Adding a fourth axis DRO to my mill

[Robert Haas]

I was using a simple plunger style digital read out on my quill and it did what it was designed to do, (Give me a digital readout of how far the quill moved) yet it did not give me any of the cool feature the other three axis had in the main DRO panel. So I went ahead and upgraded to a magnetic scaled 4 axis DRO and got it all mounted up. Simple stuff once you have done a few of these and I had. However mounting a scale on the quill was a whole different animal and required a serious amount of head scratching and fabrication.


There is a lot of stuff going on on the face of my Mill's head and not a lot of room for this so I had to create it from scratch. It had to be super rigid and not get in the way of the numerous controls.

Using some 1/2" by 1 3/4" 6061 anodized bar stock I created the exoskeleton style mount for the scale. It was the simplest part of the build.

The reader or head was a different story. It is what would actually mount to the quill and I had to recreate the piece that bolted to the quill shaft to a much higher tolerance then the indicator/ stop the mill was originally equipped with. My part would be over 2" long (1.125" longer the stock) It would need to be nearly a press fit into the slot machined into the quill shaft so It required some strong accuracy control as well as precise layouts. I came out very well and worked as intended.














Now I get to see all 4 lines of the display in action.

 

[Tallpilot]

Very cool

 

[Robert Haas]

I honestly expected more interest in this topic. We have hundreds of members here with mills in their shops yet when it comes to what we actually do to them their is not much attention.

Maybe it is in the wrong part of these boards.

 

[Bigblue&Goldie]

Cool, I've never seen one like that before. Typically you just see the ones that look like a digital caliper attached to the mill.

 

[LeeG]

I don’t have a mill, but I will be showing this to my buddy that has a small shop with a nice Lagun mill. Nice work

 

[Cruzan80]

What does the black handle on the right do? I was thinking about this on mine, but I would think trying to mount it off-center would allow more use of the feed stop and to see the ruler on the left.

 

[dr_clyde]

I honestly expected more interest in this topic. We have hundreds of members here with mills in their shops yet when it comes to what we actually do to them their is not much attention.

Maybe it is in the wrong part of these boards.

I’m surprised by what people will comment on. Something I find interesting gets only a few comments but some threads discussing things that come up every week gets 5 pages of comments. Oh well. That’s forums.

I’m interested in doing the same thing to my mill, I appreciate the post.

 

[Robert Haas]

What does the black handle on the right do?.

That is the quill release.

 

[FishingMan]

Thanks for posting this. I want to do the same for my mill. Who makes the dro? Any links?
Thanks

 

[txvwnut]

I did a four axis on my knee mill a couple of years ago. Funny thing is now I don't use the quill for precision boring anymore I use the knee feed.

 

[Bigblue&Goldie]

Maybe it is in the wrong part of these boards.

Definitely the wrong section. General Tool Discussion is for arguing over power tool brands and truck tools vs HF. Fabrication and Techniques is where this belongs.

 

[Cruzan80]

Gotcha. Mine is a smaller knob. Issue I would have mounting mine to tbe right is that twoof the four locking bolts for head rotation may be in the way. Possibly could get them with less pronounced heads, and angle the DRO bar, halfway between face on and fully right, but may need one in hand to check.

Was yours pieced together, or bought ad an extra kit?

That is the quill release.

Sent from my Phone 2 using The Garage Journal mobile app

 

[Robert Haas]

Gotcha. Mine is a smaller knob. Issue I would have mounting mine to tbe right is that twoof the four locking bolts for head rotation may be in the way. Possibly could get them with less pronounced heads, and angle the DRO bar, halfway between face on and fully right, but may need one in hand to check.

Was yours pieced together, or bought ad an extra kit?

Sent from my Phone 2 using The Garage Journal mobile app

It is a full kit from DRO Pros.

As far as location, I spent a great deal of time mocking this up and experimenting with every conceivable location. (even spent a respectable amount of time designing a remote mount that used a Morse cable off a boat shift linkage I had laying about. I scrapped that as it introduced too much back lash)

 

[Robert Haas]

Definitely the wrong section. General Tool Discussion is for arguing over power tool brands and truck tools vs HF. Fabrication and Techniques is where this belongs.

Fabrication and techniques ? Of course the place great threads go to die.

Maybe if a moderator reads this they might kindly move this thread over there.

 

[Robert Haas]

I did a four axis on my knee mill a couple of years ago. Funny thing is now I don't use the quill for precision boring anymore I use the knee feed.

Well I can "Sum" the quill with the Z axis and that is beyond handy The DRO lets the two add up their travels respectively and I can do hundreds of operations so much faster.

 

[bimmer1980]

I think threads get more traction if people can add their two cents and opinions mid way thru the process......

It's a nicely added feature to your mill. I hadn't known that you could have the quill and Z-axis tied together... good to know.

I would recommend posting to homemadetools.net for some recognition.....

 

[Robert Haas]

Just a report after using this for a week.

Having the quill and Z able to sum has transformed how I do any depth cutting. Before I would have to lower the z axis to move a part and raise it back to the position it was at to continue a cut. Now I can just raise the quill, move the part, drop the quill and tune with the up Z and be back to cutting in a tenth the time. I can also raise the quill to check on the cutters condition or even to just clear chips all the while not worrying about getting back to exactly where I just was.

This fourth axis read out was one of those things I did not know I wanted until I had it.