Just finished a tapered octagon barrel and am happy with it. Now the ditron linear scale stopped working and cannot find support. Anyone you know who is interested in such things?

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Originally posted by gwahir:
Just finished a tapered octagon barrel and am happy with it. Now the ditron linear scale stopped working and cannot find support. Anyone you know who is interested in such things?

I don't think there is any support for Ditron. It is one of those import DROs and the companies that import and sell them have their own warranty system. Basically if it crashes within one or two years you send it back to the company you bought it from and they will replace them at their discretion. But I don't think they will repair them. The same system as Nightforce, Huskymaw and Vortex scopes. They know they are going to face a lot of infant mortality, so they double the price and offer an over the counter warranty replacement program. Newall and Fagor have some repair stations but most of the rest are buy and toss. Even those ones are only good for repairs for a short period of time and then they orphan them. I have a Newall C80 that packed in on me and I called Newall and they basically said they can't repair them anymore. If it's a scale or encoder that's packed in the other axis should still work and you can just buy a new one and hope it's compatible. Same with the readouts. If nothing works then the readout is fried and you just buy a replacement. The guys selling them should be able to confirm compatibility between bars, encoders and the readout with the model numbers. I still see them for sale on EBay. I've had to replace a couple of encoders on my Newalls. The reader bars on Newalls last forever. It's just a tube full of ball bearings. Glass and magnetic scales, not so much. Those fawkers are like live stock. Their life's ambition seems to be to die on your ass and leave you penniless.

Thanks for your input. You have been there!

I had a machine a few years back that I bought with one of those (no name) style DROs on it and the thing caved on me. I lost one of the axis. I tried for months to buy an encoder and scale that would fit into the inputs on the readout and in the end, no success. It was on a lathe and I just used the remaining axis on the Z axis which is really all you need on a lathe anyway as the X axis is always going one way so there is no slap to contend with. When I finally bit the bullet and went to DROs on all of my machines I bought to Newalls. While a tiny bit less accurate, the ball bearing type reader bars are impervious to water, chips, dirt and oil and they are solid state and as far as I know, they never fawk up. Lathes and mills can only cut to .001 inch on good days anyway so having tenths available, is just fooling yourself. I have used the old glass and magnetic scales in the past and just go out of my mind every time they got wet or dirty and I got that big (EEEEE) across the screen. I think the new ones have gotten a lot better. The Newall encoders and readouts of course are just like any other electronic gizmo and live-to-die. But you can get them repaired if they aren't to old.

I have used Fagors too and they seem pretty good. A lot of guys swear by them. But I have never owned one or tried to get repairs on one.


At any rate, good luck. I know it isn't what you wanted to hear but that's all I got.

Very good. I will order a new system for the mill off e-bay and use the old system with the working x axis on my lathe!

Yeah, if the scale is long enough, use it for the Z axis if you can. The X axis of a lathe has no slap to worry about as you are always turning in. When you buy a new one, make sure it has a couple of years warranty. Most of the time DROs last a long time if they get passed that (infant mortality) stage.

If you have a o'scope, you can verify the signaling of the working scale, and likely replace with a like type -- it will take a little effort to cross match, but there's not all that many signalling protocols