Renishaw Linear Magnetic Encoders

[adam]

Hi all,

Does anyone have any experience using linear encoders from Reinshaw? Specifically, I was looking at this encoder. It would be ideal (i think) for mounting on my Sherline mill which has a lot of space constraints. Has anyone used these before? 

I had a few questions about this and would appreciate any feedback:

• I assume that I could directly use the quadrature adapter board?
  
• You have to choose the interpolation factor and frequency for the encoder but I really don't know what to select here. Are there some guidelines for how I might make the right choice? 
  
• I saw in the specs that the quadrature board can support up to 1um resolution. Would I just pick the highest resolution of the encoder or would that just create a lot of noise?
  
• The encoders also talk about references marks... I assume this is not needed for this type of scale since it's just relative positioning?
  
• Is it possible to use multiple different types of encoders? I would kind of like to try this out on the X axis of my mill since that is the most annoying place to try and attach a scale (right now I am trying with some igaging scales but they eat up a lot of space)
  

Thanks for any help or suggestions you guys might have!!