Wixey planer readouts?

[Ken Fitzgerald]

I am considering getting a Wixey portable planer readout.

Anybody have experience with them? Pros or cons?

My planer is an early Ridgid 1300 series IIRC.

[Cary Falk]

I had one on my Delta 22-580 lunchbox. I now have the remote one on my Grizzly G0453Z 15". No complaints. The Delta had a pretty accurate OEM readout. The Grizzly is horrible.

[John Ziebron]

I put a Wixey one on my 15 inch Grizzly planer years ago when converted it to a carbide cutterhead. It works well and seems to be accurate and repeatable. I can't get to my shop right now to check the model but one of the things I like about it is that it takes regular batteries (can't remember if they're AA or AAA) instead of those button batteries that don't last to long.

[Kevin Jenness]

Decent for the price. Reads out only to .005"- if you want finer resolution look at Accurate Technologies. I had an IGaging dro that was very difficult to calibrate and eventually gave up the ghost.

[Dan Bundy]

I put one on my Dewalt 733. I've loved having it on there. Wasn't too difficult to install and much easier to read than the ruler scale that came on the machine.

[Edward Weber]

Decent for the price. Reads out only to .005"- if you want finer resolution look at Accurate Technologies. I had an IGaging dro that was very difficult to calibrate and eventually gave up the ghost.

I hate to disagree but, What you see, is not what you get.
this seems to be true for most all of these digital tools.

http://www.wixey.com/remote-planer/index.html


Resolution:


Decimal
= .005 in.


Fraction
= 1/32 in.


Metric
= .1 mm





Accuracy:


Decimal
= +/- .002 in.


Fraction
= +/- 1/500 in.


Metric
= +/- .05 mm

[Phillip Mitchell]

Maybe I am dense, but what good is the claimed accuracy if the readout does not have matching resolution to display said accuracy? I find no value or comfort in those accuracy claims and would be hesitant to trust it beyond what I could see in the resolution. Maybe I am misunderstanding something? I have Accurate Technology / ProScale DROs and they do have 0.001” resolution and I find it to be accurate when verified with calipers,etc and a properly calibrated machine.

[Kevin Jenness]

I hate to disagree but, What you see, is not what you get.
this seems to be true for most all of these digital tools.

http://www.wixey.com/remote-planer/index.html


Resolution:


Decimal
= .005 in.


Fraction
= 1/32 in.


Metric
= .1 mm





Accuracy:


Decimal
= +/- .002 in.


Fraction
= +/- 1/500 in.


Metric
= +/- .05 mm










































If your point is that the fractional readout is very coarse in relation to the claimed accuracy, I agree. I have used one of these on a planer and once calibrated it basically performed as advertised- I found I could get dimensions within +/- .0025" using the digital inch mode. Higher precision costs more.

[Bill Dufour]

I think Amazon will have Wixley on sale for prime days in early October. Not really sure if the price is mush lower or not.
Bill D

[Andrew More]

I've got it on a ShopFox W1742H 15" planer, and it's been great. No complaints.

[Edward Weber]

If your point is that the fractional readout is very coarse in relation to the claimed accuracy, I agree. I have used one of these on a planer and once calibrated it basically performed as advertised- I found I could get dimensions within +/- .0025" using the digital inch mode. Higher precision costs more.

The point, is that the reading is one value and the actual accuracy of measurement is another.

I have one of the older models and it works fine, however I don't worry myself about .005" .

[Ken Fitzgerald]

I can live with an accuracy of 1/200!

[julian abram]

I am considering getting a Wixey portable planer readout.

Anybody have experience with them? Pros or cons?

My planer is an early Ridgid 1300 series IIRC.

100% Pro for me. I installed one on my 15" Grizzly back 3 or 4 years ago, I love the thing. Very accurate, if you need to plan some stock later in your project just go back to the original setting. One of those tools that you wish you would have purchased earlier but just didn't know what you were missing.:)

[Bert McMahan]

Maybe I am dense, but what good is the claimed accuracy if the readout does not have matching resolution to display said accuracy? I find no value or comfort in those accuracy claims and would be hesitant to trust it beyond what I could see in the resolution. Maybe I am misunderstanding something? I have Accurate Technology / ProScale DROs and they do have 0.001” resolution and I find it to be accurate when verified with calipers,etc and a properly calibrated machine.

If I had to guess, they mean that the accuracy is +/- 0.002" of what is displayed. So if the screen reads 1.025", then the true measurement will be between 1.023" and 1.027".

[Edward Weber]

If I had to guess, they mean that the accuracy is +/- 0.002" of what is displayed. So if the screen reads 1.025", then the true measurement will be between 1.023" and 1.027".

That is exactly how I understand it.

While I'm not really concerned about what value is in the third decimal place on thickness gauges, on angle meters, it can be an issue.

Many of the angle cubes and angle gauges have these type of values listed.



[*=left]Resolution - 0.05 degrees
[*=left]Accuracy - +/- .2 degrees


Not acceptable when trying to fit corners or make multi-sided round objects

[Bill Dufour]

Amazon sale now on, includes Wixley.
BillD

[Chris Parks]

Resolution has always been an issue with DRO's and has been discussed in previous threads, I think users who recognise the problem find that for WW's the results are good enough in most cases. The DRO's I mentioned in my thread about sliding table saws can have the readout resolution changed to reflect the user's needs but I have never bothered and it does not change the movement resolution. If six bits of wood are cut and then measured accurately it will surprise most people that none of them are the exact same length but the differences are so small it is negligible. I often wonder what the resolution is on multi axis DRO's that can be retro fitted to mills, metal lathes etc, I suppose I should stop wondering and actually read some documentation on them and compare it to what WW's commonly use.

A video on resolution in metal working

How accurate is cheap DRO? - YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M4VBY8tQ0RM&ab_channel=TomK)