Understanding DRO's for a Milling Machine

[Ageless]

Hello All;
Let me start off with what I am looking for.

I have a milling machine and am looking for a inexpensive way of attaching a 3-axis DRO system.
I am a amateur user, which means I do not do commercial or large production runs so the cost of this system
has to be kept low. Regarding the use of scales, I would like to use the cheap Chinese scales versus glass scales,
this is strictly due to cost. I understand that the DR0 350 is being replaced by the DRO 550 model now, what does this mean
to me? What about other manufactures and or using older commercial units and retro fitting them to work in the home environment.
I am hoping that others who have been looking at this conversion or have done so will share there thoughts on the best and most economical path to follow for a DRO system for a Milling Machine.

 

[around]

Ageless,

I have a DRO350 which i constructed two years ago. It has worked perfectly and has proven to be an immense timesaver. Drilling bolt hole circles is a breeze!

The DRO 550 is replacing the DRO350 but I would expect that there will be DRO 350 PCBs available for a while yet. The 350 was through-hole construction and well within the capabilities of most hobbyist to build. The DRO 550 is surface mount components and I do not believe that it will be offered as a bare-board.

I mounted my DRO350 on a Super X3 mill. The Z-axis scale was already in place so all I needed was the x and y scales. It was quite straight forward to mount them and integrate the Z-axis scale. I also fitted a tachometer pick-up into the mill head to take advantage of the SFM calculations provided by the DRO 350.

Cheers,

Adrian