Noooooo 😊. The hacksaw is his brand and I personally find it very relaxing. In the meantime I cut materials by hand (also using hand shears and such), I am able to reflect about the project and I am not bothered by excessive noise. Also, it's a formidable way to get in touch with other workers, if you are happening to work in a facility or factory. People love handwork!
Dro's are a-ma-zing. I just started using a milling table with dro and it's like I can do the milling work in half the time. I also feel so much more secure about my decision when starting the cut, because I can rely on the position. Makes the work so much more fun.
To change the cross slide to read in diameter instead of radius go into settings and find the Y axis and change it's scaling to 10 microns vs 5 microns if you have 5 micron scales on there.
@@martinchabot_FR half works for finding center on a milling machine. Changing the scale to 10 microns half's the travel of the cross slide so you read diameter.
@@martinchabot_FR changing the scale to 10 microns in settings is also a one time setting so the DRO stays in diameter mode, that's all it does if the DRO has a lathe mode. The scales are the same and the sensor still only reads the scale the same.
@@OmeMachining it is, read the manual. I have the same sino knockout on my lathe. In lathe mode, you setup axis either in R (0) or D(1) in the setup. Then press 1/2 to switch axis setup in R to read in D. There is a little icon on the third display when switching. In mill mode it's for halving display for center finding.
I added these exact same kits to my lathe and mill about 2 years ago! They have performed perfecly with no problems what so ever. I paid slightly less back in 2021 but you will love the difference they will make in machining parts! Thanks for posting and take care!
I fitted the same DRO to my mill a while ago, the scales were too long, but I found that they can be shortened to fit properly. you just have to be a bit careful when taking the glass scale out to cut it, apart from that it's fairly easy really. By the way, I'm nearly finished upgrading the motor on my mill to a 3ph, 3hp motor, following your lead, seeing your video inspired me to get on and do it. Thanks, keep up the good work, and thanks for sharing. :)
Thank you for this, I have nearly the same set up and while I’ve been distracted with other things, I still have to figure out how to resolve each of the same problems on the cross slide that you just did. This video was invaluable to me and thank you for posting it! I’m also glad you pointed out that the glass scale was above the gib adjustment screws. to me that means I just have to go and replace my screws as they have thumb tabs on them. If I change them into an Allen style, then I can get in underneath the glass scale with a key and be fine.
Looks great. DROs are very useful. I have a small lathe too. I installed a DRO too and now I can get way way way better parts to a very precise dimension. Well done in this new upgrade to your lathe. 👍👍👍
Thanks for the video, it inspired me to get my DRO working properly. I had a similar issue to yours regarding the radius/diameter. I found that my scales had different resolutions. The way they were setup and installed (by the supplier) constantly caused my reading and cuts with the cross slide to be in error. Once I got that sorted, I was able to reconcile the DRO to an indicator within a couple of tenths. Thanks again.
Sorry to suggest some changes after all your work, but I can strongly recommend the SINO KA500 1um digital glass scales, at least for the cross-slide. 1um (2um in diameter) is very helpful, and the KA500 has a thinner body and readhead than the usual scales so it doesn't use up so much space. Also, in my experience mounting the scales to the left side of the cross-slide is better since you can then move the tailstock further to the left, which I often need to do. You can mount the KA500 90 degrees from the way you have it to reduce its impact on space between the spindle and the cross-slide. Magnetic scales can easily have 1um resolution, but beware the accuracy. If you look at the datasheets for the readheads you see that there are periodic errors that reduce the absolute accuracy considerably. I don't have the numbers with me. Anyway, great channel! And if you have a need for a power hacksaw as a donation, get in touch.
Bet he has no travel left on the tailstock ram with that lot in the way. Lost 7mm on mine and your right 5 micron are pretty useless for even threading think it was of the order inaccuracy/repetition 0.11mm. 1 micron now after the 5 micron packed up 4 years back can now get repetition within 0.03mm which still isnt fantastic but liveable. Far better than Quick Change toolpost repetition.
I have the same lathe as this guy and installed my DRO slide to the left of the carriage but realised it was useless as it clashed with the chuck jaws when working close to the chuck.
Ive just done the same install on a little optimum TU 2004, but with the ToAuto LCD DRO. The cross slide can only get diameter/radius function on the X axis, mine is the same. Sometimes, with the different glass scale resellers, the plugs can be wired up differently. They usually have a diagram to check. Great vid👍👌🇦🇺
Especially with a small mill, the DRO was freedom to larger cuts. I've used the bolt hole circle function to cut circles in things, circles of like 4 inch diameter on my micro mill to get up to half a rotation. The center function, depth scale, just everything freed up my brain from the hard thinking to make things. I've used it with CAD to plot complex curves based on plunging a mill at the desired coordinate. If I had a Lathe, a DRO would be one if the first things I'd add, even if it didn't really make better parts.
I'm an old mechanic. My machinist buddy passed away. So on a recent motorcycle project I needed some work done and the guy I found just sold me the machine. It worked out nice, but now here I am. Starting from scratch with a cool old 3 in 1 machine. I need everything.
I agree with the comnents on x/y orientation. L/R for the x axis is universal in most other situation, even when reading graphs. If I had a DRO on my lathe, I would definately have the carriage as the x axis.
Great project! 👍 I was going to suggest maybe it wont read radius because it is expecting the radius to be the X axis, but then you said you tried swapping the axes so that's probably not it, unless I misunderstood. The DRO designers would have expected X to be the cross slide and have the radius on X.
I just read, a comment. It pertains (assuming you purchased a decent DRO system) it's your system settings. Each reader X - Y axis is set properly. Putting one your Lathe, it will make your life easier. When I finally buy a better Mill, it will be included. Good luck with your installation.
Magnetic scales might attract small iron dust and falsify the readout by a tiny bit. Optical readouts on the other hand may falsify the readout by getting dirty or oily. A combination of both would be able to detect a problem of this kind. When one of them mismatches, they need cleaning.
To properly setup the DRO for radius/diameter readout: Enter setup (. at startup) Select Lathe mode Set R or D: axis to switch between R/D must be 0, other to 1 Exit the setup. Now by default the axis is in radius, if you want to switch to diameter, press 1/2, this will show a small sign in the upper left readout. This is the same key that is used to halve an axis readout in mill mode. Being able to switch to radius useful for some operation like grooving.
He's Australian, because of the upside down issues in the southern hemisphere, you have to reverse right and left. For proof, you may notice we drive on the left side of the road too.
Timely video, I have a DRO kit sitting on the shelf for my lathe I need to install. The reason I need it is because my lathe has imperial screws with a dodgy brothers metric conversion on the dials, Apparently the chinese think 1 thousands of an inch is equal to 2.5 hundreds of a mm.... so the reading on the dial bears no resemblance to actual metric values the more you turn it. So not only do I have the dodgy distance per turn the same as you do, but the values incorrect anyway.
The backlash can be minimised by either slitting the nut a few threads from the end to halfway through the threaded hole then remount and fit grub screw to table above the slit and adjust till its firm, some machines have these in place already, backlash is a pain in the proverbial
Hi Watch all your videos Live NSW Just a hobbyist as I have retired from the motor industry Bought my lathe and mill from Hare and Forbes Have a question. How do you turn the beeps on and off on the DRO??? Regards Greg
when i munted the dro on my lathe i made an exention and mounted it behind the crosslide,so it's not in the way at all,i made a longer bracket for the scale itself and a shorter for the sensor,screw'd the longer bracket to the bottom of the slide,and the shorter to the carriage itself,so the entire thing is hanging out on the rear of the lathe- was worried about how this affected the accuracy,but i made the brackets very sturdy so it works great,also read the manual thorogly-i bet that there is a setting for switching from radius to diameter and vice verse-on mine i have to hold down one button for like 5 secounds
i installed the 3 axis on my lathe a few months ago. Tailstock DRO is a game changer. I couldn't get it in dia mode either. I am going to try the 10 micron trick.
Best upgrade I did on my myford 😀 I have my axis swapped compared to you maybe that’s why the diameter mode doesn’t work? but as long as it works for you 😀
Hi, I’m just reestablishing my lathe and installing a dro that I brought 10years ago. It is the same class of dro that you have. Just wanted to reach out regarding diameters mode, the 1/2 button in lathe mode should result in the display on x axis being doubled to give you diameter. Is can be switched back and forth during use without changing dro setup. The resolution of the scales should be set to their actual resolution. I have worked out all the features of the dro including the tool offset library which is a bit counter intuitive until it clicks. I am going to make up a document that shows the calculation path from scales to display so I know which settingings impact what. Naturally you are cool to set your machine up how you want but I’m happy to share my experience with these import dro. They all seem to run the same software, and the manual is not terribly useful. (P.s. I took my DrO apart just this weekend and was very impressed with the quality inside. Inexpensive but not junk)
I'm not a lathe guy but I would think that you can't set Y to diameter mode is because X is supposed to be part radius/diameter and Y is supposed to be length (designated as Z on all DROs in lathes at my work). Have you treid using X as part diameter and Y as length?
Many people have " cut " the cheapo glass scales..take them apart, score the glass with a scribe and snap it..standard glass cutter works too..as they aren't made of tempered glass..
@@artisanmakes a diamond wheel on a rotary tool is probably the best way..just cut straight thru the aluminum housing and glass at once..as the glass is glued in the aluminum and would need you to cut the aluminum housing off to get to the glass scale..doubtful there's a dedicated video on the subject but I've seen it done in many DRO install videos just as part of the video..I'd go with the diamond wheel method myself..cheers..
Ill second the diamond wheel on the Dremel, just make sure to set up a water drip so it is constatly wet and cold. Otherwise glass tends to crack from thermal issues.
Nope, just chop them off with the miter saw with an aluminium blade. That’s how I did it. Some pics here : ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-TP1H_RHtCK4.html
13:29 if you mounted the scale with the opening pointing down and the read head either in the middle opening or behind the bed, you wouldn't need the cover and also lose less for the tailstock. It would stick up a bit but I think the compound it tall enough to swing and clear it
The micrometer dials on a lathe need a good oiling. Looks like your after finer increment. Nothing better than a measure twice micrometer dial. DRO are Christmas tree decorations, have been around for 50yrs. It's all about how fast you can do the job. Without hurting yourself. 😅
You may find, as I have (many years ago) that an extension for the tail stock ( which I admit does wobble) but gives a bit more travel over the carriage bed for drilling. The one big downfall of the rear mounted scale.
X and Z are normally the axis designations on a lathe. So your X is correct and your DRO only has Y which would normally be Z. So its actually correct if I understood your explanation right.
diameter mode on my ToAuto is only available as X i believe. i went through the same thing recently. give it a quick test. i just drew arrows next to X0 and Y0 when i flipped them.
Hi, and thanks for your useful video! Just a question (I'm an absolute turning beginner...) So, most of the time I keep the compound cross-slide perfectly aligned to Z axis, and use its handle for small Z movements, finding it more precise and smooth than the Z handwheel, but doing so I would defeat the Z reading, right? So it looks like when in DRO mode I should refrain from using the cross slide Z displacement, is it so? Thank you!
Actually does a glass scale require good mounting accuracy. A magnetic on the other hand isn't that critical.... But it all depends on how long you want it to last ☺️. For a hobbyist 'OK' is good enough ☺️
Hey mate, thinking of getting into machining but I don't want to annoy my neighbours. Any tips on noise cancelling or dampening for a workshop/garage. Thanks, and awesome video!
Got the same unit. Skipped through the video. Normally X is the diameter / radius when we do lathes. Z (or in this case Y) is the distance from the spindle. Does anyone know how to do the tooling. My book says 'CALL' button but like yours mine says 'CAL'. Blondihacks has the same unit (named precision matthews) but that has the CALL button. Would love to be able to use the tooling offsets.
i don;t know how you do the hacksaw thing. i tried lastnight on a piece of meduim level cold rolled steel and after 10 min. i was whooped and only 1.2" in on a 2.5" round stock. so i got out the chop saw and went at it.
Did you mean you’ll usually be coming in from the right and machining toward the left? i.e. machining toward the chuck so feed pressures are pushed in toward the spindle … Or is there some nuanced point of view that I’m missing that makes machining from the left to the right the norm?
I use a 3 axis on my lathe. A glass scale on the saddle, and magnetic scales on the cross and compound slide. The magnetic scales are a little more expensive, but small enough to not even notice. _(about 10mm high, 25mm deep, 20mm wide. and the magnetic tape it reads from just looks like a piece of stainless about 10mm wide, 3mm thick)_ And the best thing about using the 3 axis, is that you can put it into lathe mode, and it will count the glass scale on the saddle, and the magnetic scale on the compound as one scale. So if you move the compound slide, the saddle readout will account for it, and vice versa.
Magnetic DRO's I am told can be complete messed ùp when useing a magnet base with clock gauge, not tried it myself but apparently this powerful magnet base destroys magnetism in the DRO strip???
I have only recently started using a lathe again, after a very long time off it, and the DRO is a Godsend. The lathe I am using is an old Colchester lathe that came out of a TAFE, and when you stop the machine and restart it, the Z axis can jump by as much as .3mm without touching anything. If it wasn't for the DRO I might be plowing into my material. I would have never picked this up without the DRO to tell me what was going on.
I could not figure out how to get my new DRO on the lathe to read out in diameter [made to be utilized on either a mill or lathe], so I got my wife to read the manual and figure it out.
You don't need the extension for the cross-slide. You can shorten the scale. I don't know if that works with every scale but i've already done it years ago.
On my lathe the dial markings did not even match the tread pitch of the screw on the crosslide... it had one less number mark on the dial than the treadpitch was per revolution. So a DRO was such and upgrade.
Why not mount the cross slide DRO the other way, with the scale on the carriage and the reading head on the slide? Also on my machine I mounted the scale on the front, but that brings some other issues. Like I have just some digital caliper style scales and the one for the cross slide already looks pretty bad from hot chips hitting it. Also hard to read when it's under the work piece most of the time, but on the other hand I still keep access to the locking lever, gib adjustment and have space for the tailstock.
Nice job. On my lathe..... I Take the end cap off and take the head out. Then cut the aluminum first so that the glasscale can been seen. I put some paper inside so that the glass gritt stays out of the aluminum scale. I used then a rotary tool with diamond cutter to make a groove into the glasscale. After that i could brake the scale easy. With dry air blow al the glass grit out. Mount every thing together and we are done. When the cross slide go's in, the DRO reads in the plus. When the cross slide go's to the left the DRO reads also in the plus.
You can easily cut the glass scales down to size too, I hacksawed through mine then carefully snapped the glass off at the cut using pliers. Then drill and tap some holes into the scale body to re-mount the end piece, I think it was m2.
You can’t do the X and Y the way you did . Because the dro has also a Diameter mod. But the diameter mod works just on the “X” axis on ToAuto dro . I Have also a couples of those . They changed the the internals it may be a little different now DRO China ToAuto Radius to Diameter lathe, direct reading mode, digital readout ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-NoQ9RhGFpxI.html
Neither of the axis seem to be able tp double in lathe mode. I said i flipped the leads to check that and for whatever reason the radius and diameter setting seems to be ignored in lathe mode. I checked this morning and I am at a bit of a loss. I just going to stick with how I have it now and I can work around the few settings that are slightly different with it in mill mode
I came to these comments with just one thing to say - why don't you have a bandsaw - and then saw that this was the running theme of your comments lol....
The etchings on the glass scale won't be 5 microns, they're much larger. Through ingenious measurement techniques they arrive at 5 micron measurement resolution.
I haven't seen the full Video yet. But I've seen the premise. I have learned and earned the qualification as a lathe operator in the 90ties... the late 90ties, given it was 1998. I have learned on a manual Lathe and a manual mill WITHOUT ANY DRO. As you're operating the manual lathe or mill - your first move is ALWAYS away from the workpiece. You can feel the backlash in the gear. Once you approach your workpiece, you set your zero on a scratch-pass in the direction, you're gonna work in. And this is your reading. You never move out or backwards in a cut - you only go in the direction you need to go. you could go backwards plenty of times, but never if the reversed direction is a cut. If the direction reverses, you need a new zero. How is this any complicated or new these days? You kids are snowflakes. Those machines aren't any bad or worse than modern ones. I could turn you a H5 press passing on a lathe 90 years old. Those were hyper precise machines. But you gotta know them.
Are you complaining that someone is using technology to do better work? Who's the _real_ snowflake? I hope you don't answer me with a computer, after all, a pen and paper works just fine.
I need a computer to even see your answer. But I don''t need a Computer to substract a 1/10mm on a part in my lathe. Because I know my lathe. Even 1 /100 is accomplishable. But Its work. @@DH-xw6jp
