Thread: Looking for a small dial gauge

And i have a Kafer i will earmark for making one for myself....thanks for putting the plans up Joe.

Ew

Joe,

If you are chasing diminutive, I reckon something like the bitty Federal pictured would probably do but why not just rotate the indicator 90 degrees. Then any indicator would work. From your viewpoint (literally) I would have thought horizontal would suit best.

I've included a Mahr for scale because it seems most of us have one if not several.

Bob

Originally Posted by jhovel

Sorry Stuart, didn't mean to disrupt your progress....
I thought that Bill's design would allow you to extend the gauge mount past the spindle easily and also turn the gauge facing up or any angle instead of forward in any case.
You have my focussed interest with the idea to house some or most of the body of the thing inside a spindle taper! instead of mounting it in a collet in a collet holder in the drive taper, adding all the associated runouts together.... I like it! Any sketches? Please!

Come on Stu , out with the pencil. You can bury a fair bit inside a 30 arbor.

Looking at the pdf I was thinking that you could do away with the 45 degree ramp buy using a DTI rather than a dial indicator and running the DTI's stylus off a flat. Not a job for the Interapid but something like this might work...

BT

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Hi Joe,

There wasnt really any sketches(well not by BT's standard) I'll dig out what I have and "might" take a picture of it. Its ugly! Work stopped when BT found the Marcels.
BTW, Runouts don't matter, you can have as much as you like and it will still work. Though it might make reading the indicator tricky

Originally Posted by Anorak Bob

If you are chasing diminutive, I reckon something like the bitty Federal pictured would probably do but why not just rotate the indicator 90 degrees.

Yeah thats what I was on about, but you have to bring it far enough from the spindle C/L so you can read it.

Stuart

Or use the ramp and a rear plunger indicator. Depends on the height of your mill as to where you want the indicator facing.

Ew

I thought about the reality of indicator reading with an indicator jammed up against the spindle nose. Easy enough when the device dangles 5 inches away. I reckon there's room. Well there is on my incy mill.

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I hauled out another indicator. Remember the Schwieterman? Doesn't work as well as I had hoped for. The collar below the spring tends to jam on the shaft. Oh well....

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Ok, for scale that bolt is 1/8" and the mounting arbor is 20mm near enough.
Cant put it in my mill ATM as my crystal maker is in there.
On my mill you would want the indicator about 100m from the spindle C/L to be able to read it anywhere.
Now you have to imagine that the 20mm dia part is in fact a BT30 taper arbor with a 15mm bor in it.
The dial indicator is a little press fit inthe 1/2" bar. I was going to use a lever and a wire to pull the indicator(I assume it would have worked but the wedge idea looks better I think.
In fact I think I could just add a taper to the top of the small sliding piece.
Would need to do some more thinking.
Anyway here are the pics for what they are worth.

Stuart

Hi BT,
The Schwieterman was my starting point.
I'm liking the look of the DTI set up.
The problem (I think) with it and maybe the PDF above* is I'm not sure how much range they would have, which could be painful. You'd not only have to get the hole damn close to center before you could use it, the adjustment on the "finger" would have to be pretty touchy as well I would have thought? That was one of the reasons I picked the Mercer as it has a second hand giving 1/4" of travel.......of course as it wasnt finished I cant say if any of the above is correct lol.

Stuart

*I'd say max range is about 2mm?

Hi Joe,
I finally got a look at the indicator and upon close inspection it is actually in tenths divisions.
Other than that it is perfect.

Phil
IMG_4562.JPG

Whoa, now we are REALLY putting our combined thinking caps on and coming up with new solutions!
Turning the dial face is actually not quite the solution in my case. On the horizontal mill, the indicator would then either face the job or the machine column. My vertical head (not operational yet but close) is also around 8 inch diameter at the BT40 drive end and has no quill. SO the problem remains: the gauge needs to face at right angle to the axis or faces the machine or the job...
However, Stuart's photos and musings have tickled my brain: I have a bore gauge with a 250 or longer gauge mount! If I can find a way of easily incorporating that into the design, then that may well solve the problems I'm imagining.
In the meantime, azzrock (Aaron) has come to the rescue with a tiny 30mm dial gauge with rear stylus. While it needs a little TLC, that might just allow me to make a very small integrated coax.
Once it gets here, I'll make some chips and photos.

I've also just spoken to Phil (steamwhisperer) and we'll discuss the Moore & Wright if and when required.

Lots of options all of a sudden!

BT, your thinking about an indicator provides other avenues! If you look at the Stratos design in Youtube, that could be shortenend considerably and an indicator mounted directly in touch with the 'swash plate' which moves....
Interesting.
Here is a screen grab off the Stratos parts:

The only problem i see with a DTI is if it reaches the end of its travel and then the stylus is moved. Unless the point is captured in a groove there will be no easy way of moving the stylus back.
For me facing out like the commercial units would be better for vertical, my head must be at about 1500mm at the nose. Horizontal i'm not sure where i'd want it.

Ew

Well, just before we left for a family Christmas in Queensland (which was very nice indeed), my ordered bearing and thrust washer for the coax indicator arrived at the local bearing shop.
IMAG0992.jpg
and this morning I was able to pick up some parcels from the Post Office - including the very nice small Mercer rear stylus dial gauge Aaron 'azzrock' sent me for Christmas!
I wasted no time inspecting, disassembling, cleaning and reassembing it. The chrystal came up nice with a little polish as well.
IMAG0990.jpg IMAG0991.jpg
Thank you very much Aaron! Photographed here with a 'standard' sized Mit for size. The bezel is about 35mm outside diameter.

I believe I can now go ahead with a slightly modified design in which the gauge stylus runs directly on the reference chamfer of the spindle. I'm thinking of using stainless for the spindle and a stylus with hardened ball on the end. The bearing surface and length of the stylus plunger in the gauge body looks suitable to accommodate the small lateral load this imposes. We will see. Stay tuned