Mini Lathe DRO

I'm looking at building a DRO for the mini lathe and mini mill. The electronics isn't much of a problem, but the mechanical aspect of fixing gauges to the lathe and mill is another matter. I've decided to have a go with the cheap plastic digital calipers that you can get from China for a very cheap price. They have a data output that can be attached to a processor of some kind, which is very useful. The plan at the moment is to have a processor per gauge to handle the data stream and then have a larger master processor that handles the LED displays and does the keypad and clever stuff.

After hacksawing a caliper apart and 3D printing some parts I have the first version of a mounted caliper:

There's a couple of problems with the 3D printed parts, but it all seems to fit and work. It also doesn't seem to interfere with the operation of the compound. I need to put the PCB back on the gauge and wire up to the electronics, but it's looking hopeful. I'm not going to replace the LCD or buttons one the caliper PCB, I'll just use the data output.

From the data output it looks like there may be better resolution than the 0.1mm resolution that the caliper itself displays.