Hi, it's a glass scale. The magnetic ones are smaller, but more expensive. Thanks for your comment! 👍

Hi, I use UGS as the gcode sender. I have also used candle, but UGS is less buggy. I think there's a few others, but I haven't used anything else. Hope this helps. Thanks for your comment! 👍

@@ollysworkshop Thank you so much it does help. I am using UGC for my CNC mill but wasn't sure about how to use it on a lathe.

@@nomadmika it is basically the same, just with 2 axes instead of 3. Working out the various offsets still gives me a headache. There's probably a good way to do it, but I haven't found it yet. The visualiser in UGS isn't designed for a lathe (unless there's a mode I haven't found). I have to trust what I see in the fusion simulation, then run the gcode. It doesn't always (read that as 'ever') work first time!

Hi. Good question. The SX3 you see in bits is not the same one that you saw in the comparison video. When I bought the CNC lathe, I also got a pile of bits for a CNC mill. The one in bits is the CNC mill. There was also enough bits for another complete manual SX3 (the one you saw previously). I'm actually looking to sell it (the manual one), just not got round to doing anything. I've run out of space!

Great, glad it was helpful.👍

Hi, the lack of GRBL tool offsets is a known limitation, and I've yet to do anything about it. I think the way you are doing it with WCS is the only way without doing anything clever. If you can write code, then it should be possible to run a script on your gcode to pick up the different tool numbers and directly apply the appropriate offsets to the x-z coordinates in the gcode. The other option, that I have been considering, is buying a mach3/4 compatible controller!

Thanks David. It's when you look closely at these Chinese tools that you see all the little things that could have easily been done, but haven't. I hope my efforts make up for the lack of effort by the manufacturer!

Thanks Matt. Hopefully will be making some progress on the actual solid riser tonight 🤞

Thanks. I'm looking forward to seeing how much difference a solid tool post makes.

Thanks. Glad to have been of some help.

Thanks. It was a fun experiment.

Thanks for the feedback.

It's the first/only thing that I think of when Delaware is mentioned! I'm glad someone appreciated it. 👍👍

Thanks, I've seen a few of Steve's videos, I'll go and see if I can find it.

I'm looking forward to seeing the difference it makes.

Thanks Matty. Hope you are doing well.

Definitely worth a try!👍

The ELS is still on the list of things to do. Will check out the nano ELS. I have seen a video from Weiss for a lathe with ELS, but it looks a bit crap and no one seems to stock it. My lathe is over 15 years old, I don't think they had them back then!

From memory I think it was 160mm, hence the trepanning tool. Hole saws that big are silly expensive.

Thanks for sharing!

Hi, thanks for your feedback. Unfortunately we don't have PM available in the UK, I think the closest we have is warco. On paper it's hard to tell the different vendors apart for what looks like essentially the same machine.

Thank you, that's very good to hear.

Thanks Matt. I'm afraid you're right, tis just for the chuck guard, nothing exciting.

I'm sure I'll find a way to screw things up, just more precisely!

Thanks Kev. Looking forward to using it.

Hi Kev. There's definitely a place for dials, and sometimes even imperial. A dial graduated in 0.01mm increments is a whole lot more accurate than a digital version with 0.01mm precision. I don't use my mill DRO that much, but when I do it's really handy. I'm expecting the same with the lathe DRO.

Thanks RustyInventions

Same here, I need to get around to it. This was helpful.

@ironhead65 @JeremyMakesThings Hi both, glad it was useful, took ages to edit! For the cross slide, I think the best solution is the magnetic tape as it can be kept compact, it's just more expensive than the optical scales. I may well upgrade when I've saved a few more pennies.

Thanks Andrew. I'm looking forward to the convenience of the DRO. I've managed without for ~17 years, but definitely shied away from jobs that needed a lot of precision. I'll look up the myford kit as it may be transferrable as a technique.

@@ollysworkshop The kit I installed is by MDRO and use magnetic scales. Because of their slim nature it means that the cross slide scale is fitted to a slim slot milled into the base of the cross slide. An incredibly neat solution. It’s proving to be very robust and accurate.

Thanks David

Hi Bob. I think it's the rejects that get sold off by the no-name chinese brands. It said SINO on it, which is a well known chinese brand, so should have been good, but it didn't come from them. I think the way they become non-linear is if the photo-lithography goes wrong - e.g. the photopositive of negative or whatever they use is maybe not flat, or is at an angle to the glass. I'm sure there's lots of ways they can screw it up.

@@ollysworkshop I suspect you're right about 3rd party selling off rejects.(side thought, What Chinese businessman wouldn't do this.)😉

Thanks for the tip, I'll see if I can find some!

Hi Aaron, it's a really "nice in theory" idea, and I wanted to do it. It could be made much better with a stronger spring (or possibly a gas strut as they have constant spring rate), or even with a continuous loop of wire that both pushes and pulls. There's been loads of great ideas in the comments, so maybe one day I'll get round to trying them.

Good point. I'll have a bit of a think on that one. Thanks 👍

Hi, thanks for the comment. I reckon I'll revisit this, but for the moment I've "given up" because I want to get the DRO fitted, and the lathe back in service. I agree a much stronger spring would be good, I was just working with what I had, that'll be an easy one to try. I also like the hydraulic idea that's been talked about, more just because I like it rather than it being the right solution. I would also like to try a rotary encoder. I'm really good at starting projects, less good at finishing them, so we'll see what happens.

Hi, that's certainly something worth looking at, thanks. 👍

It's a flawed design, but it was drawn up in a few hours. I'm sure if man years were spent on it, a solution could be found, but in engineering the compromise usually wins.

I covered the push-pull idea, used Kevlar thread, and pointed out the cosine error in the video. A rotary encoder is certainly one way to go with this. I'm not sure it's worth struggling with stepper motors though.

Yes, too many moving parts.

@@ollysworkshop good to try things out nonetheless. If you're chasing microns lookup laser interferometer encoders 💸

That's definitely something worth trying then, thanks for the comment!👍👍

I understand the principle, makes perfect sense. But in practice I don't see how it could ever be guaranteed 100% bled free of air. Air would cause hysteresis in the measurement. You say this was actually implemented somewhere, what kind of machine was it? Was it accurate enough for this application? Like within .00001"?

@@charlesstaton8104 The original question as I understood it was, is there another way other than cables. I'm saying there is another way. I believe I did not say the method was developed. The systems were used on a wide variety of Wickes Crankshaft lathes (circa 1940? - 1970?) to rough out , and semi finish forged steel crankshafts prior to heat treat and finishing. The system is a platform for smooth control of motion by using opposed hydraulic devices. The idea is in control of motion and precision is in the measuring devices (scale, pick-up head). To answer the questions that come next, I would begin with: push a thin fluid in a small diameter piston (attached to the tool slide) in a small diameter cylinder through a tube into a matching cylinder that is attached to a head and scale to see what happens.Measure travel at the slide with an indicator compared to the the DRO. Going forward, I require recognition for the design and compensation where appropriate. Additionally, a small tank is required to supply fluid to both cylinders to accept fluid from one cylinder being pushed by the other, check valves to prevent back flow and added tube. The supply tank would be vented to room air, no pump is required. Movement of the tool slide would push to fluid back and forth resulting in travel of the reader head. Feed the tool in, head moves the read head in. Return the tool slide out, the read head moves back. All displayed on the DRO.

@@charlesstaton8104 The supply tank allows all air to rise to the surface and dissipate. There is no chance of cavitation to form vacuum fracture in the fluid because of the very low speed of the fluid. Once air remaining after assembly is bled, it will be bubble free. No pump, slow fluid movement.

Thanks Matty. It was certainly something I wanted to try, I knew it would have backlash, but was eye opening to see quite how much. I could spend a long time refining it, but every step in the mechanical chain adds some inaccuracy which is unavoidable.

Hi Peter, thanks for the ideas. The original wire I used was gear cable from a mountain bike, but I'll look into the stainless fishing wire, that sounds promising. There are many areas of possible improvement on this, not least is a stronger spring, but I just built it with what I had lying around. Ultimately, if the spring is strong enough it would overcome any stiction and slop in the system, but it may make it hard to turn the handwheel!

@@ollysworkshop The cable you used looked like the normal galvanised hi tensile stuff. the stainless is more flexible. cheers

The brain will keep thinking about it. In the meantime I'm just going to push the splashback further back!

@@ollysworkshop I really like the out of box thinking. I was resigned to putting the dro sensor on the chip side. You’ve given me hope!