Re: questions on cheap DRO

The DRO-350 can use glass scales. The SMW and other "remote readout"
type DRO's cannot.
Commercial DROs use glass scales but do not support the Chinese
style scales.

At the Shumatech Yahoo Group, there is a member who owns a company
in California who imports "Jenix" brand glass scales. They are
superb quality and priced at a fraction of what Acu-Rite, Heidenhan,
or Mitutoyo scales of similar resolution sell for. The company is
Linear Measuring Systems Corp., and the propretor is "Tim". Again,
info is all available on the Yahoo group "Shumatech".

The DRO-350 is clearly worth the time and effort. Plus if you do not
wish to build it yourself, plenty of people will build it for you
for a reasonable amount. I build them for people all the time,
usually from parts I purchase, but also quite frequently for those
who buy the parts and then see the amount of work and level of
finesse required and decide they want to avoid the potential
complications.

But either way, the DRO-350 is still the best, most featured and
most versatile DRO you can buy for under $1000.

Tom



--- In CAD_CAM_EDM_DRO@yahoogroups.com, "digitalzeitgeist"
<digitalzeitgeist@...> wrote:

>
> I'm upgrading from the mill on my HF44142 3-in-1 to a new

mill/drill

> from industrial hobbies (30x/12y/5z travel), and want to put DRO on
> the new mill and maybe also later on the lathe part of the HF44142.
>
> I like the documentation/feature set for the Shumatech DRO-350,

but am

> not sure I'll need that much power, as I draw nearly everything I
> machine out in CAD, and can fairly easily have it print absolute
> coordinates around whatever point(s) of interest I choose.
>
> The 3-axis display that SMW sells on eBay looks fairly primitive
> (toggle/inch metric, zero each axis), but I'm wondering if it

wouldn't

> be enough and if not, couldn't I always just upgrade the display

part

> of it later to a DRO-350 (and maybe keep that somewhat limited SMW
> display for the lathe which I use less often/precisely than the

mill).

>
> Pricing difference between SMW chinese scale kit and DRO-350 with
> chinese scales (also from SMW) currently looks something like:
>
> SMW on eBay Shumatech
> Display & Cables 430 225
> 32" X Scale incl 192
> 12" Y Scale incl 44
> 5-6" Z Scale incl 40
> Shipping 8 8
> Total 438 509
>
> A few questions:
>
> 1. Can anyone comment on the question of functionality? I can

see

> how the additional functionality of the DRO-350s firmware would be
> useful if you didn't have dimensioned CAD drawings available, but

is

> it worth an additional $70 and the hassle of assembling the DRO-350
> from parts if you have proper drawings?
>
> 2. Does anyone know if the cables that SMW provides in their ebay

kit

> are plug and play compatible with the connectors used on the DRO-

350

> or if I upgrade later, would I have to buy/build new cables?
>
> 3. Also, is there someone that sells just the glass scales? I

don't

> need the extra precision for anything I'm doing now, but have been
> reading alot about homebrew EDM stuff which at somepoint I might

like

> to fool around with. If it only cost $100 or so more to upgrade

to

> glass scales with the DRO-350, I'd have to seriously consider it

just

> so I'd have them.
>
> 4. Are there any other cheap DRO solutions I don't know about

that

> work well?
>
> Thoughts, opinions???
>