging scales on a Sieg mill (X2 and then X3) for almost three years and it worked well enough for the price. It was WAY better than counting revolutions, and for very precise stuff I still had the dials.

Glass scales are much nicer and ridiculously accurate, but even with "careful shopping" they set me back $450 USD.

Thank you

Yuriy

Yuriy,

Glad to hear you found the link of interest.

The reason for my investigating the original Sylvac system [now apparently "Chinese"] is that I have an early-model Trimos TVM300 Height Gauge, which I believe uses this.

I first need to find [or build] the correct OPTO-RS232 cable to fit the four-pin socket on the head ... Once I have this, I look forward to using your Android display with it.

Thanks for your massive contribution to the community.

MichaelG.

Yuriy

As the originator of this thread I just want to add my thanks to Michael's.

I currently have iGaging scales and am an Android user so the next stage is obvious! One day I will upgrade to glass scales but for now I will be going down the Arduino/Bluetooth route.

Ian P

I've pm'd Yuriy. My Atmel AVR code is hardware specific (i.e. to the display used and my pcb layout), but I'm happy to share the source code with any and all under the Gnu Free Licence (i.e.e amend as you see fit, just give me a credit for what I did!)

If anyone wants a copy, pm me with an email address.

Neil

Neil,

Just replied to your PM. Thank you much for sharing the code. My whole project is licensed under GPL and I will make sure you proper credit for the code.

Thank you

Yuriy

The US AirForce Acedemy tutorials get a brief mention in the comments on Yuriy's site

For those interested: Here is the link to that excellent resource.

MichaelG.

.

Edit:  This is a tidier place to start looking at the tutorials.

Edited By Michael Gilligan on 29/11/2013 20:47:42

Edited By Michael Gilligan on 29/11/2013 21:12:00

This, on Hack a Day, might be of interest to the Calliper-Hackers.

and this, which is linked, from that page is an excellent idea !!

MichaelG.

Edited By Michael Gilligan on 30/11/2013 15:59:30

I've put a few photos in my albums of the scales fitted to my X2 mill.

Here are a couple.

Neil

Cheesy display unit:

PCBs for DRO and Tacho:

Test of DRO prototype (digital calipers use the same protocol):

I presume that Phragsoft must be long-gone [or re-born]

??? This is the only reference that I can find

MichaelG.