Installing a DRO Digital Read Out on a Lathe

[henryarnold]

With all the holes drilled, I mounted the scale and loosely mounted the bracket. The bracket is is screwed to the bottom of the pickup with two 4 mm screws. There is a plastic protector on the scale pickup that is not removed until everything is aligned.
I adjusted the planarity of the scale using a dial gage on the carriage. This adjustment needs to be within 0.007" over the length of the scale. The bracket screws are still loose at this point.
   
Using 3 feeler gages that total 0.055", I adjusted the clearance of the pickup to the scale body. The plastic protector is removed before making this adjustment. Tightening the bracket screws locks in the pickup clearance.
   
I hooked up the display and my new X scale worked fine so I wire tied the cables so that they don't strain the cable at the entry point to the pickups.
   
Last photo before putting the splash guard back in place.
   
All done except for mounting the display
   

You'll notice that I haven't installed either of my scale guards. I'm still thinking about whether I really need to but I will show you how they are installed later if I install them.

The last thing I need to do is fabricate a mounting post for the display.