Help with optical scales

[edbanks]

I have a set of Tri-onics optical scales on a newly aquired bridgeport. The Y-axis scale is not reading anything but .0005 or .0000. I've tried swapping cables and cleaning the glass, with no luck. Does anyone have anything else I might be able to try. BTW: we have a brand new DRO, so I know thats not the issue.

[Al_The_Man]

If the DRO is new and you swapped scales to the DRO and the problem followed the scale, then you either have a bad reading head or the head is not aligned to the scale properly, Most makes will error out if the head is grossly mis-aligned.
You could also remove the reading head, usually be sliding off the end of the scale and make sure it is clean also, use alcohol and lint free soft cloth.
Al.

[edbanks]

Well, we had a DRO that came with the mill that was inoperable on one of the axis, if you swapped cables both scales worked but the bad axis stayed the same. So we bought a new DRO to replace the bad one and now we can't get the one scale to operate properly. I don't believe the scale is misaligned as we never removed them, just the cover to clean the glass.

[One of Many]

It sounds like there is some issue with the reader head or cable to the display missing the A or B signals.

This place may be able to help you, unless you are comfortable testing to verify the signals for yourself.

Trionics Parts and Service

DC