RobCox
Member
- Messages
- 387
- Location
- Cambridge, UK
I was asked on the thread on my Eagle surface grinder rebuild if I'd post some photos of the DRO mounting on my Elliott 00 mill, so here they are as inspiration for anyone pondering the best way of fitting some up to date metrology onto a vintage(ish) machine.
The scales are magnetic ones from Machine DRO. The whole system was first installed on a Sieg SX2 mill before I upgraded to the Elliott. The read heads and readout were shifted over, but I bought new magnetic scales as they aren't too frightening pricewise.
X-axis, bolted into the back of the table. Doesn't really cost any travel, as at higher knee heights the table would crash into the horizontal spindle first:
Y axis on the left side of the knee below the leadscrew. The mounting blocks bolted onto the knee casting have four jacking screws to level them. No such thing as a flat surface on these mill castings:
Z-axis (from the vertical spindle perspective!), on the right side of the column:
The black PVC covered steel conduit routes the power to the vertical head. I stripped out the entire mill electrics and started from scratch as 1) I needed to use a VFD to run the motors and 2) the wiring looked to me like a death trap. I also didn't like where the controls were, in the front on the base casting, so I built a box for the switches and mounted it on the RHS of the column at a convenient height:
In the same position on the other side of the mill I used a similar arrangement to mount the DRO readout:
Again, these blocks have 4 jacking screws to cope with the curved surfaces.
There you go. Hope someone finds this useful.
Rob
The scales are magnetic ones from Machine DRO. The whole system was first installed on a Sieg SX2 mill before I upgraded to the Elliott. The read heads and readout were shifted over, but I bought new magnetic scales as they aren't too frightening pricewise.
X-axis, bolted into the back of the table. Doesn't really cost any travel, as at higher knee heights the table would crash into the horizontal spindle first:
Y axis on the left side of the knee below the leadscrew. The mounting blocks bolted onto the knee casting have four jacking screws to level them. No such thing as a flat surface on these mill castings:
Z-axis (from the vertical spindle perspective!), on the right side of the column:
The black PVC covered steel conduit routes the power to the vertical head. I stripped out the entire mill electrics and started from scratch as 1) I needed to use a VFD to run the motors and 2) the wiring looked to me like a death trap. I also didn't like where the controls were, in the front on the base casting, so I built a box for the switches and mounted it on the RHS of the column at a convenient height:
In the same position on the other side of the mill I used a similar arrangement to mount the DRO readout:
Again, these blocks have 4 jacking screws to cope with the curved surfaces.
There you go. Hope someone finds this useful.
Rob