Economical Digital Readout and 3-Axis Scale Upgrades For Legacy Milling Machine Setups
A long-standing customer recently purchased a second-hand milling machine fitted with a hobby-style Easson DRO system. It was purchased from an educational establishment – bought as seen. It wasn’t until the machine was delivered to the customer’s premises that the customer realised that the milling machine had a 2 axis X-Y DRO system installed – instead of an expected 3 axis DRO. This was insufficient for their requirements and intended use.
Upgrading From 2-Axis to 3-Axis Scale Capability
Our customer needed to upgrade the milling machine to host a 3 axis digital readout in the most cost-effective way. Luckily, the customer had a 3-axis Sino display installed on another machine – fixtured to require the use of only 1 axis. Due to previous experience with such legacy setups, EEC knew that these two displays required the same signal to operate. A rather handy coincidence and assistive towards an economical outcome for the customer.
Purpose Made Adapters To Interface Contemporary Scales With Legacy DROs
EEC had previously developed an adapter to address such situations – enabling use of industry standard Acu-Rite SENC scales to interface with the hobby style Chinese displays. Our adapters were developed to create a more reliable and serviceable option to upgrade Chinese scales when they inevitably fail (due to poor construction, the use of cheap components and poor or non-existent quality control). Most Acu-Rite scales are stocked in the UK and can be delivered to the customer next day – and carry a much longer projected lifetime than the cheap and cheerful Chinese displays.
Purpose Made Fixings to Maintain Accuracy
As this was a fresh installation, unique brackets were manufactured to suit the milling machine and DRO setup. These we manufactured on-site by EEC to enable ease of installation and to ensure correct tolerances were maintained during installation of the Acu-Rite SENC scale.
The use of a backing spar with adjustable grub screws enabled fine adjustment of the Acu-Rite SENC scale – and ensured that the scale was supported robustly. To maintain the scale’s full range of travel once installed, a cable loop was implemented to keep cables tidy and out of harms way during axis movement of the Acu-Rite scale.
Z axis at its lowest position to ensure cable isn’t tight and under strain
Ensuring clearance between head bracket and scale
3 axis Sino display swapped from one machine to the other
A closer view of the scanning head bracket
Ensuring that the cables are tidy and out of harms way
EECs adapter to enable Acu-Rite SENC scales to be plugged into Chinese displays
Please contact EEC Ltd for requirements that require installation and interfacing of legacy machining equipment with modern digital readouts and scales
