Installing a DRO Digital Read Out on a Lathe

[henryarnold]

Today I installed the X Axis Scale. You might be wondering how I have so much time to work on this project. I'm on vacation this week. Last week I finished off my wife's list of things to do around the house and so this week I am able to knock off this DRO project.

Here are the parts for the X Axis installation. The scale, the cover, and the brackets.
   
I was concerned about how parallel the end of the carriage was with the face of the bed so I used a digital level. I set it to zero on the top of the cross slide.
   
The end of the carriage read 89.0 degrees. I would have expected 90.0 degrees but as it turns out the bed is off by almost the same amount.
   
Here's the reading off the bed which is 88.1 degrees. I wasn't sure what to do about the 0.9 degrees difference but as the installation progressed, it seems that this amount was not a problem.
   

You'll notice that it looks like the level is at an angle that is not even close to 90 degrees. This is an allusion caused by the camera angle. Remember this later when it looks like I'm drilling and tapping what appear to be crooked holes.