Aftermarket Mill DRO

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Ron LaDow
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Location: San Francisco

Aftermarket Mill DRO

#1 Post by Ron LaDow »

Anyone fitted an aftermarket (low-end) DRO to a vertical mill? Looks like ~$200 gets you .0005" accuracy in two axis, assuming the mounts are not wiggling around. Like computers, that is a hell of a price reduction over the past several years. There are numerous brands, but they all look like the same manufacture offered with 'badge-engineering' by numerous marketing outfits.
On paper, it *looks* like I've got some good solutions for the mounting hardware but before a lot of holes get drilled and a lot of metal gets cut, any comments would be well appreciated.
And, totally off-topic: Ended up seated next to a guy last night who works at Boeing Aerospace; they do the payloads, not the vehicles. They are now '3-D printing' Ti! To finished dims!
I did not know that, and no, there is no way PreMat could provide the space for the operation or even afford the software to run it, for pete's sake!
I do try to keep up...
Ron LaDow
www.precisionmatters.biz

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Harlan Halsey
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Re: Aftermarket Mill DRO

#2 Post by Harlan Halsey »

Ron,
Why not take in the Tool Show at the Santa Clara Convention center this month? And maybe a check out a 2 axis CNC with a zero backlash mod to the Bridgeport. I couldn't believe what a difference the DRO made, not because of accuracy but because of no backlash and no counting turns. I'd have added the 2 axis CNC except that I have a good friend who has that set up, and I don't want to spend my time programming one off parts.

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Ron LaDow
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Re: Aftermarket Mill DRO

#3 Post by Ron LaDow »

Harlan,
I need no convincing of the advantages; I was hoping someone could describe a way to make it easier. I counted 40 turns, plus the .075" for the Y-axis mounting bar today, once for the drill and then once more for the co'bore.
Given my day job at Pre Mat, it should be no surprise that I'm just now hoping to finish the Y-axis scale and reader mounts this weekend. But I am REALLY looking forward to reading that scale.
Ron LaDow
www.precisionmatters.biz

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Dan Kalinski
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Location: Pacific Northwest

Re: Aftermarket Mill DRO

#4 Post by Dan Kalinski »

Take a look at this YouTube video:

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/FcnjH20oB50" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe>

Also, go to DROPRO on YouTube. Videos there are about 5 years old but applicable. There are many videos on UTube on the subject.

Best of luck.

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