Jet J/P DRO

[Curt Harms]

I was inspired by Eduard Nemirovsky's post on June 20th and decided to try my hand at installing a Wixey DRO(Digital ReadOut) on my Jet jointer/planer combo. It was fairly straight forward after spending time on Wixey's site. The only tricky part was getting the calibration to work properly. The DRO seems to be designed where the head is stationary and the base moves. The way I have mine installed, I had to remove the "stick" and turn the metal frame upside down. That wasn't difficult, just unhook the spring remove the "stick" turn the head so it's right side up, reinstall the "stick" and hook the spring back up. It now calibrates and reads properly, just with a minus sign in front of the numbers. I don't think that'll be any problem because there's no way any depth of cut can be negative except in relative mode. Calibration is now done at the top of the device instead of at the bottom but that's no large deal and it sounds like calibration doesn't need to happen all that often. It's supposed to remember its calibration even though the display is off.

I still need to figure out how I'm going to attach the black plywood strip that the aluminum angle is screwed to. I tried double stick tape but that doesn't want to hold so C clamps for now. I've been able to avoid drilling any holes in the machine so far and it'd be nice to keep that going. I think a DRO on a combo machine will be more useful than on a planer because the combo machine planer bed seems like it'll get moved more often and if I need to plane some .500" stock to match the .500" stock I planed a couple weeks ago I should to be able to do that with minimal fuss.

[Jim Becker]

Looks good, Curt...not at all dissimilar to the DRO installation I did on my FS350 with the Digi product. You'll enjoy having it!

[Steve Perez]

Curt,

While researching jointer planer combination machines, including the Jet JJP 12, I found out that Jet has already released a DRO for the European version of the machine known as the JPT 310 (Jet Planer Thicknesser in the euro market).

Incidentaly, Jet has also released to its European market the JPT 260 (which comes out to about a 10" jointer planer.)

One can only asume that the DRO will for sure make it to the US market with inch increments and depending on the sales of the 12" model, that the 10" model may follow its bigger brother to the US. Go to Jet tools UK website and see all the machines. I've atached a picture of the Jet DRO here.

I'm sure you wont have a hard time at all selling the wixey when the time comes (whenever that may be) but who knows you may come to prefer that set up.

http://www.jettools.co.uk/IMAGES/jpt_inset2.jpg

[Eduard Nemirovsky]

Nicely done, Curt.:):) Very clever to turn upside down scale. I thought about it, but it did not clicked in my head.
But if you (or anybody who want to install DRO) want to install normal way, I mean scale, Barry Wixey recommendation is -When you run a small board through the machine about (1/2" to 1" thick it does not matter) and plane it, you should leave the table exactly where it is. Now cut a small piece of this planed board. You will press and hold the zero button to set the display to read 0.00 and then lift the scale and place the small piece of cut board under the end of the scale. The display should read something like -.550" This will be the thickness of the wood with the negative. You will have to leave this pieces of wood now always under the end of the scale and it will be calibrate properly. This is from his e-mail to me.

Ed.

[Bob Mircetic]

Hello Curt,

I also purchased that Jet combo machine a couple months ago. I'm curious as to your impressions of the machine?

I was a little put off at first by the switch that didn't match the paddle type switch which they have pictured on all their ads, and I also had a heck of a time getting my tables co-planer. But, once I got past those initial difficulties and used the machine some, I'm starting to grow fond of it. Haven't had to change the blades yet... I'm sure that will be another interesting challenge. :)

[Curt Harms]

Yes, I was a little surprised at the switch but it seems to work fine. I didn't have to do any table adjustments which surprised me as I removed both tables to move the machine to my basement. I may not too fussy on setup but I can edge joint 2 pieces of stock, put 'em edge to edge and the fit if perfect so I'm not about to screw with it. Same with planing-plane 2 pieces, put 'em face and it's a perfect fit, no snipe. The no snipe or tearing was a bit of a surprise because there's no real chip breaker or pressure bars like the big planers have but I'm not going to argue with what works.

I haven't had to change knives yet but have a spare set from Freud ready for when I do have to change them. The cutterhead uses jackscrews so it may not be too bad and I hope not to have to find out anytime soon;). The only potential shortcoming would be be bed length. I've faced jointed 6' stock and that was fine but more than 8' would be difficult, I think. I try to cut stock to rough length then face joint it, I don't have to remove as much material to get flat surfaces and I don't have projects that typically require pieces longer than 6' so table length should not be an issue for me.

Curt




Hello Curt,


I also purchased that Jet combo machine a couple months ago. I'm curious as to your impressions of the machine?

I was a little put off at first by the switch that didn't match the paddle type switch which they have pictured on all their ads, and I also had a heck of a time getting my tables co-planer. But, once I got past those initial difficulties and used the machine some, I'm starting to grow fond of it. Haven't had to change the blades yet... I'm sure that will be another interesting challenge. :)