Basic DRO

Hi all, I am wanting to fit a DRO to my Myford Super 7. "Machine DRO" get good reviews, but they have a lot of features that I would not use. All I want is a read out for diameters and feed. Option of imperial or metric. Mains supply rather than battery would be good, as would a display on an arm fixed to wall or lathe. I have looked on line but not found anything. Is there a basic DRO out there?

Bruce

The thing about extra features is - you don't have to use them. They will not interfere with doing what you want one to do and they are added because once the basic mechanism and display are set up the extra few buttons and software do not add much to the production cost. However not having them will allow competitors to claim bragging rights and so get more sales.

You will best be served by concentrating on what you need such as reliability, size, accuracy, ease of fitting and doing what you want it to do and not worry over extra features you will not use. If you think about software such as CAD, word processors and spreadsheets who uses all the available features? Probably close to no-one, it doesn't stop anyone from using these programs for what they need them for.

Martin C

PS one of the features often available is to chose diameter or radius. It is useful even if most of your turning is based around diameters. You may want to do things such as gear cutting, drilling or even milling on your lathe where a DRO set to radius would be more useful.

Edited By Martin Connelly on 28/12/2021 12:45:14

You may find as I did that You might grow into using those other features. If You think adding another machine adds to Your bag of tricks, You might be surprised what a DRO can do. The time saving and reduction of errors is worth it. Ever miscount the number of turns to a position? It gives You more time to make other mistakes faster.

You might grow into those other features on a mill, but please enlighten me of the added advantages for the typical hobby lathe.

I have a 3-axis Machine-DRO system on my mill, and have not yet used more than its basic distance functions - but I know the others, like pitch-circles and radii-profiling, are there and accessible at careful reading of the (printed!) instruction-manual.*

A system made for a lathe may well have extras, but I doubt very much those include operations beyond the lathe's natural range.

So go ahead and buy one made for your lathe - if it has some magical extras that would have delighted Holtzappfel himself, so be it, but you won't lose anything by not using them.

===

*Kept nice and clean indoors - a photocopy or handwritten notes for grubby workshop use!

Difficult to pin down advantage on a lathe, but I wouldn't be without it now. Needs a qctp or indexing turret to make best use, then once you've set it up it massively reduces the amount of measuring

Thank you all for the advice. I have a mill that came from my late brother,s workshop that has a simple 2 axis glass tube DRO, and just wondered if there was a similar thing for a lathe. So, getting back to the all singing and dancing DRO,s, M-DRO and Sinpo seem to get decent reviews. What do you guy's use? And what should I stay away from.

I bought a machine DRO for my mill at the Alexander palace some years ago when there was an offer being made. Unfortunately I could only justify a 2 axis one - a mistake, I should have bought 3 axis.

18 months ago I saw a you tube article of a DRO at just over half the current price of the Machine DRO which I bought for my Warco lathe. I cannot immediately recall the make (Sino I think but do not quote) It is OK & has X & Y fuctions that I need, but the quality of the display is nowhere as good as the Machine DRO. I cannot work out how to get it calibrated to read accurately either, so I have problems getting accurate diameters.

So if I was recommending one for a milling machine I would say machine DRO every time. The instructions are mile easier to understand as well & the readout is spot on accurate straight out of the box.

If you are buying a cheaper model for a lathe then you get what you pay for

Edited By Sam Longley 1 on 29/12/2021 09:48:57

Is there a dro for a Myford that allows the use of the taper turning attachment, or does this feature need to be sacrificed to have a DRO on the Myford lathes. ?

After buying a SPG 2217 mill in 2016 I bought a Chinese 3 axis DRO off ebay and have had no issues at all with it and it's done a lot of work, infact the whole machine has been fault free. Once you get used to it you wonder how you managed without and don't worry about the features you don't understand or use...... you may one day.

I also bought a M-DRO set up for my very old Myford 7 which again has been fault free and it fitted perfectly and makes life so much easier.

Both of the above have been money well spent and you won't regret it.

Kind regards Colin

PS

Are SPG still trading?

Neil -

Mechanically, the only problem might be the two fittings fighting to occupy the same bit of lathe.

Lathe DROs normally measure saddle and cross-slide travels, not screw rotation, so there is no intrinsic reason why they cannot work with a conventional taper-turning attachment.

It would be worth asking if the control unit can display the taper as travels reduced to 1-in-x, or to angle - or both by a a key-stroke choice.

Even if not, it would be simple enough with a calculator, to test the taper set-up from the travel readings. Start the taper travel at (0,0) without cutting metal, stop at some convenient point then calculate the tool-path from that point's readings. It need not use the precise work-piece length at this stage.

My Myford ML7R has received a DRO using wire encoders instead of the usual linear scales with optical or magnetic encoders. I'm quite sure that installing these on a Super 7 is quite similar.

This arrangement allows the use of the taper turning attachment as well as the rear toolpost from behind. It also keeps the T-slots in the cross slide open. The workable distance between the lathe centers is only reduced by 1 cm.

Accuracy of the wire encoders is lower than the capacitative linear scales reaching 0,05 mm precision. Resolution is 0,005mm. However, that is largely acceptable for most lathe projects.

It is also possible to use TouchDRO with this arrangement, so the readout comes wireless on an Android tablet or smartphone. The TouchDRO program is freeware and gives you all working abilities such as drilling on circles a.s.o.

You can read the setup on the kmyca.be website. Sorry in Dutch, but the English version can be read in MEW magazine nr 305, july 2021.

I fitted a M-DRO to my S7 I'd often thought about fitting one but it was one of those thing one never gets around to do, then I was tempted by a 'few pounds off' for a 3 axis kit at the Midland Model Exb. To date I've not used many of the functions but those I have have proved to be most useful

H

Do You have a dial indicator mounted with a magnet near the chuck to use as a length gage? Do You have to stop and reposition it? Quicker to hit a button. Is there room for the indicator length of travel near the chuck? My Triumph does not have room. I have a collet setup on a 15" lathe and work close to the left hand side now and then. Any repetitive parts done where it would it would be nice to label them tool 1,tool 2, etc? Do You have a slightly worn cross slide screw? All remedied with a smarter than Me computer box.

Hello Mark,

I'm not quite sure all your questions refer to my forum post on the subject of wire encoders I sent today.

Anyway, using wire encoders, there is no dial indicator mounted, the X and Y lengths are measured in the wires' housing at the far end of the wire. There is no need to stop or to reposition as the wire measures continuously. There is ample room left near the chuck.

The readout is fixed on the front side of the lathes' cabinet. In case of an additional TouchDRO mount, the readout reads wireless on a tablet screen. The easiest way to see how the wire encoders are mounted is to look at the pictures on the link Myford DRO. You don't have to understand Flemish, the pictures will show you.

Even with a slightly worn cross slide screw, it would be possible to reposition at the exactly same spot, following the readout values.

Jacques

.

Thanks for that link, Jacques

For other readers, I will just mention that DeepL seems to do a good job of translating the text into English

… Simply ‘select all’ of the PDF and paste it in here: **LINK**

https://www.deepl.com/translate … it cleverly ignores the pictures

MichaelG.

You are welcome, MichaelG.

And for those wishing to use TouchDRO on the Myford 7 lathe, consult this link: TouchDRO and Myford

TouchDRO is a possible addition to the use of wire encoders, the DRO works fine without it, just using the HB961 as a basic readout.

However, tablets or smartphones working under Android systems have the advantage you can command the program just by touching the screen. The TouchDRO program offers much more possibilities. It is freeware, it even offers upgrades, hence your system will always been up to date.

Jacques

The reply was to Bruce P.

At the end of last year, I asked about a DRO to fit to my Myford. Thank you to all who gave advice. I have just got a DRO up and running. Many of you suggested a set up from Machine DRO. This was beyond my budget. In the end I got the read out from M-DRO, and Sino scales through Aliexpress from China, eventually! I ordered a slim K500 series for the cross slide which arrived in a little over two weeks. For the Z axis I ordered a more robust K300. this item got lost somewhere along the way and a refund made. I ordered another from a different seller. This one was not shipped in the specified time so Aliexpress cancelled the order and refunded my money. The third order went OK, and again it arrived in just over two weeks. This did mean that it took about nine weeks from placing the first order to actually getting one.

If you get one with the option to store a tool table and you have a QC toolholder, then being able to store tool offsets is incredibly useful once you get the hang of it. Just reference the DRO at switch-on, mount a tool, tell the DRO which one, and dial in the radius of diameter you want.