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Good dro to buy?

Phil in Montana

Stainless
Joined
Jul 31, 2007
Location
Missoula Mt
On most of the machines I am tring to sell are fitted with anilam dro,s, and to my luck the machines I am keeping have no dro,s. Anilam is no longer in the game and there prices were over the top but there stuff was good. I dont want to spend over 1000.00 a unit to install dro,s on 2 lathes, a Monarch 13x36 61 and a American pacemaker 16 x 120 but only putting dro on cross slide. And a Rockford os Planner on the tool travel only 24x30, and the last machine is a 36 inch bullard vtl. I see on Ebay a real cheap dro (Ficom Brand) are they any good or should I just buy Newall and cry to the bank??...Phil
 
Not much to add other than I am soooo watching this thread!

I'd like to add a DRO to one Hardinge and one TOS-SN40, but the $hit that's on E-bay is downright scary!
Seriously? Does anyone believe that for the "starting@ $64 and up price" they'll get anything but garbage?
And there are pages and pages of the same stuff!
 
Same answer I always have- DRO Pros, because they just work for what I need. If I had a new HLV-H, I might want a fancier readout, for all my manual machines +/-.0005" is plenty close.

Sent via CNC 88HS
 
Ok, why them, looks like the price is ok, maybe on the low side $599, 3 year wort. on the glass slides, but slide are only 48 inchs or less, none other offered...The Anilam set ups have lasted 25 years without any faults...Phil
 
We have accurites and newalls at work. The newalls are too complex and one gives trouble. 2-3 accurites have failed. We have about 14 machines with readouts.

At home i have been buying the cheapest chinese. Some last a few years. Some lasted many more. Think they are $200 for a normal sized set.
 
I have a Newall on my new Lathe. So far I like it. Haven't dug into the preset tool feature, but so far so good. No experience on durability. Its 6 months old.
It would be nice to change the ancient DRO on my mill to a new one, but its low on the list.

That said, I have Mitutoyo on my old lathe and my Mill. I'm pretty sure Moses brought them down from the mountain with his pair of tablets. They are still solid and read accurately. No issues in the almost 10 years I owned them.
 
I have DRO Pro's Electronicia on my Webb mill and on my Feeler lathe. They work great without any problem and I like the magnetic scales since you can cut them to length.
 
Is there any dro,s that fall in-between the 600$ type and the 2000$. I like the glass slides only because that what I have always used , fill me in on the mag type...Phil
 
I have a Newall on my new Lathe. So far I like it. Haven't dug into the preset tool feature, but so far so good. No experience on durability. Its 6 months old.
It would be nice to change the ancient DRO on my mill to a new one, but its low on the list.

That said, I have Mitutoyo on my old lathe and my Mill. I'm pretty sure Moses brought them down from the mountain with his pair of tablets. They are still solid and read accurately. No issues in the almost 10 years I owned them.

Did you have any issue with screen flicker and ghost numbers appearing? My Newall DP700 I received 10 mos. ago was quite the headache. They finally sent me a new display & power supply after LOTS of troubleshooting. The replacement just did the flicker last week... :(
 
I like my Mits. Have them on both mills for 12 plus years. No issues yet. But dig into the parameter for calibrating. My X was out .0035 in 10 inches. Not bad, but it was out. I have a Fagor on my American lathe. No issues either. 13" Sheldon has a Sony that's 20 years old. Still going. Oh, and a 2 axis Fagor on one mill for quill "Z" and table "Z".
 
I bought a CDCO tools DRO 5+ years ago and it ran fine for 3+ years, then I sold that mill and I assume it's still fine. I bought an ebay DRO for almost nothing ($150?) to abuse on a project at work and it's functioned perfectly.

I recently bought a Chinese DRO for my lathe from "Reeson Tools". it was $400 including shipping for a DRO for my 13x30 lathe, with 1um resolution on Z and 0.5um on X and their higher end display unit (because it supports multiple tool offsets). I emailed them to figure out the order and they were responsive. I'm still installing it on the lathe but so far everything looks and behaves fine. My only complaint so far is the display only supports 16 different tool offsets. They also had 0.1um scales, but my lathe can't do anything with that (even 0.5um is pushing it). But for a grinder I would totally purchase the 0.1um unit, why not?

With DROs so cheap, it almost doesn't matter how long they last, as long as you can purchase drop-in replacements. Also I've priced 0.5um scales from Newall etc, and the individual scales cost more than $800, I could've bought two DROs for that price.

Unless you want special features or resolution, the ebay DROs are great. If you want something fancier, I found Reeson very responsive to my specific requests. If you're making a daily living on your manual machines, you can probably justify purchasing something name brand from a reputable dealer (Mitutoyo lists DROs down to 0.1um in their catalog, but their display units are extremely basic).
 
Newall one reader head and one display crystal in about 30 years on a lathe, NO issues on 2 mills about 15 years and none on a late[he that is about 6 years old. Had anilam wizards on several manual mills and replaced reader heads every 5 years or so
 
Did you have any issue with screen flicker and ghost numbers appearing? My Newall DP700 I received 10 mos. ago was quite the headache. They finally sent me a new display & power supply after LOTS of troubleshooting. The replacement just did the flicker last week... :(

So far not that I have noticed. How do you have your power supply hooked up? Did you hook up the ground cable?
 
South Korea-made DROs are reputed to be a step above the Chinese, and still affordable.

I have a Jenix DRO from Korea on a Bridgeport that has had zero issues. I think I installed it 5 years ago. At the time, it was around $700 for 3 axis.
 








 
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