Appreciation post: my old DRO retrofit made this week bearable

I dropped $450 on a used heidenhain display and glass scales off ebay back in March, hooked it up to my 1987 Bridgeport over a rainy weekend. The old dials were so worn I was doing math in my head for every cut, and this thing tracks backlash like a champ. It saved me from scrapping a job yesterday when I had to hold plus or minus half a thou on a 6 inch bore. Any of you guys stuck with manual machines ever spring for a budget DRO setup, or is everyone running full CNC now?

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kai5644d ago

tracking backlash like a champ" lol yeah, my buddy put a cheap import DRO on his old lathe and said the same thing. He was running some oddball thread pitch job last month and the damn thing paid for itself in one afternoon, no joke.