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Need Help in selecting a DRO for Craftex CX 601 mill drill

Susquatch said:
My assessment of their safety space goes like this. The read head must he able to travel back and forth between the two end limits plus a wee little bit for installation errors. In machining terms, that means that the sum of the scale on both sides of the read head equals the full travel. In other words, the scale length isn't just the travel, it's the travel PLUS the length of the read head and its wipers. This extra length is what I came to believe Ditron called their safety space. Obviously, it varies with the read head dimensions.

In practice, you need a little more than that to avoid installation problems. I just added another centimeter on both ends because I knew that would fit. In hind sight I might have added 5cm if I had the room because I did end up close to the end in one case. Besides, magnetic scales are easy to trim.
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Just to re-state how I handled it, the scale length I gave them is the machine travel plus my fudge factor. What they produce for scale travel is that number (LO) PLUS their own Safety Space. The physical (overall) length of the scale can be calculated from their drawings using the "LO+XX" dimension.

Susquatch said:
Although my memory might be failing me, I never had the sense that they had month end numbers to hit. But I did get the sense that they had quarter end targets. If they volunteered that to Tecnico, I'd be thrilled - and maybe pissed that I didnt already order my lathe system at the end of January. I've been aiming at March 31st. But such is the way these things go.
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I remembered what you said as month end after they mentioned they wanted to close the deal by month end so they probably have month end and quarterly etc. goals or so they say. They may use it as a tactic to close the deal!;)

Susquatch said:
Another little piece of info. I got a small strip of Aikron magnetic scale from @Xyphota a while back. I plan to install it on the inside of my cross slide so I don't need to worry about damaging the scale with flying swarf or the tailstock or about any lost travel of the carriage. Ditron wanted too much coin for their scale and wouldn't sell it without the aluminium carrier. My system is the slim scales. The Aikron is smaller still by quite a bit. It does work with my Ditron system, but I had to set the resolution to 1/2 micron to get the right output. Something is funny there but it does work and does repeat.
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I did the math and the price turned out better to buy the tape/head from Ditron. They gave me the smallest of their 1um heads for that and the quill mag scale. I'm thinking of reducing the bulk by using the tape on the quill too. Oh, I couldn't find the tape on the Ditron web site, I tripped over it on AliEx. It's also 10mm wide so it should install like the Aikron tape

D :cool:
 
Ontarioal said:
Tecnico Thank you very much this what I needed to get educated in DRO selection
Most excellent post
Cheers
Al
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I went with I-Gaging EasyView DROs on my mill. They seem to be 10% off at the moment.
I have had them on the mill for more than a year without any problems.
X and Y axis DRO cost me $110.

Metrology technology is advancing, there may be a better system next year.
 

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Susquatch said:
I don't suppose you have a link for that?
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Ask and ye shall receive!

AliEx/Ditron Tape Scale Page

Not cheep though, $544 for 3 channels. My cost was $CDN147 for 2m of tape and a read head. Strangely, I got the same read head with a mag scale for $113 for my quill.

EDIT: They have brochure and catalog info on their Ditron Download Page Just to note not everything is in the catalog.....but it turns out that the tape is!

D :cool:
 
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David_R8 said:
Whatever you buy look for a LCD graphical display. Makes setting up things like bolt circles really easy.
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LCD not LED? A nice screen with diagrams etc? Sounds better than led to me. Links or examples David?
 
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@Janger @David_R8 .

All kinds of different generations of LED and LCD.

I think what David meant is a graphics display so you can do bolt circles and arrays, not just digits.
 
David_R8 said:
Are LEDs able to do a graphical display?
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Of course! They even have LED televisions and monitors now!

But they are not your daddy's LEDs anymore. Neither are the LCDs! Both have evolved. They are both your grandson's LCDs and LEDs now! Who knows, maybe one day soon we will be buying new CRTs again!
 
Susquatch said:
Of course! They even have LED televisions and monitors now!

But they are not your daddy's LEDs anymore. Neither are the LCDs! Both have evolved. They are both your grandson's LCDs and LEDs now! Who knows, maybe one day soon we will be buying new CRTs again!
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Uh, LED tv's are just LED backlights instead of CFL on an LCD display panel. OLED is the fancy one where the pixels themselves emit light rather than regular LCD where the pixels block light from the backlight.
 
SomeGuy said:
Uh, LED tv's are just LED backlights instead of CFL on an LCD display panel. OLED is the fancy one where the pixels themselves emit light rather than regular LCD where the pixels block light from the backlight.
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I was trying to avoid all the technicalities. I contemplated adding a link to someplace that described them all, then abandoned the idea cuz there are WAAAAY too many varients. I just didn't want to quibble over whether an OLED is a LED, or whether IPS, TN, and VA are LCDs. I don't like rabbit holes even if there is a white one in front of me.

The main point is that all the new ones are graphic displays not segments like the original LCDs and LEDs.
 
David_R8 said:
I changed my original post to be more clear that I meant a graphical display.
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Not sure your edit really helped David. Did you actually post the change?

Bottom line is that the original post prolly should not have mentioned LED or LCD. The originals of both of these technologies were just segment displays. If you just say graphical display its more clear that the unit can display more than just numbers letters and symbols. As we all know, there are a lot of DRO displays still out there that do not have graphical displays. And I agree with you. They were fine in their day but I really like what a graphical display can do. It was a very nice improvement.
 
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