Some of you may have noticed this little dohicky on the planer in the Lenox woodshop and wondered what it is.
It is a Digital Read Out (DRO). Conceptually a DRO very similar to the digital calipers that many of us use, this one just happens to be mounted permanently to the machine. DROs have long been used the machining world as that type of work is far more precise as wood moves and metal does not. What we do have a need for is repeatability. Now, if you need to plane one more board down to the same thickness as the ones you did an hour ago, you can.
Here are the instructions as well:
Instructions:
If the display is off, press the power button. (The only one without a label)
When the screen comes on, it may be in one of the following modes: mm, decimal in or fractional in. I would recommend using mm or decimal in as the fractional in does not feel like it updates its value. Simply put, I do not trust it.
The measurement mode can be changed by pressing the Mode button
In the above pictures you will notice that in the upper left there is CAL displayed. This indicates the DRO is using the calibrated scale for measurement. You can change to the incremental scale by pressing Cal/0 and is indicated by INC in the upper left. This will give you a 0 setpoint wherever you are currently at. This 0 setpoint will be lost when you change back to using the CAL scale.
There is tape over the battery cover. Please DO NOT ever remove the battery. Battery remove will reset the calibration to 0 at whatever height the DRO is at when powered again. While not terribly hard or difficult to do, calibration is fiddly and does require time to complete.
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