Digital Calipers- What do you think of these?

While discussing the subject with and old timer many years ago, he told me he could set an OLD style set of callipers (the ones that look like a set of dividers) to exactly 1", using only the callipers and a steel rule.

After poking around in a mountain of interesting things piled on his bench, he pulled out a rule and promtly set the callipers to 1". He then handed them to me with a 1" gauge to check. Sure enough they were bang on, I couldn't have done better with a micrometer.

Of course I had to ask him how he had managed it. He told me that on a quaility rule the division lines should be .003" thick. All he had to do was get the calliper legs in the middle of the .003" wide lines.

OK, how he did it I can understand. But how he managed to do it in his dark cave of a shed with the only light coming from a dirty, tiny window on the other side of the room I'll never know. I could barely see where I was putting my feet in amongst all his jumble of half finished projects, tools and curiosities.
It's amazing what experience can teach. A true engineer that one.
 
Hi,
I am a retired journeyman and if I bore the hole too big I can just make a bit larger piston, to compensate, and keep on rolling.

No question..those are good calipers. I have used several different kinds and see very little difference except the more expensive ones are a bit more sturdy and will stand more abuse. Much of the trouble that I do see is in the handling. Dial and digital vernier calipers are easy to force and get incorrect readings. The same is true of micrometers, but to a lesser degree. I generally prefer reading mic's by feel and usually don't use the rachet if there is one. I guess that might be because they didn't have "readouts" when I learned.

When all is said and done....
A beginner can get by with less than top quality calipers. Of course if money is no object, buy the best that you can find, and sure, they will last a lifetime.

I agree that Mic's are the best bet for accuracy but with care and an experienced feel I can read my Harbor freight digital verniers with in .001 consistantly, usually right on the money. It seems to me that a beginner will be doing projects with less demanding dimensions and loossr tolerances. As he progresses he will see a need for better tools and if he has the moola he no doubt will buy them.

My preference is the 6.00" digital or dial. I have a couple of cheap digital ( HF 4.00 and 6.00), and a couple good grade dials (6.00). As a beginning hobbyist 6:00 digitals and some 1.00 mics should serve him well. If he can only afford one pr of mic's get !.00 and if you get good ones they will be nice for you grandson. If I wanted some bigger vernier/digital calipers for bigger jobs I might go for a 12" set of digitals, but I doubt if they will get used much.

I also have a 24" Regular vernier ( non dial and non digital) that read in metric only. I have only needed them once or twice in the last 20 years and it was no trouble to measure in metric and then convert to english. The are tricky to read though. I have to take several readings and look for consistancy. Almost an educated guess.

My comments here are intended to be for a newer hobbyist although most will apply to a more experienced person as well.

If one is working in the trade, perhaps as an apprentice, I would recommend buying better grade tools since this would be your livelyhood that depends on them. And the other, older, guys are always brand concensious and tend to rate a guy by the tools that he has. Eventually how well you use the tools will be more important but first impressions are always important.
Vernier calipers ( Dial and digital) can be read very accurately with practice. One can practice reading them with mic standards, plug gages, and many other objects of known sizes. Practice, practice, practice.

When I was working I used to win a lot of free coffee betting that I could measure openings for wear plates ( in the neighborhood of 1 1/2 "- 2" ). and I consistantly got it within .001 using just my own scale (.010" grads ), and a magnifying glass. After practice you get familiar with your own tools and you will be able to even read a tape measure ( your own ), to surprising accuracy.
Jerry
 
Jerry,
So as not to confuse the new hobbyists, calipers are calipers. Dial or digital or vernier is the type of display method used to obtain a reading.
Digital is the latest way to display the reading taken. Dial was introduced a few years back to simplify reading calipers. Vernier is the linear secondary scale many people see on calipers and takes its name from the French mathematician and instument inventor, Pierre Vernier.
But please dont call them digital, (or dial), verniers. They are calipers.
Unless they are vernier calipers.;)
Most mics have vernier scales.

Cheers Phil
 
OOPS!! Foiled again

Hi Phil,
Yes you are absolutely right, the wording might be confusing to a newbie. I was guilty of using a little 'shop slang' in my post. After I wrote it I re read it and realized that, but it was rather late and my eyes were tired so I said Well, the point that I was trying to make was that when we learn the feel of our individual tools we will be on the road to being a skilled person. I was using what I thought were descriptive terms rather than correct nomenclature. May not have been the best choice.

However the link provided by Gordon should help considerably in that regard
Certainly, knowing the proper names of the tools should be a part of it as well.
Thanks for the kindly correction. I remember how long it took me to learn the difference between a "spanner" and a "spanner wrench".

There are also several other types of calipers as revealed by Gordon and I believe the two legged variety sometimes used to measure round pieces are called "Spring Calipers". Having said that, I went to my handy dictionary and looked up calipers and did not find that,....maybe more shop slang ?

At least I found out that someone read my post, and that's good.
Cheers to Y'all
Jerry
 
I love my mitutoyo digital calipers to death, but since I am not in the shop on a daily basis it ends up that whenever I want to use them the batteries are dead. I ended up getting a B&S dial calipers which doesn't run out of battery power - ever. sure, it doesn't have some niceties, but it works every time I pick it up and is easy to ready. I now keep my mitutoyo with the battery out, but that's sort of useless as it adds an extra step if I do want to use it... a love hate relationship.
 
Gordon Clarke said:
What type of Mitutoyo caliper do you have and which type of battery are you using? A SR44 battery is better than a LR44 one.

Probably the best caliper electronics available is Sylvac which has a 3v CR2032 inside. Most calipers have a 1½v battery.

Of course if by going "dead" you mean every second year or so is too often then that is something else again. Calipers continue to use the battery even when switched off albeit only very little. Like a TV I suppose :)

Just a thought but I'll bet you have to think about your measurement result a couple of seconds more every time you use a dial rather than a digital caliper ;)
I'm also willing to bet you don't work in both the imperial and metric systems.

Suggestion. Why don't you keep an extra battery in the caliper box? That's assuming you keep it in its box when not in use.
Click to expand...

I'll have to check that later, it's a Digimatic, but don't remember the exact model number. all the buttons and feel of it are superb, but the batteries won't last more than a month or 2 - maybe it's defective as far as I know (I got it used). Like you said, I don't use it extensively, and to not rely on it for work as I only use it for hobby so it's less critical for me, but still. my experience with digital calipers is what it is (I have 1 more asian digital calipers I used to use for woodworking, and replaced it with a dial caliper as well for the same reason). I do have spare batteries, but at the rate they are going "unused" I find it better to stick to Dial caliper for my case.

Thanks for the battery suggestion, I will check to see which model mine are.
 
Gordon Clarke said:
If it's a Digimatic you don't have to tell me more. I hate to be the one to tell you but I'm as good as certain you have a defective caliper. The only other explanation is that the batteies you have (bought) were kept in adverse conditions.

I also have a Mitutoyo digimatic (among many others :)) and at the moment it's still running on its second battery. I've had it for 5 years.

The best suggestion I can give is for you to buy a new SR44 battery from a reputable shop and if it doesn't last at least a year then your caliper is defective.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the confirmation. I suspected it was defective a while back right after I got it (talk about a lemon). oh well.
 
Gordon Clarke said:
The best suggestion I can give is for you to buy a new SR44 battery from a reputable shop and if it doesn't last at least a year then your caliper is defective.
Click to expand...

Gordon, I took your advice and got a SR44 battery to replace the LR44 I was using a couple weeks ago, and so far the calipers seem to be working well and do not exhibit the errors I was constantly seeing before - you may have just restored my faith in digitals!
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top