I've been happy with my DRO from them. 5 micron will do unless you are making things to extremly fine limits in temperature controlled workshop, may people even turn of the last digit and work happily to 10microns (0.01mm)

I have my scale on the back and only lost about 5mm of Y movement. Travel stops for the power feed can then be fitted to the front slot

I can't praise enough Machine DRO for customer support although it was related to the lathe rather than the mill. I have 3 axis magnetic scales on the mill and 2 axis on the lathe. I found them easy to fit and far less bulky than the glass ones. I would also agree with Jason 5 microns is more than adequate for most model engineering, in my case often the nearest 0.5mm but they do make hitting it much easier. Wouldn't want to be without them.

Regards

Martin

I used digital scales from Arc on my Naerok, cut to length and under custom metal covers. No scale for Z axis, but I have one for the quill. 0.01mm resolution, and still catalogued.

I used M-DRO three times for work – 2 installations using a basic 2 axis display with one (Harrison lathe) using glass scales and the other (Tool pre-setter) using magnetic scales + another single axis basic counter with a magnetic slide unit on a large belt sander table.

The Harrison installation was a replacement for a failed Anilam display & was cheaper than getting a replacement head unit for the Anilam. The pre-setter was a replacement for two failed independant capacitive readouts. The belt sander was replacement for a capacitive readout that really didn't get along with graphite dust.

The only "issues" I had were calibrating the magnetic scales – one was mounted directly on an aluminium extrusion, the other on a stainless steel bar in place of the Trimos capacitive scales & neither read accurately when checked with slip gauges as installed, requiring use of the linear calibration feature in the head unit. This was a "do it once" requirement, so not really a problem. The head unit did fail to start up after a lengthy period of disuse once, but an e-mail to M-DRO got the issue sorted promptly (there was a "hidden" reset button ). The magnetic scale on th belt sander occasionally mis-read due to build-up of fine metallic dust on the scale (some man-made graphite has iron filings in the mix to increase strength) – easliy cured with a puff of compressed air.

For home use I have a Chinese Jingce 3 axis head unit & 5 micron glass scales for my FB2 clone milling machine. Only had it rigged up off the machine to make sure that it worked on arrival so far. I went this route because it was around half the price of an M-DRO equivalent & my pockets are not as deep as my former employer ! Time will tell if that was a false economy.

WRT resolution – the basic Heidenhain two axis systems used by Bridegport on manual turret mills were 10 micron resolution. Can't recall anyone suggesting that these were not adequate, so 5 micron should be more than adequate for a basic mill.

Nigel B.

I have done 4 machines so far with magnetic scales from Mdro and EMS and all work really well, have also fitted cheap scales and read outs to a sherline mill and they work as well (bracketed was a bit of a nightmare). As people have said before it gives greater confidence and also speeds up the process.

Many thanks this looks very helpful, P.McD

Will do thank you, P.McD

Thank you for your your advice.