DRO's

[G1K]

I'm evaluating a few different inexpensive DRO's. The two top on the list are the shumatech 350, and one sold by CDCO.

Anyone have experience with either?

The CDCO unit for a 12*24 lathe is $449 and comes with scales.

There's now a US distributor for the Shumatech, the intro price for the kit is $139. With the kit I'll also need to make or buy cables and source some scales.

I know we're kinda comparing apples to oranges, with the Shumatech being a kit that needs to be assembled vs. the CDCO unit which has everything I should need.

I'm leaning towards the shumatech simply based on some feedback I've read on other sites, and the support forum that exists for it, and it's a US product as much as an electrical product can be.

R

 

[gadget_lover]

The CDCO appears to be a SINO model. I have the mill version for my mill and I've been really amazed at what I can do with it. I got mine from shars.com .

The model that Shars has for the lathe has a few extra functions, such as taper calculations and the ability to add two scales together (compound + carriage)

For average use, either the CDCO or shumatech will work for you. The CDCO uses glass scales that are fairly bulky and can not be cut down. They will be longer than the travel by about 3 inches. The shumatech scales are less accurate, but can be cut to the exact size you need and the readers are smaller.

The size of the scale is a big problem on a 7x10, not so much on a 12x24.


I don't know how important the resolution is to you. With the typical chinese capacitive scale you get .001 +- .0005. With the glass scales you get .0001 +- .0002.

Either way, you will have a nice addition to your machine.

Daniel