Fitting a 5 micron DRO to Myford ML7

[Dave HalfordParticipant @davehalford22513]

Posted by choochoo_baloo on 11/04/2022 16:15:16:

My question is, practically, do 5 micron read-heads matter for an ambitious ML7 user hoping to aim for sub 1 thou tolerance? (from time-to-time; not always!)

No

The DRO on a lathe does not tell you the size of the work piece, only the travel of the carriage or cross slide assuming a read head runs exactly parallel to the scale and the mountings are not flexing.

That then leaves tool deflection, tool height, head bearing wear, blah blah.

What they are good at is telling you when backlash has moved a supposedly clamped cutting depth and save having to count the number of turns on the carriage/leadscrew handwheel especially on lathes like mine that does not have either graduated. They also confirm that a spring cut is just that though only a mic can tell you if you should be taking one in the first place.

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