Aikron Scales for Hickory?

[floridamachineshop]

I'm loving the price of Aikron scales for my vertical mill Hickory Retrofit. My gut is telling me that for the 1/10 the price of Accurite, Heidenhain, Fagor, etc... I should adjust my expectations, but I see several posts about people using them on AcornSix projects. I haven't found any posts on using Aikron scales with the Hickory Board itself, or the Hickory Encoder Expansion Card SKU 15447 (I tried searching the forum and the schematics/ technical docs).

Here is the link to the scales I think I want to use:
https://www.aikrondro.com/product/aikro ... -encoders/

1) Will these scales in the link work with Hickory/ The Hickory Encoder Expansion Card?
2) Can I get the 1um resolution instead of just the coarser 5um? Realistically would my travel speeds be limited in a meaningful way if I chose 1um resolution scales (because more resolution at any given rate of travel speed equals increased frequency of data)? What's the "maximum rate at which the scale can send info indicating that an increment of motion just occurred" into the Hickory board and on the Hickory Encoder Expansion card?
3) I'm guessing here: I think the Aikron pinout diagram for RS422 looks closest to the connector on the Hickory board/ Hickory Encoder Expansion card... Will the Aikron pinout work if I re-wire a few pins, and did I guess right, that I'll need to order the RS422 option?
4) What would the pinout connections be to transition from the Aikron scales in the link I provided, to the Hickory board/ Hickory Encoder Expansion card (I'm not afraid of a little soldering, but if there's a breakout board available to switch pins I'll take it)
5) Any general opinions about Aikron scales in the AKM series? Success stories? Challenges? Issues?

[centroid467]

I'm loving the price of Aikron scales for my vertical mill Hickory Retrofit. My gut is telling me that for the 1/10 the price of Accurite, Heidenhain, Fagor, etc... I should adjust my expectations, but I see several posts about people using them on AcornSix projects. I haven't found any posts on using Aikron scales with the Hickory Board itself, or the Hickory Encoder Expansion Card SKU 15447 (I tried searching the forum and the schematics/ technical docs).

Here is the link to the scales I think I want to use:
https://www.aikrondro.com/product/aikro ... -encoders/

1) Will these scales in the link work with Hickory/ The Hickory Encoder Expansion Card?
2) Can I get the 1um resolution instead of just the coarser 5um? Realistically would my travel speeds be limited in a meaningful way if I chose 1um resolution scales (because more resolution at any given rate of travel speed equals increased frequency of data)? What's the "maximum rate at which the scale can send info indicating that an increment of motion just occurred" into the Hickory board and on the Hickory Encoder Expansion card?
3) I'm guessing here: I think the Aikron pinout diagram for RS422 looks closest to the connector on the Hickory board/ Hickory Encoder Expansion card... Will the Aikron pinout work if I re-wire a few pins, and did I guess right, that I'll need to order the RS422 option?
4) What would the pinout connections be to transition from the Aikron scales in the link I provided, to the Hickory board/ Hickory Encoder Expansion card (I'm not afraid of a little soldering, but if there's a breakout board available to switch pins I'll take it)
5) Any general opinions about Aikron scales in the AKM series? Success stories? Challenges? Issues?

1) Yes, get the RS422 output version.
2) I do not have that information right now but I will try to get that available.
3) Yes, that is correct.
4) We happen to have a nice drawing with the corrections for compatibility with Centroid encoder ports: https://www.centroidcnc.com/centroid_di ... erm=S15235

[suntravel]

I do not recommend 5um scales for CNC, they should at least have 1um
The max. mecanical speed is 60m/min resuling in a 1Mhz signal with 1um, this is below the Encoder input frequency low speed on Acorn6

I have tested only up to 15m/min on my machine, no problems.

Uwe

[eng199]

The max. mecanical speed is 60m/min resuling in a 1Mhz signal with 1um, this is below the Encoder input frequency low speed on Acorn6

This is correct for HICKORY and ENCEXP13 as well. Maximum input is around 1.5MHz.
Encoders and scales rarely support output faster than 1MHz.