A note on Spare Parts

When buying Spare Parts f your machines, particularly for highly critical machines in your shop.   Have an extra Encoder on the shelf. Delivery on some linear and rotary encoders can be significant up to 12 weeks.  

Stocking Linear Encoder Spares:   Don't just stock a readerhead.  Keep a full scale in your inventory.  If you make sure that you stock a full scale you can likely remove the readerhead from the spare and continue to use the original scale body... Then you are just purchasing replacement heads for the Spare Scale body... and you have a complete Scale at virtually all times.  Many Scales SPare parts are still available, you can pull any of the parts you need from your spare linear encder and get back up and running.  Then if you have to wait a couple weeks for additional spare parts you have the time and you can just continually rebuild the Spare encoder keeping your critical machine up and running as long as possible.    

Rotary Encoders are more commonly stocked items.  I would recommend just calling the manufacturer ot preferred distributor, and ask if the encoder is commonly stocked.  

As usual any questions or comments are welcome. 

The Tech