I just finished installing Ken's DRO on my DM45 from Penn Tools. Being new
to milling machines and wanting to play with the machine NOW was one of the
big reasons I went with the spokane metal works setup. I looked at the
shumatech and it does have some nice bells and whistles. It is always an
option to replace the readout I have now with the shumatech. I've been an
electronics tech for over 30 years so putting together a kit would not be a
problem ... but if I wanted to play with electronics I wouldn't have a
milling machine The 2 main glitches I ran into were the head on my
machine is a bit different than most in that the faceplate mounting screws
are all the way to the top. The T bracket was too short for my mill and I
had to make a longer one. I am sure Ken has taken care of that now. The
other problem was the quill stop on my mill was pretty sloppy and let the
scale jump as you moved it. We worked that out in short order and it is
working great now. Ken's tech support was great (he even offered to send me
a replacement T bracket made up longer but I didn't want to wait for the
mail) You do have to know how big your tool bit is byt once you get that
sorted and the zeros dialed in you can put your cut where you want it with
confidence. That was a big pluss on my mill as the stupid dials are
calibrated in 1/8" per turn (.125") instead of 1/10". Of course the add for
the mill only stated the dials were calibrated in .001" .. it didn't say
there were 125 marks instead of 100
From what I could find you would end up spending a bit more on the shumatech
kit by the time you bought all the parts for it and bought the scales and
cables. If you are a bit rusty on your circut board technique you could
easily end up with no display with the shumatech.
The Spokane metalworks display uses LCD display and in my opinion could use
some backlighting. The shumatech uses and LED display with variable
brightness. With the Spokane metalworks kit you have to figure bolt circles
on your own. With shumatech you have to figure out how to figure bolt
circles on their display.
At any rate for my money and use I am quite happy with it.
Glenn Neff
Medford, OR

"Kenneth A. Emmert" wrote in message
...

How does your product differ from what ShumaTech offers in terms of
functionality and capabilities? I understand that ShumaTech's product is
a kit, but I'm wondering what the differences are once both are up and
running.

Peter

Peter,

Shumatech is a hobby group for building a DRO display system I am a
member! Shumatech display is a total you build it project if you have some
electronics experience and time it can be an excellent display. Lots of
advanced features with that system I would not discourage anyone from
building one.
Parts costs are between a $100 to $150 and build time about 10 hours by
the time you order parts and assemble. I have sold scales and connecting
cables for Shumatech systems and continue to do so! It is another
available option though not a commercial product.

Ken