Gday All,
Long story short, I'm a machinist and have recently set up a home workshop to do some hobby work and jobs on the side. I have a Colchester Student 1800 Lathe and Hartford Bridgeport clone mill. Both need DRO's. Having recently bought both machines, and also my first house, I am watching the $$ but also don't want to buy junk.
I already have an Easson ES-10 lathe 2 axis DRO Display I picked up ages ago second hand, so it makes sense to buy some Easson Scales to suit, and set that up on the lathe.
For the Mill, I had planned to buy an Easson ES14 3 axis display from Hare and Forbes for $650 ($550 in their upcoming sale), and 3 scales to suit. That totals around $1400 to set up the 3 axis on the Mill. Recently however, I have seen they have been advertising these 'SINO XH-3P' 3 axis DRO kits for $550 (see link below), that includes the 3 scales to suit, and mounts etc. It also looks like they are now fitting and selling these on a lot of their Hafco machines. They look a lot like most of the other chinese DRO's on ebay, aliexpress etc.
Considering both come with 1yr warranty, and are both made in china, its hard to justify paying double the money for the Easson setup. I have heard mainly good things about Easson's, and nothing about the SINO. Other than the Easson display having an aluminium case, and the SINO being plastic, I cant see any major differences. Both have similar features, PCD functions etc.
My experience at work has always been with Sony, Heidenhain, Anilam and Fagor DRO's, all of which are well out of my price range.
If anyone has any advice or experience (good or bad) with Easson or Sino, or any other similar options I should look at, I would love to hear your opinion.

Link to the SINO Kit: https://www.machineryhouse.com.au/K5202

Link to the Easson DRO: https://www.machineryhouse.com.au/D7143

Cheers,
James


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