Shars scales with Touch DRO

[Shawn_Howell]

I just ordered my first set of scales to install on my x2 mini mill and am trying to find a semi economical DRO. Will the TouchDRO board work with shars scales? Does anyone know where I can find cables for these scales?

[Yuriy]

I just ordered my first set of scales to install on my x2 mini mill and am trying to find a semi economical DRO. Will the TouchDRO board work with shars scales? Does anyone know where I can find cables for these scales?

Can you post a link to the scales you have?

[Shawn_Howell]

http://www.shars.com/products/measuring/...hine-scale
http://www.shars.com/products/measuring/...hine-scale
http://www.shars.com/12-horizontal-digit...ne-scale-1

[Yuriy]

http://www.shars.com/products/measuring/...hine-scale
http://www.shars.com/products/measuring/...hine-scale
http://www.shars.com/12-horizontal-digit...ne-scale-1

Mixed scale kit should work. They look like 48 bit "Sylvac" scales. 
That said, if you have an option to cancel your order, I would suggest getting a set of "iGaging" scales. They will cost a bit less and are more reliable in a DRO setup (1.5 scales are much more noise prone).

[Shawn_Howell]

They've already shipped. I'll order the touch dro and see what I get I guess. I can always upgrade scales later, but again, I'm only putting these on an x-2 mini mill.

[Briney Eye]

The 6" and 24" Shars aluminum scales that I just bought (303-9270 and 303-9272) seem to work fine. Cost $75 with shipping.

Construction is on the flimsy side, but they work a treat on the bench. O'scope shows clean waveforms on the Mixed Scale board. They use the 21-bit format, 2540 CPI. Set the jumpers to 3.3V, pull-down resistors, and clock jumpers installed.

I just have to mount them now.

[Briney Eye]

I found that the Shars scales that I have are severely lacking in power supply decoupling.  Starting and stopping the lathe would cause the readings to jump sometimes.  And then I turned on my gooseneck LED lamp!  Whoa!!  I don't know what kind of dirt cheap switching line converter it uses, but it's crazy noisy.

You might get away with little or no supply decoupling if the scales are running on batteries and isolated from the environment.  But powering the scales from the Mixed Scale board couples them to all kinds of "world" noise.  So much so that just changing wall warts made the difference between connecting or not connecting.  Even running things from a bench power supply, while improving things, didn't solve the problem.

So I opened up the read heads of the scales and added 0.1uF ceramic capacitors between Vdd and Ground, which is a pretty standard value in the digital world.  Vdd has a conveniently labeled test pad.  A nearby bare spot on the copper pour provided the "ground" connection.  I just tack-soldered the leads to the two pads.

So far so good, even with the LED lamp on.  Here's a picture of the mod (yes, the leads are a little long), and of the X-axis scale installed on my Logan lathe (without the chip guard). The head is positioned so that the nut runs off the end of the crossfeed screw just before it runs into the head.
   
   

[geiges]

I have a shars 303-9270 6" scales.
I ordered the Adapter Board with micro-B Breakout Boards
but I cant get this to work? 
dose the adapter board not work with shars scales?
do I need  iGaging EZ-View DRO Plus?
thanks for any info

[Briney Eye]

I have a shars 303-9270 6" scales.
I ordered the Adapter Board with micro-B Breakout Boards
but I cant get this to work? 
dose the adapter board not work with shars scales?
do I need  iGaging EZ-View DRO Plus?
thanks for any info

See my preceding post.  The Shars aluminum scales work fine, but really need more supply decoupling to be stable.  If you're getting nothing, verify that you wired the breakout board correctly.

[geiges]

I looked over the wiring and read connecting igaging
scales to touchdro controller page 3 times. 
I checked test points to usb .
the board i was sent has 8 holes per axis to wire
do you use the 4 to the outside?
I checked the vcc and ground with a multimeter but
the data + clock i have no way to check.
the board amber light dose not blink rapidly to detect protocols
it jest blinks?
some times the red led lights.
thanks for the help!