ballen
Diamond
- Joined
- Sep 25, 2011
- Location
- Garbsen, Germany
We have used readouts on grinders for 30+ years, but never on the longitudinal (long table) axis. I can't think of a single time I would need it. What am I missing? We set a mechanical hard stop if we need to repeat to a certain position to grind something in a spinning fixture, but I don't need a readout for that. Use readouts daily for cross (saddle) and down feed.
Guilty as charged.
As you say, the vertical (Y) and cross (Z) DROs are useful. I don't yet know if the long (X) DRO is going to be helpful, but since I was adding a readout on this machine, I thought it made sense to do that axis as well.
My surface grinder (this is a J&S 540) doesn't have a hard and/or adjustable stop on the long axis. (I'll ask about that in the Abrasive Machining forum, don't think I have seen them on these machines.) So I thought one place that an X axis DRO might be useful is if I have a dresser set on the chuck, and want to come back to do a cross dress repeatedly. The X DRO will let me come across the diamond at exactly the same location.
Cheers,
Bruce
PS: I have DROs on my other machines (mill, lathe, cylindrical grinder). The first of these is a factory Heidenhain installation, the others I did myself. All of these are reliable and accurate, and I depend upon that. If they didn't work correctly, I'd be lost. So when I do a DRO install, I don't cut corners, and make my best effort to ensure that they will work right every time.