Fluctuating reading on 1 axis of 3

[YawningAngel]

Hi all,

I have been using a TouchDRO board, with 2 iGageing scale on my mill for some time and they have functioned perfectly.

I recently added a 3rd scale (all 3 scales were bought at the same time and are identical, except for their length - I've only just made the mounting hardware for the 3rd scale).

I am seeing large, sporadic jumps in the reading on this new axis. For example, if I zero the readout, within a few seconds, it jumps 4 or 5mm in either direction. The amount of the jump seems consistent between  Zeros...ie, if it jumps +4mm, it can jump back to zero, or up to plus 8mm. If I then re-zero, it will jump by a different amount. This is with or without any ambient electrical interference...

The scales have all had their original cables replaced with shielded cables. 

I don't know if this is significant, but the affected scale/readout is connected to the x-axis on the board, even though it is z-axis on the mill itself.

I plan to try a different channel on the board (w), but I thought I'd ask here too, just incase there was a definitive 'fix' for this behaviour..?

Cheers

Paul

[Yuriy]

Paul,
Try pluggin the new scale into an input that was working correctly and see if it does the same thing.

[litewav]

I noticed that the scale acts that way if it is upside down. On mine, you can see thin lines on one side and fat lines on the other side of the black part. I think the thin line side goes towards the side of the reader that has the wire coming out. But it's easy enough flip it and see. At least on mine.

Chris

[YawningAngel]

My apologies...I should have replied far sooner...work has been getting in the way or workshop time

Anyway...I tried plugging the 'iffy' scale into the W axis socket, and observed the same behaviour...so the Board and App are not at fault (no surprise really).

Thanks for the suggestion that the scale could be upside-down..that would never have occurred to me! I'll give it a try & report back.

Cheers

Paul

[YawningAngel]

Well how about that...! Flipping the scale end for end seems to have done the trick!

I can't see anything on the scale or the reader box to explicitly suggest which way is definitively 'up', but I guess the scale itself just...'knows'..!

Thanks for your input.

Cheers

Paul