Digital readout

HI, has anyone experience of buying dro from china? What import duties and taxes were you charged? Another alternative would be from Amazon where the price quoted is supposed to be all inclusive. Apparently their policy is that you cannot be charged extra later. It doesn't say on amazon where the stuff comes from anyway.

When I ordered from China the sales said it was stored in Germany so no charges but what will happen after brexit I don't know.

David

Edited By David George 1 on 30/01/2020 09:43:35

I ordered one direct from China a couple of years ago. I had to pay about £20 VAT and duty but it was still half the price of one bought from the UK. It took about two weeks to arrive.

John

Bought one a couple of weeks ago from fleabay, Looked round, found a Chinese seller but had a Portsmouth location so no extra charges

Thanks, please could you tell me Mick which seller it was?

It was this DRO. Ignore the " Last One" for some reason they stick it on all their listings. 7 day delivery, half decent user manual in English not Chinglish, no fitting instructions but plenty on youtube if you need them. Just bear in mind as with most you order the read length you want but it comes 140mm ish longer to allow for the head to be able to cover the read length.

Hi Mick,

Did you get two scales or just one ?

Thanks, I've tried to order but the seller is on holiday. I wonder why I couldn't find that seller.

Two John, it's for my mill, didn't bother with a Z for the time being as it's got a built in one. But I was getting a 3 axis display just in case I did go for a Z later and there is less than a tenner difference between 2 and 3. Then stupid realised he'd pressed the wrong option when a 2 axis was delivered and I rechecked my order The 2 display can go on the lathe if I need a 3 for the mill Z axis in the future.

Hi Mick,

Thanks for your reply ! I've been meaning to get a DRO for the mill for quite a while. A readout and a couple of scales for that price seems particularly good value. Did you have any issues with fitting them ?

Not fitted yet John, recovering from having my replacement knee replaced with a new one so building up to it. I have chopped my X axis down by around 2 inches though ready to fit. Glass scale cut easy enough using a wet wheel diamond tile cutter, alloy casing in the bandsaw. Should be straightforward enough, seen videos fitting them to similar machines to mine - SPG 2217 (Warco WM14/16 type)

Try this seller on aliexpress: **LINK**

Shipped from spain so no duty or VAT etc. Cheaper than any of the ebay sellers. Mine arrived in about 9 days and I have no complaints. Pay with paypal and you get all the same protections as buying from ebay.

My lathe DRO was cheaper (free) from ebay, but I was just unlucky/lucky to choose a clueless muppet from china who didn't understand ebay's rules.

Aliexpress generally beats ebay for all your tooling needs, as many actual manufacturers have stores on aliexpress. Anything that I can't get or can't get at a sensible price in the UK I go to aliexpress for. Most, but not all, stuff from the normal model engineering suppliers is actually fairly sensibly priced. But I seem to want odd things far too often. Just last week I needed a specific tapered end mill. The only UK supplier I could find quoted £56 with a six week lead time. From aliexpress it was £7 for two, available immediately, £26 for two day shipping but still cheaper and better service.

Hi Martin, thank you, That looks like a great deal but i only want 2 axis and the seller does not accept Pay Pal. Have you any protection if you use another payment method?

Regarding Brexit - as far as I know, while Brexit had already happened, UK remains the EU customs union until the end of the year. So wouldn't need to pay any customs duties for any goods sent between UK and EU for now. What happens next year depends on the kind of trade deal (if any) that will be negotiated.

Gene, who lives in Luxembourg and loves to order vintage woodworking tools from eBay UK, and so cares about this topic quite a lot!

Same seller does a two axis as well for roughly £110, I just linked to the exact item I bought. They do take paypal (I just checked), just don't make it obvious. If you add it to your cart and go through to the checkout paypal is offered as an option, or at least it is for me.

Obviously you don't get any realistic warranty, but I don't tend to worry about that sort of thing with electronics. If it breaks I can fix it.

Aliexpress do offer protections similar to ebay but I've never had to use them, so I don't know how reliable they are. I do buy smaller things directly with a credit card - generally lots of electronic bits. I haven't actually had a problem that I've had to use their protections for yet. Unlike ebay, and banggood - I've given up on banggood after my last two transaction ended up having to be refunded by paypal.

What kind of DRO would be useful to have on a small lathe (Hobbymat MD65 - 65 mm center height, 300 mm between centres)? 2 axis - one for saddle travel, one for cross slide? What about top slide?

thanks Martin, I'll ask them if they will do PayPal for me.

I am risk averse on such things but an issue for me was the postage cost if I had to return the item to China under warranty. Something to bear in mind if (like me) the cost of one unit was at the very limits of my hobby budget.

My mantra with tools tends to be 'buy right, buy once' - so I often end up buying high quality tools second hand and look after them (treating them as investments). Not easy to do with DROs though!