I own three metal lathes, a South Bend 9 inch and two 618 lathes, one Atlas and one Craftsman.? I have read dozens of articles of DRO retrofits and have purchased inexpensive aluminum scaled LCD readouts for both. ? However I have never installed the? readouts because every time I start I don't like the locations available, how it will have to attach to the surfaces, etc.? In the course of several starts and stops on permanent installation, I made several very inexpensive temporary tools I would like to share.
These readouts are made from digital tire tread readouts that you can buy for under $10 each.? They use lithium batteries that can be bought at Dollar Tree stores for $0.50 each and the batteries last a long time.? I made my first in under an hour and it was so handy I have made several more for lathes and I also use one on my table saw and planer in my wood shop.? As the photos show, I cut the ears off, epoxied on several small magnets on the body, and made a magnetic end piece.? Not obvious is after removing the factory label I disassembled the unit and carefully sanded the surfaces causing friction on the sliding piece to have almost no friction and re assembled.? I epoxied the blade from a razor utility knife to body along with 8 small thin magnets.? I epoxied another small magnet to the end of a small piece of brass hobby tubing for the end of the movable slide.? In the version shown, I ground down the plastic to lightly slip fit the brass tubing.? I bought the small magnets for a few dollars on ebay.
This has turned out to be very handy and I use them all the time.
Dallas
