DRO for mini lathe

[Fulmen]

On Fulmen Said:

On SillyOldDuffer Said:

Sorry to be a wet blanket, but is it worth the bother of fitting a DRO to a lathe at all?  Whilst hugely beneficial on a milling machine, they don’t add much value to a lathe.

I can’t in good conscience pass up an opportunity to disagree with you, Dave. I will agree that a DRO is more valuable on a mill, it’s not wasted on a lathe. Especially if you have a decent QCTP like the multifix.

Disagreeing with me is allowed!

As always the value of a tool depends on the type of work being done, and how much of it.

I mostly turn fairly short lumps of metal, where accurate diameter is more important than accurate length, and my production rate isn’t urgent.  I’m almost entirely metric, so the ability of a DRO to support unit conversions is low value.

The way I work doesn’t benefit from a lathe DRO, so I haven’t wasted time and money fitting one!

Similarly, most of my turning is done with carbide inserts, and these perform quickly and accurately without needing a QCTP.   A QCTP makes sense in an HSS shop, but as I only use HSS on special occasions, I haven’t wasted time and money fitting a QCTP.

Not difficult to imagine another Model Engineer working quickly on jobs that would benefit from a DRO and/or QCTP.

I questioned the DRO because I notice a fair number of newcomers start the hobby by rushing to accessorise their lathes.   My advice is to slow down!  Before flashing the cash, learn how to drive the machine and understand what it will be used for in your workshop first.   Then think about improvements.   A DRO and QCTP aren’t cheap, and plenty of other expensive tools will be needed by a beginner.  Engineers try hard not to waste money!

My flood coolant system was a mistake.  In practice I rarely cut enough metal in a session to justify setting it up and dealing with the mess.  Makes more sense for me to cut dry, splash with a brush, or set-up a dribble bottle.   Others might do enough cutting to justify flood cooling : I don’t!

Dave

 

 

[duncan webster 1Participant @duncanwebster1]

Whilst I agree that if you can only afford one buy a dro for your milling machine, I wouldn’t be without my QCTP and dro on the lathe. As an instance if you want to turn and part off multiple bits (ie more then one, but not necessarily all the same) once you’ve set the DRO so it reads out the diameter you don’t need to do any more measuring. Even with stepped components with more than one diameter.

 

[Paul McDonoughParticipant @paulmcdonough43628]

I bought my lathe pre-owned and it had a rudimentary DRO fitted. Being new back the the ‘sport’ after over 30 years layoff I set out using my traditional methods and didn’t touch the DRO other than to see if it needed new batteries because one of the displays stopped working.

However, with a new set of batteries installed, curiosity got the better of me and I started to experiment using the DRO and I was surprised at how accurate it was and that once I have taken a measurement off a face I could easily work through the various steps of making a part without withdrawing tools or the tailstock to make repeated confirmation measurements.

I didn’t fully trust it until I had to make 6 No. of the same intricate part, then the need justified the faith!

[FulmenParticipant @fulmen]

For me the two best arguments for a DRO is QCTPs and fixed Z-axis scales (which idiot came up with that one?). With a classic TP you have to re-zero for every tool change, so most of the benefits (other than simple readout) are lost. But I won’t argue against learning to work with scales and DRO’ing up the mill first.

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