Wixey DRO on a Delta 18/36

[Bruce Page]

I like digital readouts so I thought I’d try to incorporate one into my Delta 18/36 drum sander. I picked up a couple Wixey DRO's, designed for the lunchbox type planner, at my local woodcraft for $59.95. Today, I designed and fabricated a couple of aluminum mounting brackets to adapt it to the Delta. In this application the yellow graduated scale of the Wixey is unusable (reading in the wrong direction) due to the table of the drum sander rising and lowering as opposed to the head moving on the lunchbox planner. To use, I will just zero out the DRO at some known point and adjust the cut from there. I can see this being very useful for sanding multiple boards/panels to a uniform thickness. I plan on mounting the second Wixey on my Powermatic 15” planner, stay tuned!

I’m not sure if member Barry Wixey would approve, and at the very least I’ve probably voided my warranty.

Pic 1. Fabricated hardware & modified Wixey DRO.
Pic 2. Mounted and fine tuned.
Pic 3. Big mess for a couple of simple brackets...

[Norman Hitt]

That's a Really Nice Installation, Bruce. (Sure must be nice to have your own Mill to make Brackets and things like this). If Barry sees this installation, maybe he will start making some Modified "Yellow Scales" that will read in the right direction for applications like this, since that could open up another huge market for him. Maybe you can even get a few "spares" as a design fee.

[Vaughn McMillan]

Looks great Bruce. I'm sure it'll be handy.

...Big mess for a couple of simple brackets...

Ah, but how nice it must be to have the equipment to make that kind of mess. (Dang Sandia techies...)

- Vaughn

[Jim Becker]

I wonder if there is a jumper internal to reverse the reading...there was in my Digiscale that I put on the MM J/P awhile back as it was the same situation...table moves, not the cutter head.

[Bruce Page]

Thanks for the comments guys. The yellow scale isn’t really a issue for me, I’ll use the Delta scale when I need to. After the DRO is set to zero, the only difference in the readout is the minus symbol in front of the reading, again, no big deal. I tried to come up with a way to mount the reading head to the drum sander head that would allow the Wixey to function as designed, but everything that I came up with would have interfered with the conveyer.

[Barry Wixey]

Bruce:

That is a great looking set up. We are trying to get picures from folks who mount the DRO in different ways and put them on our website. Do you mind if we use yours?

Also, I am wondering how you calibrate the readout to the thickness of your wood?

I have been telling people that mount these readouts on machines with tables that go up and down ( instead of the cutterhead like portable planers) that they should try a piece of angle iron attached to the table so that the display is stationary and the rest of the parts go up and down with the table. ( Hopefully will get this on the website soon .) Here are some pictures using this approach on a Jet Paner molder. Hope this gives you ideas with your next instalation!
Barry

[Chris Giles]

Bruce,

I'm sure you thought of this, but the sandpaper strips tend to be thicker for the coarser grits than the thinner. Do you use dial calipers to check the thickness before rewinding the drum, then have some way to recalibrate the readout? I have no confidence in the ability of the sandpaper manufacturers to produce a consistent thickness, and this could effect the accuracy of your set-up, unless such a quick adjustment is possible. I have this sander, and would like to use this sort of set-up.

[Bruce Page]

Thanks Barry. Feel free to use the pictures. I can also take some more that might show everything a little better.
With this setup, there isn’t any way to calibrate to the thickness of the wood directly. I plan on just measuring the board after I have sanded to rough thickness, zero-out and then sand to finish thickness using the readout. If I have more than one board to sand or if I want to come back a week later and sand another board, I will re-zero at that point.
Chris, as described above, the paper thickness doesn’t come into play unless I have to change it in midstream. In that case, I agree, I will have to re-check and adjust as necessary.