Lathe DRO - small package

[KBerta]

After reviewing a number of Lathe DRO installs, I did not like the idea of giving up travel of the tail stock nor did I like having the DRO mounting near the chuck. So instead I bought the magnetic tape and milled some aluminum strips to cover it. Just thought I would post a few pics in case others were interested. I bought it from Ditron and though I don't have it all installed, I have the most timing consuming part done. Since it was so small, I even added a scale to the compound. Now I just need to install the standard scale on the Z axis.

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[ebrewste]

That's pretty interesting packaging. Where did you get the (what appears to be) raw magnetic scale so that you could make your own enclosure? I have only seen premounted scales from Ditron. Does Ditron give any guidance on what sort of covers will not interfere with the operation of the scale (aluminum sheet apparently is fine). Nice job!

[KBerta]

Ditron does sell the bare magnetic scale you just need to ask them for it. It has a adhesive back but I never took the layer off to expose the tape since the aluminum strip holds it. They didn't give any guidance, but I figured aluminum would work since it is non-ferous. I played around with milling an 1/8" piece down so that I got a green light with a piece of paper between the aluminum and my read head. If you want, I can look up what my approximate dimension were but I think it is around 0.040 on the aluminum.