DRO for the Parallel Fence of the Table Saw

Background

The table saw with tilting router lift at c-base has been in its current form since 2017, including the parallel fence made from oak. What the machine lacked until now was any way to read off the distance from the saw blade to the fence directly. That changed when I came across cheap digital readouts on AliExpress. At 27€ for the complete DRO unit, the barrier to just giving it a try was low enough. The package sat in a drawer for a few months before we got around to it one evening.

Realisation

The DRO measures a single value: the distance from the saw blade to the parallel fence. We milled a shallow groove into the oak rail and pressed the magnetic tape in, fixed with its factory-applied adhesive. Adhesion was fine from the start. The sensor sits on the underside of the sliding shoe that runs along the oak rail.

We milled a recess there so the sensor sits flush with the sliding surface. The DRO housing slots into a bracket I designed in Fusion 360 and printed in PETG on the c-base Bambu Lab X1C. The bracket fits snugly onto the parallel fence and is secured with four screws.

Result

The DRO works reliably and displays the fence distance to a tenth of a millimetre. Installation took one evening. At 27€ all in, this is an upgrade I would recommend to any table saw owner.