Lathe DRO from Digital Caliper .. 10 Bucks .. 6" caliper has range of entire 16" bed

[Al8236]

One point I think worth mentioning here for anyone doing this is the caliper choice. The calipers from Harbor Freight have an auto off function that on the decimal/mm caliper turns back on at 0.000" whereas the decimal/fraction/mm model turns back on at its last known setting, this can be a real problem if you stop to look at plans / think about your next step etc. and the caliper auto-offs requiring you to re-start your settings from a known point! I highly recommend using the unit that starts from its last known position.