Catastrophic Wixey digital readout failure today. [Archive]

keith micinski

03-10-2011, 9:04 PM

That title might be a little exaggeration but man am I disappointed. I was cutting a panel I made up for some drawer fronts with matching inlay and even though I check my manual tape measure every single time before I make a cut just to be safe on the most important panel of my life I decided to just trust the Wixey. I have used this thing on my fence for a 3 years and love it. It sometimes needs recalibrated because it will be off by .005 or .01. For the first time ever that I don't check it against my regular tape the Damn thing was off by almost a 1/4 of an inch. I have no clue for how the thing could have been off that far. I think I might still be able to salvage it but man was I heartbroken. I am completely to blame for this but I sure wish the Wixey would have bailed me out.

Jim Summers

03-10-2011, 9:32 PM

Bummer man.

At least you have a device to pin some of it on! I have made my share of "measure twice-cut once" and then after the cut it is made things aren't right and the third measure confirms I blew it!! Fortunately my mistakes haven't become hand thrown projectiles. Aaarrrgghh!

Enjoy the journey.

Dave MacArthur

03-10-2011, 9:58 PM

I dont know how I ever lived without this Wixey height gauge. I used to have setup blocks laying everywhere and made constant test cuts. Everyone should have one of these things. It has cut my setup time by 80 percent and is more accurate to boot.

LOL... sorry, but you have to admit to the irony of posting how great this thing was just two days ago, and today's post! I bet it's not your favorite tool anymore! You're probably looking at that ol' tape measure, "Hey Baby, I never forgot you, it was just a phase, a mid-life crisis--you're the one for me, I love you baby!"

Bob Wingard

03-10-2011, 10:02 PM

I know a LOT of folks here brag about Barry Wixey's customer service, but my experience was just the opposite. I had one of his angle cube thingies that went crazy about 3 days out of warranty ... he told me that's why warratnies have a time constraint and wouldn't even offer a tiny discount ona replacement. I tossed it & got a BEALL TILT BOX, and it's been GREAT!!! I hope Barry has matured a bit as a business man and recognizes when he needs to make some sort of concession in order to make EVERYONE happy, but he has nothing I can't either obtain elsewhere or do without.

You never get a second chance to make a good first impression, and, in my opinion, he blew it.

keith micinski

03-10-2011, 10:08 PM

The wixey height gauge has worked flawlessly. This was my Wixey digital fence readout. It really was my fault. I still have my regular tape measure readout there on the fence and just neglected to use it since the Wixey has spoiled it so much for me. I can honestly say in thousands of cuts this thing has never gone haywire before and the most important cut I have ever made is the one time it decides to lose its calibration by a lot but not so much that it looked really out and would make me double check it.

fRED mCnEILL

03-10-2011, 11:16 PM

keith micinski

03-11-2011, 12:09 AM

I sure hope I don't start having problems. My battery went dead once and I didn't get one for a few days. It was miserable. I love that thing. I am definitely going to keep an eye on it though. I usually do anyway that is whats so ridiculous about this situation. My usual routine is to use the regular tape measure to get it close then dial it in with the Wixey. It does look like I can salvage the piece though so that makes me happy at least.

Eduard Nemirovsky

03-11-2011, 4:00 AM

I did have a three Wixey gauges - for router, planer and "angle cube". Stop using all but "cube" because it is become unreliable after 1.5 -2 years of use. Just regular tape, at least I don't need to change battery.

Ed.

Matt Meiser

03-11-2011, 8:55 AM

I have a love/hate relationship with my Wixey products. I can almost guarantee that the cut is off by 0.2". That was my experience with the TS fence system and my last planer readout. Wixey will blame any random issues on static. To their credit they did replaced the head on the TS unit once, but until they find a way to fix the issue it will never be trustworthy in my mind. My original planer Wixey was reliable but when I bought a different planer and new Wixey that exhibited the same issues. When I bought a J/P machine I went to the competition for a readout for half the price. At least if its not reliable I'm only out half as much.

Bruce Wrenn

03-11-2011, 9:37 AM

High humidity affects all DRO's. Had any of that lately?

Andrew Pitonyak

03-11-2011, 10:17 AM

I have the original Wixey gauge for my planer but there has been an upgrade to the angled version for $20. Only problem is you can only buy it with paypal(which I don't have and don't want) and the dealers don't carry the upgrade.Wixey says "tough"
As well I have the wixey on my saw-which I love. But it has been acting up for the past few months. It will turn itself on and also go out of calibration. I contacted wixey who said it was probably a battery problem. So I have been replacing the battery every week or so. Now it has done it on consecutive days. So although I love it I don't trust it anymore. The plywood I cut is 135 per sheet and cuts are precise so one mistake can be costly. If it has to be replaced it certainly won't be another wixey.

If you really want this, I would ask some of your friends if they have a PayPal account, especially if your current unit is unreliable. I have a PayPal account, would you like me to facilitate the exchange? I have done this with a friend of mine, but it is much easier when the person is close by (so to speak).

Was thinking about buying a wixley gauge for my DW735 (thickness planer) and now that I finally have a router lift (I just finished building a router table for my table saw).... Now I need to build a fence for my router table.... Have not decided if I will set it so that it sits on top of my table saw fence, probably will.

Mike Goetzke

03-11-2011, 10:28 AM

Any alternatives to a Wixey planer gauge?

Myk Rian

03-11-2011, 10:58 AM

Any alternatives to a Wixey planer gauge?
People have adapted digital calipers.

george wilson

03-11-2011, 2:28 PM

Personally,I don't see why people come to rely upon gadgets that can go bad when a simple ruler will never go out of order.

Paul Symchych

03-11-2011, 3:15 PM

Bravo George.

Myk Rian

03-11-2011, 3:19 PM

Personally,I don't see why people come to rely upon gadgets that can go bad when a simple ruler will never go out of order.
Because it's necessary to adjust accurately to 1/128th inch. :D

I have one on my DW735. Works great, and easier than reading the ruler stuck to the side.

Brad Shipton

03-11-2011, 3:22 PM

Myk, Siko Products makes a digital readout gauge that counts the rotations very precisely. Calibrate it once, and it will never lie. These are used in industrial plants all over the planet. They have models that mounts varying shaft diameters. The downside is they are more like $250, and not $30 or whatever the Wixey is. Precision and cheap are not two words that go together IMO.

Brad

Mike Schuch

03-11-2011, 5:12 PM

Chip Lindley

03-11-2011, 5:13 PM

LOL... sorry, but you have to admit to the irony of posting how great this thing was just two days ago, and today's post!

My Dad had a saying, "Never brag on your car or your dog! As soon as you do, both will disappoint you!" Long before Wixley, Delta and Biesemeyer both marketed digital readouts for planers and table saws. I guess their foibles outweighed their utility. AFAIK, neither are still produced.

Personally,I don't see why people come to rely upon gadgets that can go bad when a simple ruler will never go out of order.

George, even my Biesemeyer cutoff fence with steel measuring tape has to be re-calibrated from time to time--after tornadoes and earthquakes! *chuckle*

Biesemeyer is plenty good for me. The 1/32" increments can be easily interpolated to 1/64" under the magnifier. I honestly cannot remember when I needed finer measurements in any woodworking project than 1/64" It's a wood shop, not a machine shop!

Mike Heidrick

03-11-2011, 5:25 PM

Dial caliper works for me - 9 times out of 10 it is what I grab for stock coming out of the planer.

keith micinski

03-11-2011, 6:34 PM

The most important benefit of it is being able to repeat a cut, that and it easy to read. I can honestly say when mine hasn't gone haywire it is accurate as a laser.

Mike Goetzke

03-11-2011, 7:22 PM

Personally,I don't see why people come to rely upon gadgets that can go bad when a simple ruler will never go out of order.

...ha & we use computers instead of stone and coal now:p (couldn't resist)

Neil Brooks

03-11-2011, 7:28 PM

Personally,I don't see why people come to rely upon gadgets that can go bad when a simple ruler will never go out of order.

I have great difficulty with vision, close-up.

My Wixeys make it MUCH easier for me to get accurate measurements, and accurate cuts.

And ... yeah ... you're posting here, instead of writing good, old-fashioned letters (with a quill pen and an ink well) ;)

Peter Aeschliman

03-11-2011, 7:37 PM

I really loved my Wixey digital fence read out at first... but I stopped using it altogether over the last 6 months because I got sick of replacing the batteries. The thing sucks batteries like they're cocaine! For a while, I was taking the battery out of the fence when I shut the shop down at night, but that became cumbersome. I've found that it the ruler on my fence works just fine. Pretty disappointing.

fRED mCnEILL

03-12-2011, 12:17 AM

Andrew

Thank you for the kind offer to use your paypal acct to order an upgrade for my planer DRO.
Although THIS gauge still works fine the upgrade angles the gauge so it is easier to see. But I have rigged a light to get around the problem. Just not as elegant.
It really is the DRO on the table saw fence that is giving me trouble.
Someone else on here says their fence gauge eats batteries like crazy. As I am buying "cheap" batteries its not costing me much but PERHAPS my problem is cheap batteries so I think I will do a little more testing to see if this is the problem.
But I am dissapointed that Wixey has not been more helpful.
As stated I love the "damn" thing and when it works is VERY helpful as I do a lot of repeat cutting of parts for my business. Using a DRO makes everything "bang on"(when it works, of course)

Thanks again for you offer.

Regards

Fred

keith micinski

03-12-2011, 8:51 AM

Do you guys that are having battery problems shut yours off when you are done making cuts? I try to and to be honest with you I never have battery problems. Really until this incident I have never had any trouble with it. I will say to people with inconsistency problems you might want to check how loose the head is on the track. I found that once I snugged it up pretty good it reads dead on all of the time. I am starting to wonder if I might have slid my head off the end of the track a little and that might be what caused this problem. I was doing some work and had to slide my fence all the way to the end. I am going to try and replicate it and see if that causes it to do the same thing.

glenn bradley

03-12-2011, 9:13 AM

No consistency problems here. Been using one for years. It has become integrated into how I think about doing things. you do have to use quality batteries. No-name bargain batteries are nothing but a pain. IIRC there is a speed of movement restriction. It isn't much but flying your fence down the rails will blow it's mind.

The CR-2032 batteries are lithium and last the better part of a year. The display draws so little that the difference in the display being on and off makes an imperceptible difference in the battery life per Barry at Wixey. There is a greater mAh version called BR-3032 (500 vs. 220) that 'the Battery Depot' states is a direct replacement and tolerates a wider temperature range.

Chris Fournier

03-12-2011, 11:01 AM

My new Euro combination machine is decked out with digital this and that and with the exception of the shaper height gauge being able to give me absolute or relative readings I have not found that my ability to do "accurate work" has increased one bit. The above feature does allow me to dial in my setup a bit faster but a hand crank with a built in dial gauge would be just as good. Neither have I found that my woodworking experience has become any more pleasurable with all of those LED readouts but it does look like very serious stuff is going on.

In our chosen activity of small shop woodworking accuracy and repeatablility are ultimately up to the operator not technology.

The first caliper and mic that I bought were digital and I bought them because I could switch between metric and Imperial which was a two birds with one stone scenario for me. Having accumulated many more calipers and mics since those first purchases I have intentionally avoided digital; no batteries and just as much accuracy. I really hated running out of batteries mid project.

As far as failing eyesight goes I am now in this camp too! Good lighting and prescription glasses give me the edge in all of my shop activities, not just reading out measurements.

The following link will give you some idea of digital scales for your equipment if you are so inclined.

http://www.shars.com/product_categories/search/?search=digital &&page=3

Eddie Darby

03-13-2011, 2:09 PM

If you use a measuring tape for a project, make sure that you use the same one for the entire project, as all measuring tapes are not equal.

Batteries for these DRO's are 5 for a buck at the Dollar Store. I then just place a pack nearby all my DRO's.
I also hold the button down for a few seconds if I am shutting it down for a while, but this only works for certain types that have a sleep mode feature.

Mitchell Garnett

03-13-2011, 2:32 PM

Personally,I don't see why people come to rely upon gadgets that can go bad when a simple ruler will never go out of order.

Well said. Despite working in the high tech industry (control systems and geographic information systems for electric utilities) and a being self-confessed gadget freak, I think we have become far too reliant on technology in too many areas of life today. Anyone interested in carrying on a longer discussion in the off-topic forum?

keith micinski

03-13-2011, 3:23 PM

Personally,I don't see why people come to rely upon gadgets that can go bad when a simple ruler will never go out of order.

This is actually not true. Most tapes over a 48 inch length are off quite a bit. It usually doesn't matter though because you are using the same tape to measuring things so when it says 9 inches theoretically its 9 inches. I don't use the tape on my fence to measure things though. My 9 inches is actually about a 64th short. my 14 is about 128th long my 27 is off long and everything after 32 is short a little. This is the second tape I have tried and what prompted me to buy the wixey in the first place. My wixey is dead on across the entire scale.
The Wixey is faster to use, MUCH easier to read, a cut can be duplicated every time, is more accurate then what you think your little indicator is showing on your tape in relation to light in the shop and where you are standing when looking at it and most importantly how good your eyes are.

After some testing I am pretty sure I caused this problem by getting the measuring head to close to the end of the track. While I take full responsibility because the fence is held on by a magnet for easy removal and I was just to lazy to do it I have always wondered why there isn't a stop for the measuring head so that it cant come off the end of the track. I think I am going to work on making one for mine. I do find it humorous the people basically keep saying " you don't need all of these new fangled watchamacallits" as they post on this forum using A COMPUTER!!

george wilson

03-13-2011, 11:32 PM

I don't rely on tapes for critical measurements. I can visually split 64ths. A computer is a different animal from a measuring device. It is an excellent means of communicating. I do use micrometers and dial calipers in machine tool work. The main use I have found for a digital readout on a milling machine,or lathe,is for spacing holes or grooves that are some distance apart. I have a digital readout that came on my lathe,but haven't used it yet.

I really don't think these crutches are going to make anyone a superior craftsman,improve your creativity,ability to design,etc..

keith micinski

03-13-2011, 11:41 PM

I work with an "older guy" that can see perfectly level. Just ask him and he'll tell you. Whatever you do though don't hold a level up to it because I'll be damned if every level we own isn't bad. While I will I agree that it won't help creativity or design I guess we will have to disagree on a digital display being a "crutch". Why reading lines and adding them up instead of looking at a display is better I guess will never know. I get the impression from most of the "technology isn't good" responses that it is somehow more "manly" or "the right way to do it because that is how it's always been done". If that's the case I find a lot of humor in that line of thinking.

David Kumm

03-14-2011, 12:52 AM

Accurate technologies makes more industrial type devices including woodworking. Speaking to them about the different technologies is interesting. They consider wixey to be a more temporary item. They can explain why- didn't make it to long term memory. I have had some that seem to work forever, and others that go in and out. So far the accurate one has been exactly that. You are talking about 200 to 250 vs 50 or 60 for wixey.

Alan Schaffter

03-14-2011, 3:09 AM

Just to reiterate what has been posted- in order to stay in CAL, the Wixey devices stay "ON" all the time- only the display turns off. The new Wixey remote planer readout and the new tilt gauge use AAA batteries which are supposed to last for two years or more! He will be converting other suitable devices to AAA batteries as time permits.

Also, as someone mentioned, all these capacitive strip measuring devices are prone to errors if you move them too fast. Also don't let dust or other crap build up on the strip. And finally, in the instructions it discusses tightening the back of the sensor/display head so it makes good contact with the capacitive strip.

http://www.ncwoodworker.net/pp/data/500/Wixey-2.jpg

george wilson

03-14-2011, 8:21 AM

I definitely don't think technology isn't good. I just think that sometimes it goes a bit too far. Now,if you cannot see well,it is a good thing to have a digital readout. Otherwise,they haven't yet invented a complete substitute for the human eye or brain.

Larry Edgerton

03-14-2011, 8:27 AM

Personally,I don't see why people come to rely upon gadgets that can go bad when a simple ruler will never go out of order.

George, lit a fire under that one, didn't you?

I agree with you for the most part, but there are a couple of things to consider. #1 is that most people on this forum did not spend their whole life reading tapes and rules. What to us is second nature is a struggle for some. I have seen it in my construction business with the relitively new who haven't been at it long enough, and with the older gentlemen that work for me that are trying to not wear glasses. My own eyes are getting worse by the year and I have to wear glasses, much as I hate it. I can see that it would be a good thing for a hobbiest or someone with less than perfect eyesight. I'm not sold on the Wixey, but the idea is not all bad.

I have an SCMI planer with power table lift that of course comes with a readout, and it has not failed in about seven years, but I still check it with a dial indicator all the time. Before I bought this planer I would have been firmly in your camp, but I have to admit it is nice to dial in .75 and have it exactly 3/4" every time, with no squinting at the pointer wondering if it got bumped. In fact I would say my habit of measuring with a dial indicator is more from when I had a Powermatic 199.

My next shaper will have a height readout for repeatability as well.

That being said, I still like doing all my layout with rules, its just part of the process, and I don't see the need on the tablesaw as long as I can see through my glasses, but each person works within the bounds of what they are comfortable with, and that is as it should be.

george wilson

03-14-2011, 8:46 AM

You have a reasonable line of thought,Larry. You are right. I have spent my life reading rules. When I taught shop for a few years,I spent the first few weeks teaching students to read a rule to 1/32". It was surprising how many at first could not read one past 1/2". That was a skill I am sure they continued to use regardless of their subsequent occupations. Just for household repairs,etc.,if nothing else.

There was a guy in the Newport News shipyard who was in charge of cutting metal,and would not take directions for anything but WHOLE INCHES!!!! Guess the welders had to fill in where he cut things too short. He should have been replaced for the sake of safe ships.

Alan Schaffter

03-14-2011, 10:57 AM

George, I taught high school math for a few years (too many!) and found it incredible that many students didn't know how to read and use fractions, let alone use a ruler!! This was a generation of students who grew up with calculators that had a Fract. to Dec. conversion button. Of course, since they couldn't read a tape measure it was of no help!!

One day while trying to emphasize why they needed to know how to add, subtract, otherwise manipulate them, I asked when they get their first apartment, how were they going to build the inevitable cinder block and 1 X 12 book shelf. They were going to hire someone since they were all going to be CEO's!

Bob Wingard

03-14-2011, 12:15 PM

I have been really considering a Wixey for my table saw fence. This thread is giving me second thoughts. Has anyone tried a Digi-Fence? I really like the fact that the Digi-Fence uses AA batteries instead of the buttons. I also like the look of the Digi-Fence mounting system in their manual. I couldn't justify spending twice as much on a Digi-Fence than a Wixey... but if the Wixey's only lasts a couple of years I don't mind spending more. Did Wixey do to much cost cutting and sacrifice reliability in the process?

Mike ... at one time, the DIGI-FENCE was priced at about $1,000 ... and, it was accurate to 0.001". They found that they could produce a model that was accurate to 0.01" for a LOT less money, and they produced it, selling it for mid $200 range. I got one at an I.W.F. show shortly after it was introduced for a great "introductory price" and it has been flawless ever since. The head disconnects from the slider with a simple click device .. the slider has wipers to keep the dust off of the capacitive strip .. the AA batteries last about a year .. the readout can be toggled between INCH/MM and will display in fractions or decimal.

Greg Portland

03-14-2011, 3:03 PM