[GrizHFMinimill] Re: DRO question
I did the air-spring mod as well. I used some of the torsion spring mounting holes as mount points for the Z axis DRO. The sensor was mounted to the head and the scale was mounted on the column using some of the holes that were formerly used for that mostly-useless mechanical scale on the left side of the column.
I was able to mount all of the scales/sensors by adding just two new threaded holes on the left side of the saddle (for the Y axis). Everything else used preexisting holes.
For the displays, I made a holder that employs the magnets on the back -- they attach to a vertical steel strip, which, in turn, is secured to the bench.
The ability to quickly zero an axis is real handy for setting up work. Find an edge, zero, offset by the finder radius, zero again. Done. Of course, this can be done with the dials but you need to keep backlash in mind. The biggest advantages for me are (1) no more squinting at the dials (2) no more counting turns and (3) all the axis readouts are in one handy place.
While "real" DROs offer many bells & whistles like doing bolt circles etc., I can do much the same thing with a spreadsheet. Calculate the coordinates, drive the table there, do the task & move on to the next one. For the one-of things I do, I probably spend more time planning the job than executing it anyway, so it's no big deal to do it this way.
Mark
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Posted by: mark.kimball2@frontier.com
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