I spent a lot of time on this project over the weekend, and thought it was about time to post an update.
I had a friend stop by my place on Saturday to help lift the X3 up onto the bench. I had removed the table which dropped the weight by ~45lbs. It was still very heavy, but with strategic placement of a 2x4, we had it on the bench within 5-minutes.
Then I spent even more time cleaning off the red grease. I've probably put in three hours work in cleaning alone.
On Sunday night and Monday I went through the rigorous process of installing the DRO. That, I think, was the worst part of the whole process.
I had purchased one of
these 3-axis DRO packages from ebay. The package comes with the mounting hardware and scales sized to fit the Sieg SX3 (which is basically the X3, but with a tilting head). Before buying the DRO kit, I had contacted other folks who had bought the same package to get their impressions. In general, they were all happy with the DRO, but indicated that the installation required a bit of head scratching.
NO KIDDING.
The DRO kit showed up in two boxes. One contained the display, the other held the scales and the mounting hardware. In the display box was an un-labeled CD. Opening it up on my computer, the disk was found to contain user's manuals for the DRO and installation instructions for the kit. The installation instructions consisted of four pages with photos. The instructions were incomplete, and written in poorly translated english. The photos were not much better. Much head-scratching was required.
I started by mounting the X axis scale. The first thing I noticed was that the scale was 1" too short to cover the full X axis travel. This is not a huge deal, simply a minor annoyance. I had to drill/tap a number of M5x0.8 holes on the back side of the table to mount everything... which involved removing and reinstalling the table multiple times.
The Y axis scales were a bit trickier to install - having multiple brackets to install - lots more head scratching. By this time, however, I had really nailed down my drilling/tapping procedure, so things went much faster than with the X axis. I did have to make a couple of extra aluminum spacers to make everything fit.
The Z axis required a bit of trimming of the stock supplied brackets. I think this may be due to slight differences between the X3 that I have and the SX3 that this kit was designed for (particularly where the head and column come together). I mostly just had to trim some brackets/spacers and drill a few holes.
Finally, last night I installed the display and wired everything up. This was easy as pie.
Bottom line on the DRO package:
- The quality of the materials appears to be excellent. Both the scales and the display are quite nice for the price.
- The quality of the installation instructions sucks hard. These could be greatly improved by adding an inventory of material provided and a description of where each piece should go. Having a better english translation wouldn't hurt either.
- Some minor fabrication/adjustment is required to make this kit (designed for the SX3) fit the X3... nothing major, completely doable.
- Installation takes a newbie like me approximately 8-hours... seriously.
So anyway, here are a couple of photos. Please ask if you have any questions.
Erin
We may be terrible... but we look good doing it. 
... Nope, didn't fasten it to the wall. Guess I'm going to have to build another set of brackets. By the time I'm done, this bench will not only hold up the mill, but the rest of the house as well. 
