AccuRemote DRO Mounting Question

[John TenEyck]

I bought this 12" DRO from Amazon to mount on my MM J/P. https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0...?ie=UTF8&psc=1 As far as I can see the sliding sensor only has two tiny little threaded holes in the side opposite the wire side. Does anyone know what screw size fits into those holes? 4/40 is about the right size, but don't fit so they are likely metric.

If you have one of these, did you use those holes to mount the sensor to the planer table, or did you fabricate some other way to mount the sensor? Any help is appreciated before I try to design something.

Thanks.

John

[Chris Parks]

I bought this 12" DRO from Amazon to mount on my MM J/P. https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0...?ie=UTF8&psc=1 As far as I can see the sliding sensor only has two tiny little threaded holes in the side opposite the wire side. Does anyone know what screw size fits into those holes? 4/40 is about the right size, but don't fit so they are likely metric.

If you have one of these, did you use those holes to mount the sensor to the planer table, or did you fabricate some other way to mount the sensor? Any help is appreciated before I try to design something.

Thanks.

John

Mine came with two screws in the parts bag. I haven't tried to fit it yet as I am going to 3D print the mounts and the printer is still in transit.

[John TenEyck]

Mine came with two screws in the parts bag. I haven't tried to fit it yet as I am going to 3D print the mounts and the printer is still in transit.

There were 5 or 6 screws in the parts bag I got. All were too large.

John

[Chris Parks]

You must have got a Friday one!

[Carl Beckett]

I have a different brand

Mounted the body using double sticky foam pad.

[John TenEyck]

I have a different brand

Mounted the body using double sticky foam pad.

Interesting. I thought about that but wondered if the tape would be strong enough to resist flex that would bias the reading. So it seems with the right tape it works ok.

John

[Mark Bolton]

Aside from the mounting be interested in hearing how it works for you. We bought a couple of the Igaging 3 piece sets to install (6, 12, 24) but it seems the pricing on them has gone sky high compared to what we paid. Beyond that they have a weak link in the micro usb plug that plugs into the DRO. We have had several of them where in very little time if you even slightly bump that plug while working or cleaning the unit goes haywire and must be re-calibrated which is a PITA when it happens in the middle of a job. Ive contemplated epoxying the micro usb plug into the receptacle but have yet to commit. They were super economical but less so now it seems.

[Carl Beckett]

Ive contemplated epoxying the micro usb plug into the receptacle but have yet to commit.

I often use hot glue for strain relief. Not as severe as epoxy (can be removed if needed to redo).

[Carl Beckett]

Interesting. I thought about that but wondered if the tape would be strong enough to resist flex that would bias the reading. So it seems with the right tape it works ok.

John

I havent tried to calibrate it against any known, but it only needs to overcome the sliding friction which is quite low. Any reasonable size piece has a pretty large area, in shear, so it is not going to flex much.

Actually I take that back - on my sander I did this and have a known travel per turn of the knob - it reads exactly as it should. So yes it holds and does not flex.

Then the extension wire I use cable ties with the stick on square tiedown blocks. Mount a few of these along the route to keep the wire pulled down and out of the way.

[Jim Becker]

John, I'll be interested to see how things work out on this...that's an attractive price and I honestly could take advantage of having a DRO on the J/PO at this point because of the thickness precision I want for my CNC work. I had one on it for years, but always forgot it was there due to infrequent time in the shop while I was still working full time. When it died and couldn't be resurrected for some reason, I threw it out. Now...I'm in here 5-6 days a week and am constantly preparing material.

[Mark Bolton]

I often use hot glue for strain relief. Not as severe as epoxy (can be removed if needed to redo).

Man, what a way better solution. Over complication is a major PITA. Thanks a ton. Im on it.

[John TenEyck]

Thanks for all the input. In the end, I used a woodworker's solution and made a little wooden clamp to fit around the slider and then connected that to the planer table with a small piece of plywood fashioned to fit so that I can still use the mechanical indicator if desired. I had it all installed only to find out that it was reading the wrong way so I had to take it off and turn the slide end for end. I thought I could just change the "-" to a "+" and it would read positive either way. Wrong. So after I got that straightened out I ran a piece of wood through the planer, checked the thickness with a set of verniers, and then input that as the reference value. The directions are clear but I still had to follow them closely and it still took a couple of tries to get it programmed right. I raised the planer bed and ran the wood through again. The verniers and DRO were within a couple of thousandths, so that's good enough for me.

The display unit has a pretty long cable, which is nice. There is a mounting plate you can screw to something and then hang the display unit on that, but the display unit itself has magnets on the back as well, so I just used that feature to position the display for easy reading while planning, then moved it to a safe place on the back when I wanted to convert the machine back to jointing. (It's a MM J/P.)

One curious thing it took me a couple of seconds to figure out was if I ran my 3 or 4" wide piece of wood left or right of center on the planer bed the DRO would move a few thousandths during the cut, then come back to the original setting after the wood was out of the machine. I'm quite sure what I was seeing was real and it was the planer bed tilting left or right under load, because my MM J/P only has a central post that lifts/lowers the table. Moral of the story, keep things centered on these machines if you want constant thickness. Never had that issue with my little Inca or Foley Belsaw, both of which ran on 4 jack screws.

So far so good. We'll see how durable it is. I'm also curious to see how long the batteries last. There is no AC option for this unit, so I hope the batteries last months and not days. I'll post again if something goes wrong in the short term.

John

[Mark Bolton]

If most people who carry on about snipe had a dro on the in and out feed table as well as the head they'd see the same . Flexure/slop/backlash in the machine is 99% of the problem. Its just that now you see it undeniably.