I’ve been kicking around the idea of adding digital guages to my equipment as much as possible.
I know there are table saw fence add-ons that run about $200-300 and claim accuracy to .001″. This really seems like overkill for a table saw. I think to 1/64″ would be fine.
It would be great to add to the miter saw too. I’ve always hated reading tapes and think its a lot harder to miss a measurement with a digital scale. I use story sticks and setup blocks a lot because of this.
Has anyone seen any digital measuring devices that could be added to fence/stop systems? Seems like what is available now is hijacked CNC CAM design.
Thanks for any input.
Replies
Have you seen the TigerStop? It's auto setting and compensates for different blade thicknesses. A bit pricey for a hobby shop at $2995.00 to start.
http://www.tigerstop.com/
My problem is that I don't know which little line is .55785
I saw a Tiger Stop in action a while back, and I have to say, I thought it was just about the best thing since sliced bread. Punch in the length you want, and the stop goes whizzing down the fence automatically.
If you have the knowledge and expertise to build something like that, I think that would be "way cool" (as the kids say these days).
> Have you seen the TigerStop <
I WANT one! Please.
MalcolmNew Zealand | New Thinking
Tigerstop. We had one in the furniture shop. Great for production work, we used it on an overhead dado router. Doesn't seem as useful for a custom shop as you lose time entering the stop. It also has a positioning routine you have to wait for every time it starts up.Its great strength is you will have your stops programmed in and can recall every time you need them. So when you need parts for product "x" they won't accidentally be one inch too long/short as can happen.That was no fun in production, set the stop off and you screw up multiples.
You know, my first reaction is that it's overkill for woodworking. But then I'm thinking the benefit is repeatability. When I'm making a piece I normally try to cut all the pieces that will be the same width using the same setup at the same time. Without fail, however, I need to cut another one later and repeatability becomes an issue. Interesting.
You hit the nail on the head. For awhile (1991) Delta offered an EMS (Electronic Measuring System) for their tablesaws. Dead on accurate and repeatable. Zero the fence to the blade in the am. Cut and go back to the same measurement later in the day- always right on the money. My understanding was that Delta discontinued it due to problems with static electricity in drier climates; apparently the static could and would damage the circuitry. Wasn't a problem where I was at the time; some dry air would have been welcome. I'm surprised they haven't come back to the idea. Convienient, accurate and a real time saver.
In a small shop there is an old patternmakers trick for repeatability. Say your piece is 5" wide. Set your rip fence randomly wider and use the original piece and another piece of scrap. Put the original piece against the fence and the scrap on the other side near the blade. Running both pieces together rip it then remove the original piece and put the scrap against the fence with the replacement part between the blade and the scrap part. You will then have a replacement part that is perfectly sized. It was more of a time saver before the newer style fences.
That's a great idea. Thanks.
The technique also works on crosscutting with a chop saw or slider or sled on the tablesaw. Once you start using it I'm sure you will find other ways to apply the idea.
rick,
That's the best trick I've read in a long time. Really exemplifies the "art and mystery" aspect of our craft. Thanks.
Regards,
Ray
The biggest benefit for me of a digital read is hitting the measurement I'm aiming for.Or maybe I'm the only one that might hit 11/16" instead of 13/16" etc. Its just a liability I have. I don't make mistakes every day but I just have a hard time with numbers and graduated scales. My least favorite part of woodworking.I'm much better making using go, no-go measuring. Probably the best discovery I have made is of the 4" double square. Fantastic tool to keep in your apron for transferring maeasurements. Just lock the setting and don't worry about if its 5/16" or 11/32". As long as its the right size.
RE: The Tiger StopEarlier in this thread someone (can't remember who) said that this Stop might be a problem in a small shop where you are only doing a few cuts at a time. The one I saw was in a big shop making shower doors and bath enclosures. The guy walked up to the keyboard, punched in the measure he wanted, the stop zoomed to the correct position, and he then used a standard chop saw (with an aluminum blade) to cut the part. The rig may have been capable of programing for more complicated set-ups, but what they were doing couldn't be simpler -- faster, in fact, than taking out your tape measure and marking the piece. But they do come dear, and unless you have money to burn or a compelling need, one could probably get along just fine with devising your own stop system.
I was just saying having worked in a shop that had a Tiger Stop that if you are just doing a few cuts that it is easier and fewer motions to manually position a stop and chop. It does work fairly quickly but its still a little longer than without.The precision and accuracy is great and worth it if you are doing high volumes. i.e. a run of chair partsIts just the whole diminishing returns thing for a small shop. High cost versus the savings of lost time and parts. But I really haven't done a cost study.I was just approaching the digital read out as a solution to a particular aggravation in my own shop experience.
In the metalworking world these are called DRO, for digital readout. They are available in many different sizes and price ranges. I have never seen one with 1/64" resolution. It costs little more, if any, to manufacture them with 0.001" and higher resolution, so I don't think you will ever see one graduated in 64ths for woodworkers.
Mechanically they are very generic because they have to be adaptable to a wide variety of machine tools. Finding one to fit a table saw fence rail should be no problem at all. Here's a Google search.
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&ie=ISO-8859-1&q=dro+display
One vendor that I know sells them is MSC. Here's their web site.
http://www.mscdirect.com
Edited 3/30/2005 5:27 am ET by Uncle Dunc
Thanks, I guess I didn't write my post as clearly as I should have.I was hoping to find a digital scale that read in .01" instead of .001" That seems appropriate precision for woodworking. At least as far as stops and fences go.So my bad for using 1/64". Thinking digitally isn't a problem, I'm accustomed to calling out digital measurements.The thing is there are digital tapes that read to 1/16" accuracy and they go for $15-30 reading to 16'. The next step I've found is .001" and its about $400 for 40".I was hoping there was something in between or could be pulled from a higher precision tape and added to a small shop environment. But if Starrett doesn't make it...I'll keep looking. Maybe I'll eventually break down and buy Allen Designs but I may try some hobby CNC groups first. Maybe they know of some alternatives.
Edited 3/30/2005 5:35 pm ET by adastra
adastra,
I have not felt the need for one on the tablesaw, although admit it would be nice. We did put a digital readout on the spindle height of the shaper. Cost was about $300. Check out different types at http://www.hmkdirect.com
DR
http://www.digi-kit.com/
This is the most inexpensive one I know of offhand. Those Incra fences are a sort of pre-digital type concept. We also added a vernier to the scales on machines to break the 1/16 into finer measurements. This can be added to anything.
I went back and looked at my 98/99 MSC catalog, and the DRO's were a lot more money than I remembered. You may be right that is should be possible to reduce costs by building to a lower resolution. But I still don't expect to see any single axis, 0.01" DRO's any time soon.Part of it is the classical chicken and egg problem with any new product. The maufacturers don't see any demand for a woodworking class DRO at any price, and the woodworkers don't think about what a DRO would do for them because they're not even interested for paying twice as much for a DRO as the did for the saw.Probably the only way out of that dilemma is for somebody who feels passionately about it to start making them and selling them at a loss until the big manufacturers see that there is a market and come along and put him out of business. (Or possibly buy him out, if you're an optimist.) If that electronic flesh detecting saw stop is ever incorporated into all saws (or even just into high end saws), it will be because the inventor was willing to pour his whole life into it. I don't know if it's possible for an inventor to get as passionate about repeatable fence position as about saving people's lives and limbs.
Yup, that is one of the realities for the small custom shop. Our (or my) particular needs don't really make up a large market in the grand scheme of things.If no one is currently making a scale with .01 resolution I don't see a major manufacturer having a meeting proclaiming the benefits to small woodshops. I had a post recently wishing that there was a good furnituremakers table saw out there with the SawStop that wasn't as massive as PM 66's and the lot. But its such a small market that I don't see them offering such an option any time soon. But a 3K saw is overkill and a contractors doesn't really cut it (pun intentional) in a light production environment. Again that is just my particular need and not really representative of a great hole in the market. A hybrid with a stable carriage that holds its settings with SawStop.So I'll keep the idea of a digital fence system in mind for a while but if it can't be done for less than $75-100 then I'll just probably go with the add-on. For 250 its hard to argue if you want that function. By the time you are done trying to cobble something together you would probably end up losing more money in your own time.
You may have heard of Jared Diamond - he wrote Guns, germs and Steel (I found it interesting but I've met others that couldn't finish it) anyway,he has a great quote in the book, "Invention is the mother of necessity."We didn't need the cell phone until someone invented it. We didn't need the walkman (portable music) until someone invented it... Think of how many tools you have you could have done without until someone invented it (though most of what we use now in the woodshop has been around quite a while) We didn't need the internet (email, the web) until someone invented it...Mark
Measure it with a micrometer, mark it with chalk, cut it with an ax.
>> "Invention is the mother of necessity."Yeah, it seems that way in retrospect, but there's no way to tell in advance which inventions are going to create a market. For every invention that fills a large but previously unsuspected need, there are thousands that, in fact, nobody needs. Have you ever browsed the Patent Office database?>> We didn't need the internet (email, the web) until someone invented it...True, _we_ didn't need it, but it wasn't built on spec. The Department of Defense needed it, and DARPA and a fairly small group of universities built it. For a very long time, a very large part of the internet was paid for with public funds, until personal computers got cheap enough and data modems got fast enough to make it plausible for lots of people to get connected. I would say that at least through 1990, the people who paid for the intenet mostly didn't benefit, and the people who benefitted mostly didn't pay.
That's an interesting observation. I'd say it actually works both ways. Something is invented for one purpose but then voila, something thinks about using it for a different purpose. The internet is a good example. It was "invented" with a specific use in mind but certainly nothing like what it's used for today. There was a British series years ago that went through the history of invention through the centuries. I think the host was named Richard Attenborough or something like that. Very interesting.
I think the series you're thinking of is "Connections" by James Burke. It ran on PBS. There's also a book based on it.
-- J.S.
I've been in contact with Wixey and they are coming out with a DRO for table saw fences up to 60" that should retail for $99. They hope to have it by Fall.I can't put together anything for less than that so I'll see what they come up with. But it sounds like a great deal.
That's an outstanding deal, if they can deliver the required precision, accuracy, and durability.
Edited 4/26/2005 12:58 am ET by Uncle Dunc
True, if it works at all it will meet my needs. Mainly as a safety to keep from cutting +/- my intention not necessarily to repeat within .005". And in my shop the requirements are very different from a full-blown production outfit. I don't know if I would trust it in heavy industrial use as I think its intended for home shops but who knows.Its such simple idea it seems really hard to screw up. (how many times have I said that?)
Is there anything you can share about the way the Wixey DRO will work?
I have found a number of DRO options but none of them will work for my machine, since I have to transfer the rip fence from one rail to another when ripping more than a foot or so wide. All of the existing DROs work by counting/reading marks on the rail, but lose calibration if you take the rip fence off the rail. I keep hoping for a DRO that uses a different technology________________________Charlie Plesums Austin, Texashttp://www.plesums.com/wood
Seems to me that one that read the distance from the fence to the blade directly (laser or ultrasonic) would be really cool.Mark
Measure it with a micrometer, mark it with chalk, cut it with an ax.
They message they sent indicated they would configure for Unifence and Bessie. Said it would work with round rails but with modifications.Suggest contacting Wixey about your spedific application.http://www.wixey.com/contact/index.htmlWhat exactly is your application that requires a split fence rail? Just curious.
Thanks for the link to Wixey. I googled them, and had no hits - surprising since they have a web site.
I have a combination machine (MiniMax CU410 elite). The sliding table supports the table saw and shaper, but if you rip wide materials on the table rather than the slider, you "overflow" onto the jointer table. Since the jointer tips up to give access to the planer (they share the 16 inch cutters), there is a separate bar for the rip fence on the jointer. Sounds complex, but it is pretty simple in practice, and gives me a phenomenally precise and powerful system in a compact space. The machine is the size of a car, but holds a full sheet of plywood in either direction with no external supports. My shop is in a 2 car garage (and with no active projects, I still might get one car in the garage). But the bottom line is, two parts for the tabletop, and two separate bars for the rip fence. I have digital readout on planer thickness, shaper height and angle, saw blade angle, and would love to add digital for the rip width. ________________________Charlie Plesums Austin, Texashttp://www.plesums.com/wood
One on the back of this fence in .001's.
Lowe's had a table saw under $500 with a digital readout.
Look around for auctions. You might find some great deals on DRO odds and ends at machinery auctions.
-- J.S.
Try Accurate technologies in NC for parts for digitising fences...I have a digital 48" caliper they make, and they sell components that can be adapted in different ways. Good website that has an online store (proscale.com? off the top of my head)
cabinetmaker/college woodworking instructor. Cape Breton, N.S
I work at Andersen Windows and I use the Tiger Stop almost everyday. Very slick. We beat up the tools quite a bit because of the massive quanity that is produced everyday, so our tiger stop isn't as accurate as it used to be, but there is also a Ray Tech measuring table that is accurate to ungodly ends, nice compliment to the Tiger Stop. Not really adding much to the discussion but it's fun to brag about getting to use nice machines (thats few and far between for me at home).
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