I've been using a grizzly mini-mill for bout 3 years now to make my jaws, among other things. I had a custom made DRO on it that uses scales made from calipers that were then wired into the head unit.
It has worked well for most of the time but about 6-8 months ago, the Z axis (The one that measures head cutting depth) quit on me. So I have been nursing the process along by just using a caliper to measure the cutting depth. I have to have it pretty accurate for cutting the teeth in the jaws.
Well, in the last couple months the X axis has been acting up and I've had the caliper apart 4-5 times to get it working again. So, I've been saving for a factory made DRO for the mill. I can't make the jaws without one, at least not very easily.
I finally got the money around and found a good deal on ebay for the one I wanted. A 3 axis unit with glass scales that I could order the length I needed. To save about $450-$500 I purchased from a company out of China. It's the same unit (Or pretty much the same unit) that I can buy local or in the U.S. but at quite a savings. So, I found one that shipped fast and got it sent. I got it in 6 days.
The scales are much bigger than what I had on the mill already so I had to make changes and fit them just right so that they didn't interfere with any movement of the table or head. I also found that while I could use some of the brackets for mounting the scales, I had to modify every one in some way to make them work and also had too make a bunch of my own mounting hardware to get it all on and aligned properly. I'm sure glad I had the mill to make those brackets.
![Wink :wink:](./images/smilies/icon_wink.gif)
But, I have too say, it looks good and seems to work great. So now I'm back in business. I'll also be able to use the mill much more for other things as well and am actually working on some tooling I already had for it that needed improvements, such as my HF rotary table which was lacking, but is looking better with some work.