Digital Readout


There are many units out there, price range from less than $100 to over $1000. Many people who’re interested to purchase will have a same question, what’s the catch. Let’s dig into it.


We don’t have to worry about quality control on the brand name, however, on imported unit, price and quality ratio is quite large. The short answer is most oversea supplier and mfg doesn’t have enough quality control on those unit. They try to cut down each other’s price to make cheap unit, especially on glass scales. My view is it, products with less quality control is for home hobby use, then good solid unit is for industrial application. I only sell industrial grade unit, I won’t carry those cheap scale, which customer may like the unit short term, but from the long run, they all break down.


Here are few examples on home hobby unit vs industrial unit. 1st, we call it glass scale, so glass inside scale must be a key, I saw both thicker strong glass and thin weak glass. Look the window and patio slide door in your house, then you’ll know the difference on thick vs thin. 2nd, the little bearing sliding on the glass, my scale has Japanese bearing in it, not sure about others, if you’re in bearing business, you know what I’m talking about. 3rd, reader header slide on the scale, there are a lot of small electrical parts on the pcb board, you can’t go cheap on those neither. 4th, look at the display unit, mine is metal case vs most others are plastic, once you see metal case, then plastic will look like a toy and feel like a toy, keep in mind, I sell tools, not toys. Finally, still on display unit, look at those LED tube to display numbers, those LED tube must be tested before install, otherwise, if defective, led won’t light up or burn out after a while. Example, Number 8, if middle LED burn out, you’ll see number 0 show up on display, so supposed to 0.850”, if 8 burn out, you’ll read 0.050” instead, who wants that.


Commercial unit is built tough to meet industrial standard. Few examples, you go to mcd and order lunch, look at those display panel which shows food manual on it, those unit look like a flat screen tv, actually, they are not tv. they’re called commercial display unit. MCD turn it on 24/7, so it must last longer than our home tv. 2nd, washing machine in laundry shop vs washer in your house, commercial washers are turned on at least 15 hours daily, but at home, how often and how long do you run the washer and dryer. 3rd, Ford explore for consumer vs police interceptor explore, both are made by ford, however, police interceptor equipped with heavy duty suspension and steel rims, also that v6 bullet proof engine makes difference as well. I was trying to get one retired police explore, but think about politics, our country is divided, some community has conflicts with cops, and criminals are targeting and shooting on police officers and their vehicles, then I give up.


CAT40 CNC Tooling and Collets


My tool holders, pull studs and ER type collets are made of quality steel, go through proper heat-treated process, and pre-balanced to high speed application. Tool holders, collets and pull studs, looks like 3 different items, however, if you load all 3 to the spindle, it becomes solid one piece. In order to be running true, total run out must be in a certain range. If run out on tool holders and collets are large individually, then when you drop collets into tool holders, total run out adds up will be even larger. Here I’m talking about total run out, which is spindle, tool holder and collets. In most case, spindle is running true, then most run out will be on tool holders and collets. My tool holders are almost true in 1 tenth range, collets are about 2 to 3 tenth, so add up, you expect 5 tenth of less total run out, that’s my promise to customer. Also, on pull studs, it’ll fit on haas and Mazak cat40 spindle machine.


Overall speaking, I only carry decent commercial grade products, which will handle both industrial application and home project very well. However, there is a cost and liability to make products tough enough to take on all kinds of challenges. I don’t sell by products by price, I focus more on quality control. I promise as what I advertised for, 5 years warranty on all dro and glass scale unit and less than 0.0005” total runout on tool holders and collets together. I sell tools, not toys.


Thanks for reading.