Options for a simple DRO on a tables saw

[KT_NorCal]

Hi There,
I've got a 1979 Wadkin Bursgreen AGS10 table saw that I'm trying to finish up restoring and one of the things I would like to do is add a simple DRO to it. The kicker is it has a fantastic fence, but the basic table saw focused DRO set-ups out there won't really work with it given how it works. My goal has been to find some sort of magnetic tape based (simple) DRO that would allow me to do a custom install on the fence. For this it sort of needs three basic features:
1. has a small-ish remote reader (or remote display depending on how you look at it) that allows the display to be mounted onto the top of the fence separate from the reader (wire connection is fine).
2. The display/reader would need an option to be battery powered (DC connection could work... would just be a hassle).
3. The reader would need to be able to read off of a magnetic strip it was either in contact with or a few mm of.

It would be nice if it had the ability to set a zero by running a board through and then inputing a direct measurement. Proscale does this and iGauging does as well (I think).

Anyway, I've searched around and only found:
1. Wixey
2. Pro-scale
3. iGauging

I would be interested to hear if anyone has done something similar and/or if you have heard of any other options. Of the three iGauging seems to have the most possibility, but is still not ideal so just looking for ideas!

Thank you!

 

[specfab]

These guys are one of the best in terms of product quality.

Product A-9763-0050, RTLA30-S linear encoder tape scale (30 µm scale pitch, for RESOLUTE™ readheads)

Buy a 0.5 m length of RTLA30-S Renishaw absolute encoder scale online from the Renishaw web shop. Purchase direct from Renishaw with fast delivery.

www.renishaw.com

 

[KT_NorCal]

These guys are one of the best in terms of product quality.

Product A-9763-0050, RTLA30-S linear encoder tape scale (30 µm scale pitch, for RESOLUTE™ readheads)

Buy a 0.5 m length of RTLA30-S Renishaw absolute encoder scale online from the Renishaw web shop. Purchase direct from Renishaw with fast delivery.

www.renishaw.com

Yup, pretty familiar with Renishaw... definitely a bit much for this sort of thing I'm guessing given I only need accuracy in some level of fractions. Plus would still have to find a electronic display/reader for it!

Did find these in further research today:

Electronic display MA503/2

Electronic display MA503/2 ✓ Max. display accuracy 10 μm or 1/64 inch ✓ Repeat accuracy max. ±0.01 mm ✓ Low-power LCD with decimal and fraction-inch function ✓ Reading distance ≤2 mm

www.siko-global.com

 

[memphisjed]

Touchdro? The Bluetooth scale to phone/tablet dro.

TouchDRO

TouchDRO

www.touchdro.com

 

[KT_NorCal]

Touchdro? The Bluetooth scale to phone/tablet dro.

TouchDRO

TouchDRO

www.touchdro.com

Hmmm. Interesting. The controller box might make it unfeasible though. I'll have to look into it further.

 

[stoneaxe]

I looked into this one time- delta did have a mag tape and reader for a saw years ago-
I bought one but never put it on- ended up giving it to a friend.

Is this just for general purpose or is there a specific reason for the DRO?

 

[Dan from Oakland]

I always thought the scales on a Biesemeyer fence were good enough for just about anythng being cut from trees.

 

[KT_NorCal]

I looked into this one time- delta did have a mag tape and reader for a saw years ago-
I bought one but never put it on- ended up giving it to a friend.

Is this just for general purpose or is there a specific reason for the DRO?

General purpose. The fence is great... very rigid and set up in a way that integrating a DRO into it might work well if I can find the right bits.

Also, frankly is an interesting challenge that would be useful to have on the saw.

 

[KT_NorCal]

I always thought the scales on a Biesemeyer fence were good enough for just about anythng being cut from tree

Not an untrue statement...and the same could be said about a basic tape measure, but sort of not the point of my original question.

 

[wood2steel]

KT, I can see the interest stirred with the idea for the table saw. I did the same some 30 yrs ago, but finally realized the fine dust especially high rosin content woods, would eventually lead to issues with the readers. As Dan said, the Biesemeyer has served us well! I have used iGauging units on the big Powermatic planers here for yrs with good success, but you're only dealing with large wood chips on these machines and not the powder dust. Can't hurt to give it a run and see what happens!
Btw; You've got a fine Machine there by Wadkin!!

 

[gustafson]

The various options are so cheap [sub 100 bucks] it is virtually not worth worrying about. Buy one use it, kill it, repeat
My Jet Lock is usually right on the fly poop so that does me.

 

[richard newman]

Funny to have a woodworking forum on a machinist's site, the tolerance decimal point is one over from metal, or two for grinding! That being said, some of us do try to work as accurately as possible, whether it's necessary or not, including me.

I have a dial indicator on my resaw fence, and I use my calipers to get +/- .002" on the planer and widebelt sander. Should put a DRO on those...

 

[hanermo]

Any of the chinese stuff resellers dro will be fine.
Just protect it somewhat from excess dust.

Some may have an extra large display dro -- and you could probably mix/match, as the dro is generally a simple +/- multi-channel counter getting fed via quadrature encoder outputs, usually 3-channel.

Quad encoder outputs are the std cheap output any optical encoder gives out.

(these days, at 1/10 the price before)
You basically get rising and falling signal for 2 lines, the lines are called a and b.
So its a+, a-, b+, b-.
Thats why it´s called quadrature, 4 signals.

Some encoders and servos may have differential signals, but it´s basically the same with an extra +/- for each signal to cut down on electrical noise.
So the a signal line can have an a+ and an a- line for a differential output.

The why is that it´s easy and cheap to make optical gratings with tilted diagonal lines.
This means that an optical grating with say 0.05 mm can actually reliably register 4 counts inside the 0.05 mm line, giving an effective reading of about 0.05/4 == 0.0125.
A decent optical encoder.. 50 $

https://www.digikey.at/en/products/detail/cui-devices/AMT203-V/2278846

These days the gratings are very tight and uniform and 0.005 mm or 0.001 mm scales are easily and cheaply available.

The signal from a rotary optical encoder is the same as from a linear scale encoder. Generally.
So You get ab, +/-, 4 lines, 5V power, +/-, or 24V+,-, and gnd.

A generic encoder reader counter at 50$ will show you the counts of a quad-signal input, be it rotary or linear (magnetic cheap scales) or optical sacles.

For woodwork ..
any generic basic dro like igaging will work just fine.
Try to protect it from excess dust via bellows of your choice.
Over time, trending perhaps 5 years, the fine wood dust is likely to choke and or wear your scales.

Some of the best guys in the world working with vmcs and tool grinding or carbon fiber have more or less come to understand they need to replace the linear ways every 5 years, no matter what.

 

[winger]

Becoming a machinist had a bad effect on my woodworking satisfaction Yeah I use a caliper now, and the next day it changes size.
I made a graduated collar for my planer. Gotta keep reminding myself, appearance more than accuracy.

Dave

 

[wesg]

Considering the vintage of the saw, how about a Trav-a-dial?

 

[Pattnmaker]

Bought a wixey quite a few years ago largely for the ability to use it incrementally and get better accuracy. Incremental was largely for a customers whose one off jobs often had patterns of various saw and dado cuts. Not sure accuracy was much or any better due to the flexibility of the mount. I think I pulled it off after catching on the joint between the scales and haven't missed it.
Planer doesn't have any scales at all but I know 1 revolution of the wheel is 3mm. If thickness is important measure after the first cut and last cut before final thickness. Easy to get within .010" with 2 or 3 measurements. Closer is usually either cnc or disc sander to final thickness.

 

[Brian]

We produce DRO parallel fences and flipstops for certain European sliding table saws, Felder, Martin, SCMI. We use DRO components from Fiama, from Italy. Magnetic tape and small battery powered display units in a couple of varieties. You can see the stuff at my website, lambtoolworks.com and I usually have a few options of displays and magnetic banding in stock.

Your only big issue I see is the inputing a specific size. These units can be zero'd and even add a specific offset that's programmed, but as to inputing numbers, they won't do that.

 

[KT_NorCal]

We produce DRO parallel fences and flipstops for certain European sliding table saws, Felder, Martin, SCMI. We use DRO components from Fiama, from Italy. Magnetic tape and small battery powered display units in a couple of varieties. You can see the stuff at my website, lambtoolworks.com and I usually have a few options of displays and magnetic banding in stock.

Your only big issue I see is the inputing a specific size. These units can be zero'd and even add a specific offset that's programmed, but as to inputing numbers, they won't do that.

Hi Brian,
Thank you for the feedback. I had found the fiama and Siko components while searching and they did look like they came the closest to what I'm looking for component-wise (spendy though). The one thing the fiama didn't seem to do that at least one version of the Siko did was to have a fractional display capability which kind of would be a nice to have as that is the reality of the accuracy you are really looking at (most of the time anyway). Neither of their websites is hugely informative as far as piecing a solution together, so when I get closer I'll need to try and reach out to them and see what they say.

That "input a specific size" functionality is really just a nice to have... one of the other off the shelf saw DRO solutions has that and it makes a lot of sense from a quick set-up and ease of use standpoint, but is not a deal killer. If you have a professional connection with Fiama you may want to put in a good word for fractional reader output and that feature. Given the firmware they are probably running it probably is a super easy ad-on for them. Siko uses a semi-conversational software that should be easy for them to adapt as well (if they were interested).

Took a quick look at your product lineup and they all look very nicely made!

 

[KT_NorCal]

Considering the vintage of the saw, how about a Trav-a-dial?

That would be high on the cool scale but low on the functional scale. lol The mechanics of the fence and the fence rail would probably destroy it in no time flat so I would be left with an expensive cool doo-dad.

 

[KT_NorCal]

Any of the chinese stuff resellers dro will be fine.
Just protect it somewhat from excess dust.

Some may have an extra large display dro -- and you could probably mix/match, as the dro is generally a simple +/- multi-channel counter getting fed via quadrature encoder outputs, usually 3-channel.

Quad encoder outputs are the std cheap output any optical encoder gives out.

(these days, at 1/10 the price before)
You basically get rising and falling signal for 2 lines, the lines are called a and b.
So its a+, a-, b+, b-.
Thats why it´s called quadrature, 4 signals.

Some encoders and servos may have differential signals, but it´s basically the same with an extra +/- for each signal to cut down on electrical noise.
So the a signal line can have an a+ and an a- line for a differential output.

The why is that it´s easy and cheap to make optical gratings with tilted diagonal lines.
This means that an optical grating with say 0.05 mm can actually reliably register 4 counts inside the 0.05 mm line, giving an effective reading of about 0.05/4 == 0.0125.
A decent optical encoder.. 50 $

https://www.digikey.at/en/products/detail/cui-devices/AMT203-V/2278846

These days the gratings are very tight and uniform and 0.005 mm or 0.001 mm scales are easily and cheaply available.

The signal from a rotary optical encoder is the same as from a linear scale encoder. Generally.
So You get ab, +/-, 4 lines, 5V power, +/-, or 24V+,-, and gnd.

A generic encoder reader counter at 50$ will show you the counts of a quad-signal input, be it rotary or linear (magnetic cheap scales) or optical sacles.

For woodwork ..
any generic basic dro like igaging will work just fine.
Try to protect it from excess dust via bellows of your choice.
Over time, trending perhaps 5 years, the fine wood dust is likely to choke and or wear your scales.

Some of the best guys in the world working with vmcs and tool grinding or carbon fiber have more or less come to understand they need to replace the linear ways every 5 years, no matter what.

This is interesting. I need to use a magnetic encoder for the set-up this fence will support, but I have trouble piecing together what chinese stuff will work with what chinese stuff... my encoder knowledge is pretty basic at this point. They are definitely price attractive compared to the Euro stuff, so if it didn't work I wouldn't be particularly upset, but it would be nice to get everything working out of the box. The Siko remote display solutions were great as far as form factor went too (thin-ish and compact overall dimensions) and that was hard to find in the chi-com equivalents.... Also, there is a very strong possibility I didn't find all the more interesting "cheap" options yet either!