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DRO tool on a knee mill vs buying a new vice, dumb comparison but hear me out
Been running a 20 year old Bridgeport at the shop in Akron and always thought I needed a fancy new vice to fix my setup repeatability. Boss finally let me order a cheap aftermarket DRO kit for 300 bucks last month. Took a Saturday to mount the scales and honestly the first job I ran after that cut my indicator time from 15 minutes to under 5. The vice was fine the whole time, my eyes and math were the weak link. Now I check my parts against the DRO numbers before I even touch the handles and catches errors way earlier. Anyone else find that upgrading the measuring side of the machine does more than swapping out the workholding gear?
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morgan_bailey9329d ago
Did you zero the DRO off a known pin or just trust the scale readings out of the box? On my old Clausing I ran a 1-2-3 block against the spindle and set the readout to that so I knew the numbers matched reality. A vise swap only fixes holding, but a DRO fixes every hole location, every step cut, every bolt circle you drill. One thing that bit me was forgetting the scales move with the table so backlash on the screws still matters if you climb mill.
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