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I am on my second attempt (heading to a third and final). I bought the solder yourself board. Hit the first one with a drill while connecting the enclosure to the mill. Second board I installed my own USB breakouts (from China) and one of the breakouts promptly broke. Desoldered to add a new one and I got the pad to hot and it came off too. Gonna try one more time.
My question is on both boards I can get one scale at a time to work. As soon as I connect the second or third scale the most recently connected scale starts flashing back and forth between where the scale is and 405-409. I can disconnect all but one scale and I'm OK second scale the flashing starts again. The reading on the scale doesn't fluctuate. Seems like if I get away from zero on the scale then its not as bad. Also seems like if I power the board up with the scales attached its not as bad.
The scales I'm using are the inexpensive Chinese caliper type scales. I tried the first board with the OEM connector but its pretty much junk. The second board I bought good quality USB cables, cut them and soldered them straight to the scale. Second board is better but still flashes between scale position and usually 409. Tried enabling the averaging function but it still flashes between actual and 409 just shows the numbers in between.
Thanks for any feedback!
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Guess I'm surprised that a post can go almost two weeks without any responses. Even one saying I'm an idiot for drilling through the first board.
That said, I have kept trying to identify the problem. Purchased a iGaging EZ View + scale to test with. This scale doesn't jump around because I can't get it to work at all. Looks like maybe the EZ View scales don't work with the DIY board?
Any help selecting the correct board and corresponding scale would be appreciated. I would like to spend some time making something with the mill.
Thanks for the help!
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I played with the caliper-type scales for a bit. I even found a "cheap" source for the special cable. Turned out that the Mixed Scale board doesn't properly interpret the "BIN6" protocol that they output. It doesn't parse negative numbers, so even if you get them "working", they won't work properly. I don't know if Yuriy has gotten around to fixing it (Or will ever try at this point. It's a resource allocation thing.). An oscilloscope is tremendously helpful in diagnosing these things.
So, trying to cut my losses, I got incremental Shahe-type aluminum scales from Shars. They work quite well after adding a power supply decoupling capacitor inside the read head. They also made for a much nicer installation on my lathe (search YouTube for "Logan Lathe Model 200 TouchDRO Installation").
I've posted details elsewhere. Search on my name and see if any of it is helpful.
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Briney Eye,
Thanks for the response. I was beginning to think I was in a black hole. I'll search for your other posts. I have seen several posts about decoupling the power supply using a capacitor. Not having a background in electronics, does this mean connecting a small capacitor in series with the incoming power supply to ground?
I looked at Shars website but can't tell which scales may work and which ones don't. Don't want to end up with a closet full of scales looking for one that works.
Thanks again for your help.
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I included a picture of the installed capacitor in one of my posts. Just a cheap 0.01 microfarad ceramic disc cap from Radio Shack before they closed, but 0.1 would work fine as well. Buy some from Sparkfun at the same time you get some mini-B USB breakout boards. You're connecting it across the power supply so the high-frequency "noise" is provided an easy path to ground away from the high-impedance inputs on Yuriy's Mixed-Scale board. Much better behaved. They don't put very much filtering in the head because it's "normally" running from batteries and isolated from the noisy world.
I used the blue Shars aluminum scales, which they're selling at a pretty hefty discount on their site right now. I'm getting ready to order some for my "new" Clausing 8520 milling machine. The aluminum scales are pretty much the same as stainless, accuracy-wise, as I believe Yuriy has said elsewhere. They've proven to be an excellent match for my little Logan lathe, which really won't do super high precision anyway. I could have bought a Hardinge HLV lathe last month from the guy I got the mill from, but couldn't come up with a good enough song-and-dance to convince my wife. One of those really demands precision scales with 0.0001" resolution. I have to take pains to keep my Logan within 0.001" and use micrometers when it gets down to the finish cuts.
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09-12-2017, 03:26 AM
(This post was last modified: 09-12-2017, 03:26 AM by David Landwerlen.)
Briney, again thanks for the assistance. I ordered a single stainless scale from Shars ($30 scared me so I went for $70), figured what the heck I already have 6 other scales one more can't hurt. The post you mention is on this board? On a humorous note, I watched the video and then when I searched for posts on other boards I stumbled into "Briney Skye" evidently a porn star. My wife doesn't give much grief for buying stuff but she don't like porn stars much. HaHa.
