FUTABA Corporation of Huizhou established. (Manufacture and sale of electronic components) Environmental report released. 2003 Electron Tube Group acquired the certificate ISO/TS16949: 2002. 2005 FUTABA Precision Die and Mold Machinery (China) Co., Ltd. (P.R.C.) established (parts for press/mold dies) 2006.
Do they give false readings or does the display actually display an error message? If they are glass scales which I assume your Fagor has this is a common problem. Although it doesn't happen very often as in periodically many people do run into this.
Most of the time it's cause by dirty scales. You use a cotton swap & denatured alcohol (isopropyl will work too, higher the% the better) to swap the glass scales clean bh reaching through the seals.
Try not to blow air as it may damage the read head if there's a lot of chips inside & will only blow oils/coolant around. Some scales can be disassembled if they are real dirty & you need to clean the read head too. OK, I have to apologize because I got my scale issues mixed up.
The one I said was not responding or error alarming was for the one on the Victor 1640 I am also trying to revive. So lets begin again. This one just did not respond.
I pulled the scale off the Bridgeport X axis and as soon as I began to do so I knew it was going to be bad. Some one has let the table over travel and smashed her up. The scale is at least 36-inched long. I sat the thing centered on top of the table and could tell they failed to set the auto and hard travel stops so the scale would survive. As soon as I tried to back out the mounting screw and seen it was elliptical in behavior I lost my hopes of this just being a cleanup. It pulled the wireds out of the sensor!
Here is the pic. The screws on both ends looked the same. I didn't get the other one in the pic.
What can I pick up a scale for. Are there refurbs? Never heard of refurbished scales & it may not be worth sending to Fagor for repair if they did offer the service. Where the wires got ripped off, is it covered with epoxy?
Any possibility in soldering the wires back? If not, what kind of connector does your scale have? The most common is the D-Sub 9 (looks like a VGA connector).
You could buy a replacement, doesn't have to be Fagor as I'm assuming a Fagor scale is pretty expensive. Best bet is to contact DROPros to get a replacement scale.
They sell Fagors so they should know exactly what will work for a replacement. An Easson scale scale should work. To prevent future crashes, your scales should be an inch or 2 (travel not OAL) longer then the max travel of your axis. It would be best to get the correct size scale now that you have to get a replacement. Ask them about this & they should be able to take care of you. They are located in the US & their customer service is excellent. If you're on a budget, you can order a replacement scale cheaper from China but you will pretty much have to do all the research yourself in what scale & size to get that is compatible.
Thanks, I was just wondering about refurbs. You never know eh? I have visited DroPros. Looks like a good vendor.
On the other end of the spectrum I stumbled into CDCO Machinery Corp. Everything there is frighteningly cheap. We will have to see how enthused I can get the boss. They kind of let the shop go to waste (former CEO slaughtered the place) and I have already demonstrated the value added by making repairs fopr them using the shop as is. It looks like to get a longer scale I'll have to drill and tap holes in the table. How hard is the metal? Meanwhile for all my DRO 'must have' needs, I use the below SuperMax that has a working DRO but no auto x axis.
The DRO is an OLD Futuba and the readout is dim but it works. I see there is a Ground terminal at the rear unused. Do you think this may be why the display is so dim? Good luck with that Frank dude at CDCO, I will never purchase something from him again. Many have good experiences but many others have not also, do a search on the net or even just here.
Yup that scale looks way too short. Wonder if that's the same Futaba that manufactuers RC controllers? I doubt the ground screw on the display is the cause for a dim display. I would think that given the age that it would still use LED displays but if it is really old it could be vacuum flourescent display, those get dim as they age. Not sure if they were used in DRO displays back then though. Thanks Guys, Well, the Bridge Port Fagor thing is out as the scales are very expensive and cross compatibility is vague so my boss will not roll those dice.
We are looking a a new setup from Dro Pros for around $600.00. We have a Victor 1640 lathe with a Futaba Pulscale DRO system with issues. The X axis is fine and the Y axis was really full of debris and had been for a while. It tossed errors for most of the travel at the same place reliably, I would say 75% of the travel would error. Not only the above but they has the axis's reversed, and I swapped cables.
I pulled it apart and we have aerosol alcohol so I wet it down good and Q-Tipped her and reassembled but it still was pretty bad. I could see a rub on the glass and the glass over the reader pickup. With nothing to loose I buffed them firmly with lens paper and managed to salvage it all but for a 3/4' section of travel about 3/4' inboard from the center. I call it a significant save because tool post arrangement can be manipulated to avoid the spot 99% of the time. We almost never need to face off wide travel items.
Yeh, the rub is in the most traveled space I guess. The Futaba Display.
Many scales will interchange if you know the resolution and signal output. If you have a 1um scale with ttl, you can buy a 1 um ttl from another manufacturer and plug n play. I bought a newall, its inductive and not glass scales. You will still pay a few hundred each for a scale but its much better than a chicom copy of a real dro. That is a decent mill worth a good DRO. Really trip your boss out and do axis summing on the Z, the quill will add and subtract along with normal Z travel.Go to the newall or other websites and do some reading.
Help - I've recently installed an old Futaba Pulscale Model CH2A01 digital readout and scales for the X and Y axes on my Seig C6 lathe. The DRO and scales work beautifully except I don't have an owner's manual so I can't figure out how to change the readouts from mm to inches. The dials on my C6 lathe inn in inches and the dRO is in mm and my mental artithmetic is struggling with swicthing back and forth between the two measuring systems. The CH2A01 display has sixteen DIP switches for setting display parameters but that gives me 65000 possible settings and I don't think I can figure out which settings to change in any sort of reasonable amount of time. Does any one out there have an operating manual for the Futaba CH2A01 display? I would be happy to purchase the manual or pay costs to have the manual scanned or photocopied.
Thanks Have you tried online at the Futaba site. Most of their manuals for their model radio sets are online. I've tried Futaba, but the Pulscale DRO systems were sold to Sumtak in 2004, and Sumtak was then sold to Heidenhan and none of them are able to provide anything on the older systems. Hi Sheldon, there is one for sale on the US Ebay (17), why not give the seller a mail and ask if he's willing to do a copy of the instructions for you, providing he has some of course. Please to post a reply.