Wixey Guage for Delta 380 Planer

[Vince Shriver]

I'm looking for a review-evaluation from anyone who uses the Wixey thickness gauge on their planer. Getting parts and pieces planed down to just the right dimension can be challenging at times. Your response is greatly appreciated. Vince

[Mike Kees]

Vince I have one laying on my shop floor. I sold my 380 about a year ago,the DRO was real nice on that machine. What I really liked was having it set in metric,I like 20 mm as my basic thickness for milling stock. They are most useful for the times you need one or two more pieces to finish something where you did not mill enough to start with.

[Andrew Seemann]

I really like a DRO thickness gauge on my planer. I have one on my Grizzly 15", the old style Wixey. I think the new ones are better, especially with a larger battery and not having to bend over to see it. I'll probably upgrade mine to the new style at some point, and use the old one for my tenon jig.

The biggest gain is that thicknesses are repeatable to a few thousands of an inch. You don't need to worry about finish planing all your lumber for a single project at the same time; you can go back and hit any thickness at any time.

[Paul F Franklin]

I have the Igaging absolute stainless steel DRO on my jointer/planer. It's similar to the Wixey remote planer readout, in that the display is mounted remotely from the from the measuring scale. That lets you put the display where it is easy to read. One feature I liked about the Igaging is the ability to use line power, not just batteries. The Igaging instructions are horrible, however. Fortunately I was able to figure everything out as it's not that complicated. I've found it's accuracy to be very good over the full range of the planer (within a few thousandths) and the repeatability also good. As others have said, the main advantage is being able to repeatably return to a precise thickness, which I think is even more important on a J/P since you have to move the table to change modes.

[Eric Arnsdorff]

I'm looking for a DRO for my Dewalt and started to buy the Wixey but the one I was looking at has a resolution of 0.005". They claim accuracy of 0.0025" which clearly isn't true.

I know this isn't a lot for a lot of woodworking but this resolution does seem a bit much as it gets you up to calling the same displayed value being up to 0.008".

This is more than I'd like for my planed wood. While this likely wouldn't manifest itself as an issue most of the time it is causing me to look elsewhere.

I have an Accurate Technology DigiFence DRO for my table saw and it works great. It cost around $200. For some reason they offer the planer gage for $300 which seems crazy. I could mount a table saw version on the planer but this is also costs a lot more than other offerings and requires additional work on my part after paying extra. I have checked it against high end Starret gages and I can place my fence in the same place and repeat my cuts within 0.001-0.002" repeatedly. So I'm not sure what the best choice is at this point.

[Mark Bolton]

Make sure you look at the actual resolution. Reading to .001 is vey handy. The old wixeys did not and we.switxhed to igaging on 5 machines. I like the .001 on the planer only for absolute repeatability especially when going from the planer into the sander. We can dial in the planer to .001 and then go to the sander and take of .015 and land exact today or 3 weeks from today. We weren't so successful with that with the wixey when we had them but they may be .001 now.

[Eric Arnsdorff]

I'm going to give the iGaging https://www.igagingstore.com/6-Absolute-Digital-Readout-DRO-Stainless-Steel-Su-p/205470.htm unit a try.

[sean meltvedt]

439392
Vince - I wouldn’t be without it!
cheers Sean

[Anuj Prateek]

I'm looking for a review-evaluation from anyone who uses the Wixey thickness gauge on their planer. Getting parts and pieces planed down to just the right dimension can be challenging at times. Your response is greatly appreciated. Vince

I have it on 735.

Excluding the sniped area (1-2" both ends) board comes out with variance of 0.001-0.002" from planer. Wixey shows reading in the same range. It's repeatable to 0.001-2" or so.

I vastly prefer it to analog scale. Once I am in 0.005" range I use it as a guide, and nudge wheel to get to final dimension. Well normally I plane bunch of boards to same thickness at same time so I just rely on what wixey shows.

[David Sochar]

We have about 7 Accurate DRO's in our small shop. My first DRO was a Wixey clone on a Delta planer - came with the machine. I have used built-in DRO's on European planers like SCMI, Casadei, Weinig and Sicar. They were wonderful. The Delta planer was fair, but made better by the DRO. You had to get the light just right, and it was difficult to read at times.

So when it gave out after 3 months, I went shopping. I bought the Accurate DRO because it had great support (Chicago) and could be anywhere in the shop. the Accurate also would read out to thousandths. It is accurate.

The reader goes where it needs to for accuracy and daily use,. The readout head is connected to the reader by a phone cable, so it can locate wherever best for visibility and out of the way-ness. 2-4-8 feet away if needed.

So then we put one on the shaper spindle, then the Maka mortiser, then two on the tenoner, the tablesaw. After 20 years of use, the Accurate DRO's are all still working fine, the only issue was battery clips, but these are being redesigned I am told.

Not so much the Wixey-made DRO was a bad thing, it just broke, and Delta was not gonna fix it. The Accurate DRO's were more durable, and could be serviced.

https://www.proscale.com/ They use Proscale as a name, as well as Accurate.

[Erik Loza]

Lots of customers put them on their jointer/planers during my Italian days. Not a lot of firsthand experience but all the owners seemed happy with them.

Erik

[Mark Bolton]

We have about 7 Accurate DRO's in our small shop. My first DRO was a Wixey clone on a Delta planer - came with the machine. I have used built-in DRO's on European planers like SCMI, Casadei, Weinig and Sicar. They were wonderful. The Delta planer was fair, but made better by the DRO. You had to get the light just right, and it was difficult to read at times.

So when it gave out after 3 months, I went shopping. I bought the Accurate DRO because it had great support (Chicago) and could be anywhere in the shop. the Accurate also would read out to thousandths. It is accurate.

The reader goes where it needs to for accuracy and daily use,. The readout head is connected to the reader by a phone cable, so it can locate wherever best for visibility and out of the way-ness. 2-4-8 feet away if needed.

So then we put one on the shaper spindle, then the Maka mortiser, then two on the tenoner, the tablesaw. After 20 years of use, the Accurate DRO's are all still working fine, the only issue was battery clips, but these are being redesigned I am told.

Not so much the Wixey-made DRO was a bad thing, it just broke, and Delta was not gonna fix it. The Accurate DRO's were more durable, and could be serviced.

https://www.proscale.com/ They use Proscale as a name, as well as Accurate.

We had the same issue with the Wixey as you did, they failed pretty quickly and also had internal connectivity issues on a couple. You get what you pay for. We looked hard at the ProScale based on your repeated recommendations but were just never in a position ($$) to pull the pin even though they are head and shoulders in another league. The Igaging (beyond being chinese import) have some issues of their own. They have a very weak micro-usb type port on the readout head that has given us fits on a couple units but with some simple work arounds we are reading to .0005 on the shaper, sander, and planer (way overkill for the planer).

Your advice to put DRO's on everything you can, and have a dozen sets of digital calipers around the shop (as well as locking the door to any non-paying individual) has been some of the most valuable and speed/accuracy increasing advice Ive ever put to use.

[George Makra]

I second the Proscale since I know they will work. I have had the Wixey and had to constantly fuss with them.
The Proscale are very robust with large easy to read displays.
I have one on my table saw, radial arm saw and planer.
They are or were doing 20 % off just recently.

[Alex Zeller]

I have the igaging DRO on my planer. It works well and the display is large but if they had an option for a backlit display I would have opted for it. There's times when the planer is in a location where the shop lighting reflects off of the display making reading it hard. I also find the fractional function (you can switch between metric, decimal, and fractions) just shows you how inaccurate fractions are compared to the other two. I still haven't gotten to the point where I trust it. My fist pass is always thicker and then I measure and compare it to the DRO. Every time it's been right on the money. From there I set the planer up for the final pass at my desired thickness. There seams to be different levels of quality. The Wixey and igaging are at the lower price end.

[Mark Bolton]

I have the igaging DRO on my planer. It works well and the display is large but if they had an option for a backlit display I would have opted for it. There's times when the planer is in a location where the shop lighting reflects off of the display making reading it hard. I also find the fractional function (you can switch between metric, decimal, and fractions) just shows you how inaccurate fractions are compared to the other two. I still haven't gotten to the point where I trust it. My fist pass is always thicker and then I measure and compare it to the DRO. Every time it's been right on the money. From there I set the planer up for the final pass at my desired thickness. There seams to be different levels of quality. The Wixey and igaging are at the lower price end.

Something to think about is that you likely have flexure in the machine itself so even with what in the hobby world may be considered a hefty planer (say a typical 4 post) your going to have flex in the machine that wont show on the DRO based on how thick a pass your taking and so on. This shows clearly if your measuring with a set of digital calipers. So if your taking a full/heavy pass, wide board, whatever, theres a high likelihood you'll measure over your DRO dimension. A light skim pass/narrow board may be right on the money. This is even more so the case through the sander because of the bit of cushion from the feed belt or with hook and loop. Heavy pass may be oversize, but our DRO's have always remained dead on the money consistently.

Whether its the sander or the planer I always calibrate the DRO's taking a few passes at the same depth of cut per pass and usually by the second and third pass your reading the same on your calipers and the DRO. But even at that, if we feed wide, harder/softer woods, or heavier/lighter passes, the DRO may be off by a couple thou (still a joke for wood). Set depths per pass is even more critical on the sander so we try to leave the exact amount coming off the planer for a single pass on the sander which is where the DRO's shine for me as well as dead repeatablity.

Bigger, heavier, industrial machines, no so much, but...

[lowell holmes]

I have a Wixey for my planer, but the mounting on it failed. I have it repaired, but I use the planer without it. I don't feel the need to put it back on.

[glenn bradley]

I had a Wixey on my lunchbox planer and enjoyed it. Being able to go back and mill an additional part at the precise thickness was a real time saver. I have an iGaging on my floor planer and would not want to be without it.

439575 . 439576