I scored a brand new Grizzly DRO on Craigslist. My problem is the x-axis scale is 48" long. I found a new Acu-Rite scale on eBay, installed it and.... NOTHING. So I called Acu-Rite and found out that my scale was designed for an OEM company. It uses a DB-9 plug, 8 wires. My Grizzly uses the same DB-9 plug, but only 6 wires. The person I spoke with at Acu-Rite wasn't very helpful, other than telling me that there is an adapter cable that might work. So I looked on eBay and found one for $50. I decided to call Grizzly and see if they could help me with the wiring on their scales, but they were no help. Does anybody have any thought as to where to start? Both scales are 5 volt, but I don't know which wire on the Acu-Rite to apply power to.

Possibly you might want to ask this in the electronics part of the forum? I would think you'd have a better chance finding your answers there. Good luck- :)

As a last resort you may have to reverse engineer it, if it has 8 wires, it most likely has a marker pulse as well as A & B.
If you carefully take the cover off the reading head, you should be able to trace which is the 5v+ and common, if you can do this, then you may need a scope to trace the A,/A,B,/B signals.
If you identify one pulse, then find the one that is complement to it, or identically opposite.A double beam scope come in handy here.
If it has a marker, then two pulses will only occur at one end of the scale, you can disregard these.
Al.

Thanks for the help Al. I was afraid to apply voltage to the wrong wire, there is a small board that is enclosed in shrink tubing. On the Grizzly scales they have a large board in the head casting. I was hoping I would find someone who has already had experience in a similiar situation. I was even going to try calling Acu-Rite again and see if I get a different person to answer the tech line.

I scored a brand new Grizzly DRO on Craigslist. ...... It uses a DB-9 plug, 8 wires. My Grizzly uses the same DB-9 plug, but only 6 wires. ........

Hi, can't help directly, but the pinout for the TTL quadrature square-wave output 'Sino' scales (such as the SDS6 DRO I fitted to my Warco RF40) is
1 Null
2 0v
3 Null
4 Null
5 Null
6 A
7 +5v
8 B
9 Z

Extra connections would suggest either possibly it is differential pairs rather than the single-ended, and/or possibly its analog output ?

(Please don't just take the above and apply power just because my scales have power on pins 7 and 2 !!!)

Dave

p.s. 9 pin plugs - reminds me of the great saying about the computer/electroncs industry "that's the great thing about standards - there are so many of them to choose from!" :confused: