I bought this unit to overcome the problem of an innaccurate fence tape and I like toys! It came from http://woodworksupplies.com.au/category22_1.htm and can be seen here. The service was excellent, I rang in the afternoon of one day and had it the next, no one could wish for more.

It comes in two boxes, one holds the aluminium extrusions on which the calibrated tapes are fixed, using an adhesive back which is exposed by peeling off a covering. The other box holds the DRO unit and the fixings along with a brief instruction book and a list of parts. It was all packed extremely well, the small parts wrapped in bubble wrap and zip tied to the bottom of the small carton which I thought was a bit of overkill. They even include the needed drills for the nuts and bolts.

At first glance the instructions are rubbish, after a while it becomes clearer, but overall they are not the best or clearest. They are better than some of the Chinese stuff but for something that comes out of the US I had expected better, why manufacturers do not use video beats me. The hardest bit was figuring out the fitment of the aluminium extrusion and the brackets to hold it to the underneath of the fence in my case. A few photos or even a short DVD would have been far better.

So after scratching my head and getting splinters under my fingernals I figured it all out. In my case my fence is a beisemeyer clone and I was able to use the original fixing bolts which is not explained anywhere in the instructions, on all others it is apparently necessary to use the included fixings and drill the appropriate holes which should not tax anyone to much. The tapes are then added and don't do what I did and put one on upside down, the DRO spits the dummy! The DRO slides on the extrusion by means of a magnet built into the case itself and a bracket hangs down from the saw fence to which the magnet sticks to in use, this can be set up left or right to suit the operator. The head has small screws in the back of it to adjust the resistance to sliding on the extrusion and these need a jewellers screw driver to adjust, on mine I just backed them right off in the abscence of any further advice from the manual.

To calibrate it requires a bit of time and will only be as accurate as you can measure, I used a $20 digital vernier. I set the fence to zero using the original fence measurement, zeroed the DRO and test cut at 50mm as read on the DRO. I used a piece of MDF to do this as it cuts very cleanly and is easy to measure. This was then measured, I then moved the fence back to zero on the DRO and set it up allowing for the error and re-zeroed it again. Two or three times will get it, at first I went the wrong way, but soon figured it out.

How is it to use? for me it is excellent. I am in the process of doing a job that I need repeatability on and this gives it to me as well as not having to rely on a tape which is not accurate, I was having to measure a lot of cuts with a rule and this is time consuming. The repeatability is the main thing though. I looked at an Incra but it is only available in imperial and I am not going back to that for anyone. Setting the actual cutting number would be far easier on an Incra as the Wixey requires nudging to get it just right but metric rules and the Wixey does not take up any extra real estate around the saw as the Incra does.

To sum up, the instructions are usable but sparse in their detail, the unit works as advertised and the delivery service is excellent. A fair result all round and money well spent, for me at least.