Thread: Adding a DRO to the lathe

Fred
Thanks for posting this. Look forward to the rest.
Good to see someone has been spending their time industriously.

regards
bollie7

Next the bracket for the X axis is installed

A trial installation of the X axis support bracket

Then the support bar for the X axis glass scale (50x10mm aluminium)

The glass scale is installed and the support bracket tested

It needs to be perfectly aligned in parallel with the lathe bed, this done by mounting the dial indicator on the carriage and moving it end to end checking the deviation and making adjustments.

After installing the swarf guard on the X axis scale, the Y axis scale is installed

It also has be checked for alignment to the cross slide with the dial indicator

Next the DRO display box needs to be mounted

Fred,
In view of the very professional job you're doing there, I'm going to have to rethink my plans on installing the DRO on the mill.

Will your metal lathe handle a 3HP motor? Upgrading the motor in my lathe is something I'd like to do as changing the drive belts around to change speed is getting to be a real pain.

Originally Posted by snowyskiesau

Fred,
In view of the very professional job you're doing there, I'm going to have to rethink my plans on installing the DRO on the mill.

Will your metal lathe handle a 3HP motor? Upgrading the motor in my lathe is something I'd like to do as changing the drive belts around to change speed is getting to be a real pain.

Thanks Geoff, don't forget though that a large part of the job was already done for me

I haven't had to change belts on my lathe as I bought the EVS version of the 9x20. This has proved to be a boon, just the twirl of a knob and you have the speed you want.

I really don't know why anyone would want to buy a belt change lathe if there is an EVS version. In the case of the Steelmaster, even the price difference is not a disincentive, ATM it only costs $100 more than the belt driven model.

As to a 3hp motor, I don't know. My current motor is 1hp and I haven't stalled it yet. This may be due to the fact that the EVS also incorporates constant speed/torque.
The 3ph motor that came with the DRO package is also a 1hp. I think the limitation would be physical size. The 1hp 3ph is much larger than the 1 hp motor already on the lathe, so I don't know how big a 3hp one would be .

The package came with a rather large control box that holds all the electronics as well as the display. It uses a snazzy adjustable bracket. After some tiral and error I decided to mount it on the lathe itself, at the back of the headstock, using the existing bolt holes for the back cover.

I used some 6mm aluminium plate I had to hand and drilled mounting holes matching the mounting on the lathe, then added mounting holes for the bracket.

Finally got ot mount the control box on the lathe, can't mis it!!

All that remains now is:

Some tidying up of the cabling

Re-mounting the lathe on the bench, I will bring it more forward and raise it on 25mm blocks. I found that the way it was mounted was too close to the bench causing interference with the Norton gear box lever, as well as with the powerfeed lever.
I also will need some more room behind the lathe because of the Y axis scale.

Also need to either modify the existing splash guard or make a new one. For now I'll make a temporary guard over the motor until I work out the best way of doing this.

Looks good, a nice compact little unit.
A mate on another forum picked up a similar thing on eBay a couple of days ago. Ill let his posts from another forum do the talking:

Originally Posted by Sam-Q

thought you guys might be interested I bought one of these:



it's a poor mans DRO.

Linky:

DRO DIGITAL READOUT DISPLAY 1-AXIS WITH 6" SCALE (NEW) - eBay Inspection, Measurement, Metalworking, Metalworking, Woodworking, Business, Industrial. (end time 23-Dec-09 10:09:43 AEDST)

First up the first surprise was it arrived a single day after I ordered and paid for it on the 23th, I don't even know how that ##### possible but yeah. Second surprise is that the thing is seriously solid. The scale part that is, it has a decent weight to it and feels well made, well except for the plate on the back of the scale, thats on a bit crooked. Those Chinese are funny sometimes, they go out of their way to make something nice and then stuff up on the easy part. I expected a modified digital Vernia scale but this is much chunkier, it's quite impressive. Anyhow I am in the middle of mounting the slide on my little lathe and I should be finished tomorrow. I am putting it on the Y axis only as I see that's the one that gives me the most grief.

I also managed to do a deal and get a 1.1kw three phase motor pre-wired to a variable speed drive with an external control box that has an off/forward/reverse & speed switch on it for 0 to 2800 revs. I managed to get the package for $50 which I think is pretty good. This should make my life easier on my lathe. I also learnt today that tool steel parting blades make a decent sound when they snap in half, oops!

Lastly a side note: I just want to rant about machining recesses in cro-mo pipe for slim wall bearings (25/37/7). I have it fit tight to the point where the balls are restricted, I then push on the boring bar with my thumb and the bearing can fall in and out.... aaahrg!! anyone got any tips? I am going to try and boring out my lathe chuck itself to make it more even and also use my new motor when I fit it to turn it at a much higher speed.

Originally Posted by Sam-Q

well here is how I did it:




I know it's crude but it should work well.

Now I need to make an adjustable panel that will hold this readout, my VSD controller and anything else I want, probably a dedicated light instead of a portable light hanging off the conduit overhead like I have now.

Originally Posted by Big Shed

As to a 3hp motor, I don't know. My current motor is 1hp and I haven't stalled it yet. This may be due to the fact that the EVS also incorporates constant speed/torque.
The 3ph motor that came with the DRO package is also a 1hp. I think the limitation would be physical size. The 1hp 3ph is much larger than the 1 hp motor already on the lathe, so I don't know how big a 3hp one would be .

Sorry, a bit of christmas dyslexia crept in there. I saw 3ph as 3hp.

Fred, does it make a good cup of coffee?

Look at the Woodfast's for a Wood Lathe. . . I know you wander over the border from time to time . . .

Originally Posted by Pat

Fred, does it make a good cup of coffee?

Look at the Woodfast's for a Wood Lathe. . . I know you wander over the border from time to time . . .

Don't know Pat, wouldn't want to do anything too fancy!

Yes, I have looked at the Woodfast lathes. Love the big 910 like yours, but total overkill for what I want, and it is too high for me, great quality lathe though.
As for the 905, have looked at both the EVS and the manual belt change models, a total of 3, all had excessive side to side "slop between tail stock and bed, not for me thanks

Fred, some great thinking and work there, thanks for all the pictures, if I ever have a larger shed and want to do the like I will get BigShed to come and "demonstrate" !!!. Amos

Got the lathe back on the bench, took the opportunity to raise it on 25mm MDF blocks.

At the same time i moved the position of the lathe to the front of the cabinet top to give more room for the Y axis scale and modified splash guard (to come)

The extra 25mm makes a real difference to the working height which I had found to be a bit low, but more importantly it gives more room for the Norton gearbox lever and the X axis power feed lever, which hit the splash tray.
It also provides extra height for a bigger oven tray to be inserted under the lathe, assisting with removing swarf. I had a smaller and lower oven tray before but this one works a lot better

When I had all this in position I decided I didn't like the DRO sitting behind the headstock. First of all it obscured the tool board, not an insurmountable problem, but more importantly iw wasn't easy to read in the position.

After some experimentation I re-located it, using the supplied bracket, to the right of the tool board and angled slightly towards me.

I also took the opportunity to tidy the cabling using some rectangular conduit with removable top from Bunnies.

Used this setup for the first time yesterday and I was cery impressed the DRO. Very easy to turn to a given size and determine the length of a tenon on bushes etc.Hardly used the lathe dials at all, and a much reduced use of claipers and the digital indicator, so it was all worth the effort.

Also started on modifying the rear splash guard. Becuase of the 2 glass scales the standard is no longer suitable. Started by making to 2 cuts and bending the bottom part back to make room for the Y axis scale, but that wasn't successful, so decided to be a bit more drastic and cut the left side right off, giving me protection for the motor.

Was at the local 2nd hand dealer, a real treasure trove that one, and found a 1m sq sheet of 3mm PVC and will fashion the rest of the splash guard out of that. With a bit of heat it will be easier to bend than sheet metal without a brake.

To be continued................

One problem I was experiencing with the DRO was that the readout was rather dim, particularly as I have a fluoro mounted right above the lathe.

Queried the guy I bought it from, also the designer/builder, and he informed me that the firmware inside the DRO would have to be updated to change the brightness of the readout.

Delivered the DRO to him on Sunday morning and picked it up on my way home on Sunday afternoon. Brightness is now spot-on for these old eyes

Another job to be completed was the splash guard, it had to be modified to allow the Y-axis glass scale to travel along the X-axis.




I basically cut the splash guard in 2, see photo in previous post and used some 3mm PVC sheet to attach the 2 parts with a suitable slot to allow the Y-axis scale to travel along it. I also made the spash guard slightly longer to allow it to rest on the bench just outside the drip tray.




Close up of the slot and PVC sheet

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