01-28-2018, 06:01 PM
Ha-ha-ha, my friend was over here yesterday pointing out all of those slick DRO features, in particular the bolt circle.
He said. "Think of how much time you could have saved over the years with that bolt circle feature." I suppose that I didn't look too enthusiastic so he asked me when was the last time I had to manually calculate and drill a bolt circle. I told him about sixteen years ago and he shut up.
It wasn't true, I actually have done bolt circles within the past year, I just couldn't take any more of his "I told you so" remarks.
But as you say, Greg, it IS pretty cool ! And using the DRO gives me a feeling of confidence where I never felt confident using dials on a mill unless I checked the setting twice. ESPECIALLY when milling pockets while referring to the little pieces of scratch paper with backlash figures jotted down and a sketch or two !
I'd read about the following feature but it didn't really "stick" until this morning: the DRO system can be used as a measuring instrument (CMM ?). With one of those pointy edge finders, it's a piece of cake to copy a hole pattern from an existing part. I've used those dial calipers with conical ends that are designed for measuring hole patterns but they are limited to about five inches. With the DRO, the only limit is the table travel
I just finished printing about thirty pages from a CNC manual on line that has many of the same features as mine. It is quite intelligible although some of the sentence structure is a little odd. If anyone has any interest in the system that I bought, there are many of them for $200 + free shipping on eBay, like this one:
https://www.ebay.com/itm/2-Axis-DRO-Digi...SwtKVaaqrs
And this is the manual that is legible and has pretty much the same features as the above:
http://www.zsinstruments.com/downloads/D...l-V2.0.pdf
(usual disclaimer, no affiliation etc.)
He said. "Think of how much time you could have saved over the years with that bolt circle feature." I suppose that I didn't look too enthusiastic so he asked me when was the last time I had to manually calculate and drill a bolt circle. I told him about sixteen years ago and he shut up.
It wasn't true, I actually have done bolt circles within the past year, I just couldn't take any more of his "I told you so" remarks.
But as you say, Greg, it IS pretty cool ! And using the DRO gives me a feeling of confidence where I never felt confident using dials on a mill unless I checked the setting twice. ESPECIALLY when milling pockets while referring to the little pieces of scratch paper with backlash figures jotted down and a sketch or two !
I'd read about the following feature but it didn't really "stick" until this morning: the DRO system can be used as a measuring instrument (CMM ?). With one of those pointy edge finders, it's a piece of cake to copy a hole pattern from an existing part. I've used those dial calipers with conical ends that are designed for measuring hole patterns but they are limited to about five inches. With the DRO, the only limit is the table travel
I just finished printing about thirty pages from a CNC manual on line that has many of the same features as mine. It is quite intelligible although some of the sentence structure is a little odd. If anyone has any interest in the system that I bought, there are many of them for $200 + free shipping on eBay, like this one:
https://www.ebay.com/itm/2-Axis-DRO-Digi...SwtKVaaqrs
And this is the manual that is legible and has pretty much the same features as the above:
http://www.zsinstruments.com/downloads/D...l-V2.0.pdf
(usual disclaimer, no affiliation etc.)