DXL-360S Angle Gauge

[sehast]

The DXL-360S is a digital angle gauge made in China and marketed under several company names but they are all the same device and referred to as a DXL-360S. My Wixey was getting a little long in the tooth so I was ready to try a higher tech solution claiming to be twice as accurate and 10 times the resolution. Since the older Type 1 Wixey angle gauge is the most widely used and the one that most of us are familiar with I will review the DXL-360S by doing a head to head comparison to it.

The DXL-360S claims a +/- 0 .05 degree accuracy and repeatability but it only applies for angles between 0 to 20 degrees and 70 to 90 degrees. Everywhere else it is +/- 0.1 degrees same as the Wixey. This is not a big deal for me because I primarily use the angle gauge to determine two surfaces are either parallel or perpendicular to each other. However, if you want to set your table for compound cut greater than 20 degrees it will be no better than a Wixey. The resolution of 0.01 degrees for the DXL is a factor of 10 better than the Wixey’s 0.1 degrees. The DXL-360S is bigger at 2.75”x2.75”x1” verses 2”x2”x1.3” and has magnets on five of its six faces instead of just at the bottom for the Wixey. The Wixey magnet is stronger but the DXL magnets appear adequate and allow you to attach to a surface with either side, the back and top as well as the bottom. The Wixey has a replaceable battery where the DXL has an integrated rechargeable battery via an included USB cable and charger. When fully charged the DXL lasts for 40 hours (which I confirmed) of use and has an auto turn off feature after 30 minutes of no movement. The DXL has a larger backlit display which automatically adapts to any orientation so you don’t have to cock your head to read a measurement made at 90 degrees to level. The DXL runs about $60-65 while the Wixey is about $30-39.
Full info for the Wixey (WR300 type 1) can be found at http://www.wixey.com/anglegauge/#wr300 and for the DXL-360S at http://www.amazon.com/Floureon-Inclinom ... ds=dxl360s

In actual use the DXL’s resolution of 0.01 degrees is a distinct advantage over the Wixey’s 0.1. However, since the advertised accuracy is only 0.05 degrees, the price you pay is a constantly wondering display anywhere from 0.02 to 0.05 degrees depending on the temperature as opposed to the rock solid Wixey display at a 0.1 degree resolution and accuracy. What I do for the DXL is watch the display for at least 30 seconds to identify the most consistent readings, a kind of mental integration or interpolation. The direction of tilt indicator on the DXL is much more stable during readings and helps with the interpolation when measuring for parallelism or a zero angle. Setting zero on the DXL is definitely a two hand operation due to its sensitivity and many times requires more than one try to ensure zero is attained. The DXLs magnets on its side as well as bottom allow surface perpendicular measurements to use the same zero angle determination as the surface parallelism measurement and zero set operations.

I did a test to determine how much accuracy I could get out of the DXL on a consistent basis. I placed the DXL on top of my straight edge which is flat to within 0.0005” per foot and used a polished granite base with the same degree of flatness. I also used several stainless steel shims which I placed underneath the straight edge at precisely the 12” mark resting on the granite base. I started with two 0.01” shims for a total height of .02” and a true calculated angle of 0.096 degrees. The DXL read 0.11 and the Wixey read 0.2. Next I used just one 0.01” shim for a true calculated angle of 0.048 degrees. The DXL read 0.06 degrees and the Wixey 0.1. Next came 0.004” for a true calculated angle of .019 degrees. The DXL read 0.04 degrees and the Wixey 0.0. Using a 0.002” shim yielded a true calculated angle of .0096 degrees. The DXL read 0.02 degrees and the Wixey 0.0. Finally using a 0.001” shim yielding a true calculated angle of 0.0048 gave a DXL reading of 0.00 which exceeded the DXL’s ability to detect a change from zero so I disregarded it. That was an average error of 0.014 degrees for the DXL all to the up side for the entire test. I repeated the whole test several times to convince myself that I could measure/set parallel or perpendicular surfaces to within .002” per foot using the DXL360S while the best I could do with the Wixely was .01” per foot. That is I could consistently see a difference in the DXL readings and their direction of tilt for a .002” shim but not for anything smaller. For a run of 5 feet which is about the length of the shopsmith, the total error for the DXL is a very respectable 0.01” while the Wixey is 0.05” or almost a 1/16”. To me that capability is worth the extra money and effort required to deal with constantly wondering display.

[BuckeyeDennis]

Thanks for the review, sehast. I've often wondered about the accuracy claims of those devices, especially the generic made-in-China variety.

To help me visualize the results, I plugged your data into Excel and then graphed it. You might want to double-check my data table below. I had Excel recalculate the actual angles, so the precision and rounding is a bit different than yours.

Graph.PNG (171.24 KiB) Viewed 5782 times

The resulting graph certainly does seem to agree with your written findings. Deviation of the measured angles from the blue line represents the measurement error.

Table.PNG (8.73 KiB) Viewed 5782 times

[dusty]

I have both a Wixey and an iGaging Angle Cube. They often don't agree with one another and if you use one over and over to measure the same angle you will see variations. These are not precise instruments, especially if you are making measurements to decimal places.

One reason is that the instruments are sensitive to the position they are placed in (With reference to North). Set one on your Main Table to measure tilt and then rotate it 2 or 3 degrees and see the difference.

[sehast]

Great graph. The only differences I see for the numbers is for last two real small angles using the .002 and .001" shims. If the angles that you have for the .02 and .01 shims are correct then the other ones should be exactly one tenth of those values which is what I used. When you look at tangent calculations for very small values the round off rules really matter. I used the Windows scientific calculator that goes out a whole lot of decimal places. Excel probably rounds off in a more reasonable manner.