Installing a DRO Digital Read Out on a Lathe

[PixMan]

You're on the right track with that Henry. You may consider moving it a little further back toward the rear. I don't know what that round thing is on the carriage, under the scale toward the operator side but perhaps you don't need to cover it. Here's the way the scales came installed on my dad's lathe. Note that the reader head on the X axis is mounted not between the ways but aft of them. It only took a simple angle iron bracket to get it there.





It's a very old installation, dating back to probably the 1980's. I did have to move the Z axis scale after it failed though. Apparently when the long scale was installed the lathe had a 10" 3-jaw chuck on it and never anything else. When I added a 5C collet closer, the carriage could now move a few inches closer toward the spindle. In doing so, the reader head got knocked out of alignment and stated rubbing against the housing. I could see none of this without crawling over the machine.

One day the readout just stopped. I thought a cable had come loose, but was horrified to find:




I bought a short 150mm unit (new old stock) off Ebay and put the new head in the 800mm scale housing. I moved the whole housing 4" closer to the spindle, and still have enough travel to put the carriage from mechanical stop-to-stop. Why they didn't do it right the first time is beyond me. I used an indicator to get the scale housing level and parallel within a "couple thousandths".




I'm sure your installation will be fine. I posted this just to give you a little more info and help you avoid the issues I hit in the long term.