Printable View
Hi guys,
I'm considering ordering an ES8 Or TDS DRO and scales for my lathe from a Chinese eBay business. I have an es8 on my mill and find it fantastic.
Has anyone bought, installed and used either of theses from Thedrostore (ebay)? Can you give any feedback on the quality, and time involved in installation? Also any reduction in machine capacity due to scales?
Cheers.
G'Day,
I purchased an Easson ES 8 and scales from a Singapore seller in 2011, delivery took about 5 days and everything arrived well packed and undamaged, some of the adjustable universal mounting brackets had a certain "Meccano Set" quality about them so I fabricated new brackets. I don't know which lathe you have but my installation was complicated by my lathe (Honden 12 x 36) having a gap bed and angled swarf channels, I fitted a length of 10 x 100 mm aluminium along the rear of the bed to span the gap piece and keep the crap out of the read head. The saddle casting where I needed to mount the cross slide read head was as rough as guts so I had to remove the saddle and mill the casting flat and parallel. All up the installation took about 20 hours but this was the first time I had fitted a DRO and was terrified of buggering it up, I could probably do the next one in half the time. The Easson has worked perfectly from day one and I consider it to be one of the best investments I have ever made.
Regards,
Martin
Attachment 308501
I have no issues with my TDS DRO from thedrostore. Experience has been good to the point that I am sizing up my new lathe for scales from thedrostore.Quote:
Originally Posted by tbonesmith
The trick is to think about where you mount the scales. You do not want the tail stock ramming into them. I am thinking of mounting mine on the front side of the slide. Make sure you get the low profile variety from thedrostore as it will make a difference in work clearance. Also get scales longer than your full travel as you do not want to ever be cutting it fine.
My final thought is that you should get the DRO that accepts two scales for a single axis. I am doing this for the Z as there is the saddle feed (Z1) and the fine feed (Z2). I want the total on my dro, not just the saddle and some indeterminate fine feed about. I *think* the model to do this is the DRO2L2, at least that is what they told me.
My mill install of their scales is documented here: https://www.woodworkforums.com/f65/md45-hm46-rf45-dro-install-requested-169053