Digital Calipers

UKworkshop.co.uk

Help Support UKworkshop.co.uk:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.
:ROFLMAO: That'll be me then!
I've had the same Draper Vernier callipers for about 40 years. Still only £10 or so.
Simple, more than accurate enough for woodwork , durable in the workshop environment - no prob if drop them, stand on them, let them go rusty, etc.
Metric and Imperial
I really can't see the point of digital at all.
Ahh i knew you would not let us down 🤗🤗 maybe its an age thing or anyone 50 or 60 + from an engineering background would probably frown against anything digital . I used laugh at some of the young apprentice gas engineers with their digital u gauages instead of the traditional 12 “ water gauage . I guess we all have our ways and stick by them . 😂😂😂
 
When you are older and you need glasses you will. Old eyes need more light and are less able to change focus quickly. Verniers can be difficult to read.
No prob. I'm 79 with poor eyesight. Just have to hold the callipers close up.
 
I have two cheap plastic sets, £5 each from Temu.
At the link below there's an interesting 12 minute review of several cheap tools from Temu, including their callipers (6 mins in), entitled: 'Are cheap tools from Temu Worth Considering?' . Despite the limitations, when compared to more expensive ones, and only to 1 decimal place, the Temu callipers don't score badly for accuracy:

temu tool reviews - Google Search
 
Just an afterthought - the attraction of the simple vernier calliper is that although it is possible to misread it it is not possible for it to be "wrong" (within limits). Anything digital/electrical can fail on both counts
 
Can't be wrong if you don't read them, like for stock prep aiming for oversize and find the
slimmest one of those still slightly so, and work to that, or the same for fitting tenons.

You might find these not only good for measuring, but also great used whilst locked off,
and seeing if the opposite side of the stock/tenon/etc will pass through the same,
hence I use my non digital vernier way more than the digital one.
 
No prob. I'm 79 with poor eyesight. Just have to hold the callipers close up.
"No Prob" for you, we are all different and the experience of one person does not invalidate the general point. I can read a vernier, with effort, no effort needed for digital. We all make choices.
 
I also wonder if some people don't get to grips with reading a vernier calliper scale. It's not at all obvious until someone explains it!
The scale showed here is accurate to 0.02mm but for woodworking purpose accurate to 0.2mm is more than enough. Vernier scale - Wikipedia
 
I don't get all the fuss over digital calipers.
A digital caliper is simply another tool for conveniently measuring thicknesses/diameters. For their low purchase cost these days and their level of accuracy which is good they are a no-brainer and an excellent addition to one's toolkit. I personally wouldn't be without mine.

On the other hand if you don't like them or don't trust them then don't buy one, it's that simple.
 
Quality digital callipers have many advantages over scale vernier callipers, ease of reading is just one of them but very important as the eyes age. Other advantages include flipping between metric, imperial and fractions, setting zero at any point and measuring the difference between components.

This video shows the elements above, they are also metric and imperial with a SPS/USB output for transferring data.



https://woodworkersworkshop.co.uk/igaging-origincal-ip54-digital-caliper-absolute-origin-0-6/
Cheers

Peter
 
I think unless you need Micron accuracy, which is highly unlikely, considering we're playing with Wood on this forum and it's a natural product. It's highly unlikely that it will ever need be accurate to anywhere near that level.
The €10 or 10 GBP pair from Lidl or Aldi are perfectly adequate for 99.9% of woodworking jobs, and even if you have to add a piece of metal into the equation again, it's highly unlikely that you would be looking for that sort of accuracy. In fact most people wont have the tools at home to be working to that level anyway.

As a retired engineer, I do have those tools along with a Lathe and Mill in my workshop over here in Spain and it's very rare even when I Turn or Mill metal that I need anywhere near the accuracy of the tools that I have.

I'm not making parts which need to fit together as if they were meant to have a zero tolerance because that's what we're basically talking about here at the micron level. There seems to be a tendency now by some people to spend large sums of money on pieces of kit that don't require it, Its almost like were building a snob value in to our hobbies now 😄 !!

I've tested my cheap Vernier from Lidl against my more expensive engineering one and they are fine for carpentry by a long way.

The main thing you should worry about is that your squares, table saws, rulers, CNC, Mitre saws Thicknesser and or planer blades are accurate rather than your Vernier being out by .001/2/3 of a millimetre.

Concentrate your efforts and money on things that really matter and make a real difference
 
Just googling "vernier" callipers again. Seems a lot of people don't really know what "Vernier" refers to and they talk of "digital" vernier callipers. They are one or the other but not both. I suppose they could be combined but why would you?Some revision called for here!
 
When you are older and you need glasses you will. Old eyes need more light and are less able to change focus quickly. Verniers can be difficult to read.
I'm struggling with my digital ones I think I might be needing new Varifocals 😄
 
Just googling "vernier" callipers again. Seems a lot of people don't really know what "Vernier" refers to and they talk of "digital" vernier callipers. They are one or the other but not both. I suppose they could be combined but why would you?Some revision called for here!
Are you and I on the same Hymn sheet Jacob ? As the only calipers I know of are the ones on my car's brakes !! 😄

vernier​

[ vur-nee-er ]


noun
  1. Also vernier scale . a small, movable, graduated scale running parallel to the fixed graduated scale of a sextant, theodolite, barometer, etc., and used for measuring a fractional part of one of the divisions of the fixed scale
 
......

noun
  1. Also vernier scale . a small, movable, graduated scale running parallel to the fixed graduated scale of a sextant, theodolite, barometer, etc., and used for measuring a fractional part of one of the divisions of the fixed scale
to which list he could have added "callipers".
Apparently started out as a sextant refinement when navigation was in its early days and technically more or less equivalent to space exploration today.
 
to which list he could have added "callipers".
Apparently started out as a sextant refinement when navigation was in its early days and technically more or less equivalent to space exploration today.
Agreed. I think now most engineers would call these Vernier Slide Calipers and over the years they have dropped the first two words and its stuck now across all the trades . I was trained old school because I'm 62 and they were only ever called "Verniers" back then after the french guy that invented them, the only thing more accurate than these now is a Micrometer something that in my opinion is never needed in Carpentry.

Well that is I have never found a need to be that accurate with a piece of wood. Mind you I am still learning 😄
 
Just an afterthought - the attraction of the simple vernier calliper is that although it is possible to misread it it is not possible for it to be "wrong" (within limits). Anything digital/electrical can fail on both counts

For many years I have been using a set of these plastic dial calipers. Accurate enough for woodworking, quicker/easier to read than a vernier scale (especially with aging eyes) and no batteries or electronics to fail.

https://uk.rs-online.com/web/p/calipers/8412537
 
Most woodwork situations don't require the level of accuracy that digital calipers/verniers or whatever you wish to call them can give but in traditional trades such as organ building for instance, the tolerances when building the soundboards is often in thousandths of an inch due to the risk of escape of air so there are situations where woodwork can demand precision to engineering standards but such as organ building is pretty much unique and almost everything was always done by hand when I trained in it..

One thing that many people forget about modern digital calipers is that most are also capable of measuring the depth of recesses, rebates etc if within the tool's measuring capacity so there is more to them than just a set of measuring jaws.
As I've already said, I find mine most useful and for the initial outlay it was one of the best measuring devices I've ever owned.
 
Not being an engineer my only exposure with vernier was using a sextant. Older sextants were vernier and I have to admit I found the reading to be hard. They had a small magnifer glass to read the vernier part of the scale. The sextants with a micrometer dial were much easier. These days my old eyes would even struggle with micrometer so a digital readout is the dogs bo&&ox. Nothing wrong with a cheap Aldi calliper for woodwork. My current one is more than 5 years old and if it goes to god then I'll just get another.
Regards
John
 

Latest posts

Back
Top