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CW/CY DRO Installation?

kumaichi

Aluminum
Joined
Oct 22, 2014
Location
Charlotte, NC
With great enthusiasm, I purchased a DroPro's 10"x60" EL400 kit form my 16"x54" CW Lathe, then I started looking at how I'm going to mount it to the lathe. On my lathe, I have a "hump" on the cross slide casting (please see pictures) that is giving me some trouble. Has anyone installed a DRO on one of these machines? Do you by any chance have any pictures of how you did it?

Kindest Regards,

Craig

I have no idea why when I upload the files, they are turned upside down, I'm trying to fix it.

CrossSlide1.jpg
CrossSlide.jpg
 
Why can’t you just shim it out the thickness of the hump?


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Thank you for your reply. That was my initial thought but when the slide is fully retracted, there is only a small gap between the carriage and the "hump". I tried to get a picture to demonstrate my difficulties. The scale is roughly 1.1" tall.

IMG_1401.jpg
 
I take it there is not 1.1” between the bottom of the compound and the 45 bevel on the saddle? It looks like the bottom of the compound is 1/2” or so above the top of the cross slide??


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Tough to figure out with out being there
Either mill away the 45 , have the scale hanging off the back, or lay it down on its side


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Thanks for taking the time to help me look at it. I'll have to get creative like you suggested, I was just hoping to not have to modify the lathe too much.
 
724F73E2-CE97-41B4-B0B0-0AE7EB6EFE2F.jpg

I was thinking of mounting the scale just in front of the hump but one end would be attached to the sheet metal cover which I’m afraid will move. Is this a terrible idea? Thoughts?
 
Think outside the box. You may be able to mount the read head on the cross slide facing down with a U-channel covering it, and mount the scale on the carriage facing up in a fixed position. You will want the U-channel to "drape" down past the edges of the scale, and be long enough to cover the scale throughout the range. Attach the cable to the inside of the U channel.

Otherwise, some people mount the scale and head under their cross slide. Robin Renzetti did that with his Hardinge HLV. It requires some indeterminate amount of milling on the slide and carriage, but the closer you can get to the feed screw the smaller your Abbe (sine) error will be.
 
Just bolt a piece of .5 thick aluminum to the cross slide extending past the sheet metal cover. bolt the scale to it.

Like this?




Today I was mocking this up for a New Newall DRO on a Takisawa. Scale/encoder setup a little different but concept is the same.

This pic below is the same bar predrilled for mounting on cross slide, and predrilled/tapped for an alum angle for cover.

 
Excellent, thank you guys for your ideas, I'm working on mocking something up. I think I like the idea of bolting an 'L' bracket with the scale mounted underneath so the read head will be protected. I might 3D print the 'L' bracket to make sure I don't cut up a chunk of aluminum or buy a piece of angle iron and it not work. I will post some picks when I get it printed for feedback.

Thanks again for all your input, it's extremely helpful...
 
I have a Newall microsyn mounted on my CBB in that place. I only have the one end fixed. It clears the hump just fine, no modifying needed. If you look thru some of my you tube videos (bcbloc02) you can likely see it. I need to make one just on the DRO as it seems to be a question that comes up often.
 
I have a Newall microsyn mounted on my CBB in that place. I only have the one end fixed. It clears the hump just fine, no modifying needed. If you look thru some of my you tube videos (bcbloc02) you can likely see it. I need to make one just on the DRO as it seems to be a question that comes up often.

If it wouldn't be too much trouble, I'd definitely be interested to see how you did the install with that hump on the cross slide. I watch your videos as you post them :).
 








 
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