Thread: Digital Readout for combination planer/thicknesser

I have a Dewalt thicknesser and fitted an iGaging DRO to it last weekend, and this weekend I will finish off fitting an iGaging to my Sawstop saw, amd am just waiting on an iGaging DRO to put on my drill press. It is not overly difficult to install them, the fiddly bit is fitting the moving reader, but not too difficult, just take the time and "dry fit" as much as you can before final fitting

I’ve got a very similar machine and recently put the igaging DRO on. If I haven’t posted picks in a couple of days message me and tell me to hurry up. Wasn’t too hard to fit. Just have to find a spot where it doesn’t interfere with anything.

Works ok, haven’t got mine 100% dialed in. But within 0.2 to 0.5 mm, seems to depend on timber, density maybe. Also fluctuates a bit when timber running through, I’m guessing from vibration.

But overall it’s a lot better than the pointer dial.

Thank you for your experience. I am going to try an adhesive tape double sided that is very strong. It is made by 3M and some variants have high heat resistance as well as replaces screws, rivets etc. I'll give it a go.
3M™ VHB™ Tape 4957

I don't see why a generic DRO could not be used.

This is the one I got. The 12inch.
iGaging EZ-View Plus Digital Readout - The Woodkid

IMG_2252.jpgIMG_2251.jpgIMG_2249.jpgIMG_2248.jpg

Here's my sideways photo's of how attached. I drilled and tapped holes in frame and table to attach with bolts. Cut up some pieces of aluminium to join the reader part to the table.
The display is magnetic and just sits near the on/off switch and I put it on the dust hood when needed. My cable management could use some work.
I seen 'The Woodknight' attach his with just a ruler I think at a slight angle, but I thought it would be better to have the attachment running parallel with the DRO.

This was the only real choice for me to attach it without it interfering with something.

I've used that VHB tape. Is very good and very strong. You may have more problems with vibration though, not sure, but a good quick way to see if its suitable. Wasn't hard to drill and tap the hole's, just make sure you get a good tap.

Hope that helps.

let me know if you wan tto know anything else.

cheers
Shane

Thanks Shane, you are awesome.

Hi Shane,
I finished fitting my readout to my table saw and managed to Zero it in, but, when I moved the fence into the "park" position (for when I am not using the saw) I accidentally hit the "Zero" button instead of the power button, so I lost my normal Zero position, I looked at the instructions and I couldn't see where to calibrate the readout so it always knows where Zero is.

Could I ask if you know how to do that ?

Thanks in advance

Originally Posted by tomartomau

Thanks Shane, you are awesome.

Thats what I say to my wife, but then she just looks at me funny.

Originally Posted by foff47

Hi Shane,
I finished fitting my readout to my table saw and managed to Zero it in, but, when I moved the fence into the "park" position (for when I am not using the saw) I accidentally hit the "Zero" button instead of the power button, so I lost my normal Zero position, I looked at the instructions and I couldn't see where to calibrate the readout so it always knows where Zero is.

Could I ask if you know how to do that ?

Thanks in advance

ive done that too. Your meant to be able to press one of the buttons to switch between ‘true zero’ and an incremental measurement. But I get random read outs so I just recalibrated. I can put up a photo of the instructions if you need.

Originally Posted by foff47

I finished fitting my readout to my table saw and managed to Zero it in, but, when I moved the fence into the "park" position (for when I am not using the saw) I accidentally hit the "Zero" button instead of the power button, so I lost my normal Zero position, I looked at the instructions and I couldn't see where to calibrate the readout so it always knows where Zero is.

As you likely know, there is no physical ZERO position in the iGaGing EZ-VIEW Plus DRO, Zero is set to whatever position the DRO scale slide is at when ZERO is pressed.

ZERO is lost when:

A: The battery goes flat or is disconnected.
B: The Head unit is unplugged from the Scale.
C: An electrical noise pulse corrupts the head display controller.

Zero is reset by moving the scale slide to the mechanical position you want to set as zero, then pressing the zero button.

FYI: You can get caught out when replacing batteries if you don't power the head unit off first, it can't hurt the unit, but it can cause the first display value after inserting the batteries to be a corrupt out of range value, the unit can still be set to ZERO, but that first corrupt value is used as the offset to ZERO in the Head unit controller firmware and can sometimes cause a slight strange accuracy error.

I use a lot of these units and love them, however there is a slight design problem (very simple to fix) that can cause the display to corrupt in use, it's caused by slight wear over time between the copper ground strip in the scale slide assembly and the scale ruler frame.

Mike.

Got sick of the lack of a reliable way to calibrate the cheap thickness gauge that I had fitted to my thicknesser so I went out and bought a real thicknesser gauge. Not cheap but boy it works and is so much less of a headache to use.

Originally Posted by Bohdan

Got sick of the lack of a reliable way to calibrate the cheap thickness gauge that I had fitted to my thicknesser so I went out and bought a real thicknesser gauge. Not cheap but boy it works and is so much less of a headache to use.

Ive got one of those ones too and I don't think its that much better. Its definitely easier to calibrate, with only having to thickness a piece of wood then put it under the scale thingy and press zero. But it's no good on the combo machines because it doesn't have enough
travel. Need more than 6 inches to get the table low enough to put into jointer mode.

Originally Posted by shanesmith80

ive done that too. Your meant to be able to press one of the buttons to switch between ‘true zero’ and an incremental measurement. But I get random read outs so I just recalibrated. I can put up a photo of the instructions if you need.

If you could do that Shane that would be great thank you.

FYI, here is a link to the modification I carried out on the EZ-VIEW Plus DRO. If you encounter a problem with the DRO display suddenly jumping in value when the slide scale changes position or with machine vibration, here is the cause and the mod I did to solve it.

automated-router-table-226646/7

Mike.