Re: Inexpensive DRO's (was Shooting Star...was Sterling)

> > Here's another one, does anyone know anything about it? The brand
> > name is Escala II.
> >
> > cncmasters.com
> >

I have one of these escala units on a 2 year old jet mill. The
readout indicates a resolution of .0002 but in practice I have found
as much as .005 error. That is the kind of error you will not find on
a dro with glass scales.

These dro scales use a wire and a rotating encoder wheel. You must
calibrate these things youself! By that I mean you must go through a
process of making two measurments, and entering into the control a
corection factor. The instructions explain the process well, but it
is
cheesy.

On my unit ,before I instaled it, I ran the encoder module up and
down its length of travel and was not impressed by the ragged feel,
not smooth motion, as you would expect.

escala is fine for home shop use, but if you want .0002 then pay
for it.

Only two reasons I have the escala dro, it came with the mill, and
I, for the most part, only do home shop work. I would not purchase one
otherwise, and if I started to do work for pay, (ie the kind that
expect you to hold any preset tolerance) I would need to purchase a
new unit.


just my findings :)

andrew