DRO on a surface grinder?

[JoeLee]

I have readouts for my KO Lee S718. I've had them for years but to this day I've never had an issue holding tenths on the down feed using the graduations on the hand wheel.

And I really don't feel like pulling the column and spindle apart for drilling and bracket fabrication etc.

But I am going to put them on my T&C grinder.

JL.............

[darylbane]

Joe, please post that. I have a K.O Lee T & C and would love to put a DRO on it as the handwheel leadscrew for the motor/head is worn and tough to make accurate.

[Fasturn]

Sometimes you forget how much you dialed down with incremental passes. The DRO would help you there. We old times are good without one, but the Kiddie's would love it.

[small.planes]

I have a DRO on both the mill and the big lathe.
I don’t have one on my 540 surface grinder, and I’ve never felt it needed on.
There are only 2 axis that you would generally measure position of accurately, and both of those have really nice big hand wheels. It has quite a bit of backlash, but grinding tends to be a one direction job and you start with the wheel off the job.

Dave

[Mcgyver]

imo you don't need one on the Z, at least for me it would be so infrequent, I'd just use the dial

I put a DRO on my grinder in the Y (wheel up and down) and love it. The machine came out of a high school and had been caught up on Canada's official conversion to metric. While I'm ok with metric, most of my work is in imperial.....so when a Mitutoyo read out came up for $25 I bought it. Yahoo....until i priced the cost of the scale! Oh well, I splurged and have been really happy with it. I did about 2 decades without, and with is better.

It's just so much nicer to set the readout to zero it after measuring, flip from metric to imperial, etc. I also think it provides more accuracy vs. reading a dial that is more coarsely graduated, reading the awkwardly placed little vernier etc. There are lots of opportunities to make errors converting to measurements, subtracting from dial readings etc. Yeah, if you're perfect you never make a mistake, but not having quite obtained perfection (just ask my wife) and preferring to enjoy my time in shop, all take the convenience of a DRO upgrade thank you very much

That and a VFD for soft starts/stops and flood have made it a machine that performs so well it gets used all the time. Currently on my mind is getting a collection of wheel mount taper adapters...they're pricy but not sure they're worth making

[BCRider]

I don't have a surface grinder but it seems to me that a DRO on something like a mill makes sense where you're moving around a lot and want to avoid backlash issues. But on a surface grinder?

I guess if you needed to grind a face and then grind a small ledge to one side? A DRO for that would be handy. Otherwise you're only moving a small amount so only the last digit would ever be needed?

If working to grind to a very specific thickness perhaps? But how does one touch off the grinding wheel against the table to set the zero without damage to the table?

Or if one uses a DTI on a surface gauge or similar to compare the height of the part being ground to a gauge block on a surface plate which is easier, to play with the flickering 10's (or 100's if metric) of the last digit or to move the graduations on the downfeed wheel? Honestly curious on this last since I don't have nor have ever used a surface grinder and don't use a DRO... (yet). Honestly asking you SG owners about this.

[RB211]

I don't have a surface grinder but it seems to me that a DRO on something like a mill makes sense where you're moving around a lot and want to avoid backlash issues. But on a surface grinder?

I guess if you needed to grind a face and then grind a small ledge to one side? A DRO for that would be handy. Otherwise you're only moving a small amount so only the last digit would ever be needed?

If working to grind to a very specific thickness perhaps? But how does one touch off the grinding wheel against the table to set the zero without damage to the table?

Or if one uses a DTI on a surface gauge or similar to compare the height of the part being ground to a gauge block on a surface plate which is easier, to play with the flickering 10's (or 100's if metric) of the last digit or to move the graduations on the downfeed wheel? Honestly curious on this last since I don't have nor have ever used a surface grinder and don't use a DRO... (yet). Honestly asking you SG owners about this.

I’ve only used my SG once so far but there is a YouTuber that made tool holders almost exclusively using his SG to prove a point that they can do so much more than remove tenths.

[eKretz]

Readouts are useful no matter the machine, IMO. They are a timesaver, especially if working on multiples of the same part. Yes the job can be done just fine with handwheel graduations, but then you have to remember how many revolutions, etc. etc. I like to use the actual dimension on my readout, rather than just grinding back to a zero - which you can't really do with a handwheel.

This argument is sort of akin to "why use an impact, I can just use a ratchet" or something like that. Readouts may not make you any more accurate, but if used ably, they will help get the job done faster.

[Dan Dubeau]

One point brought up here in favour of the readout is the ability to switch between metric and imperial at the flick of a button. I'm pretty fluent in both systems, but on the lathe I do find me switching to work in metric and turning to dimensions directly instead of doing the conversion a lot of times. A readout would be pretty handy for that and one I didn't really think about. It would also save your neck if standing there for long periods of time by not having to look down at the dials all day.