Welcome to MSC, this is Larry the Machinery Guy. The purpose of today's video is we're going to show you how easy it is to measure for a digital readout on a lathe.
Now, we're only dealing with two axes here; that's an X-axis and a Z-axis. Your Z-axis right and left, your X-axis in and out. So the first thing we're going to do is establish what our center distance is. You notice I have two dead centers: one in the tailstock, one in the headstock. Grab a tape measure, get a good measurement, put up there in the center, and this is telling us that it's 40 inches in our Z travel.
And this is between centers, and that's how you want to measure it, between centers. Don't shortchange yourself on your Z-axis: “I'm never going to use it”—you will. Get the full length.
Now, the next thing we're going to do is move our cross slide all the way out to its furthest travel, and then I'm going to put a witness mark on there, and we're going to establish what that travel is going to be. Then I'm going to take that cross slide move it all the way in as far as I can go, and that's going to give me my X-travel. Pretty straightforward.
One thing they always consider is you have two things to watch: the measuring length and the overall length of the scale. So you have to be cognizant of that when you're ordering your DRO to make sure there's no interference in your overall length when installing that unit on your lathe, milling machine, whatever you wish to do.
So I have that number, and look forgot witness mark—have that—and with this I'm establishing we have an 8” travel on this lathe. So our X-axis travel is 8”, our Z-axis travel is 40”.
Thank you again for watching this video. We appreciate your business. Have a great day.
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