Digital callipers.

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Like al tools you generally get what you pay for (most of the times). I've still got a working Workzone (Aldi one) digital caliper, which I have used extensively for 4 to 5 years. No problem with battery as I generally turn the display off, before the auto shut-off kicks in. Recently bought a second unbranded pair of digital calipers. No issues with accuracy, although I'm looking for 0.5mm accuracy.
 
Definitely spend the money and buy Mitutoyo.... I was in aerospace industry for 46 years..... used them daily..do the right thing and buy....you won’t regret it
 
Are people really woodworking to thous?
Ive got three sets, a really crappy Draper branded punched out mild steel contraption that B&Q sold about 30yrs ago, that one hangs on a nail and is somthing between a tape and a decent vernier, and two pairs of sliding scale verniers, both picked up at boot sales, they read nought when closed and must be lots more accurate than I would ever need. Its surprising how often I reach for them though, often for jumping up a drill size and the like and certainly wouldn't want to be without them,,,but battery digital,,,no thanks.
 
I would add a vote for mitutoyo, or If you don't like the price then get a decent vernier caliper and learn how to read it properly. No issues with batteries cos there aren't any. I switched to digital mainly because my eyesight is no longer what it was, and peering at the scales like Mr Magoo became a nuisance. Still have The problem with micrometers, but can't afford to replace them with digital ones. The problem with a lot of the cheap ones is not the batteries but the pick up. They basically lose sight of where the sliding part is in relation to the bar. There are loads of videos on you tube of how to fix this. Sometimes it works and sometimes not. At the end of the day when a top quality set like the Mitutoyos cost a £200 ish you can't really expect the £15 quid jobs from Aldi to be as good. As someone said there are always second hand ones on e bay, typically £60 to 80, still a fair bit of money but you'll only buy them once. I have bought a couple of the £30 off ones over the years for use where they were going to get dirty or covered in coolant, and I didn't want to risk the good ones. None lasted all that long, so I bought a second hand Mitutoyo for about £50, some years ago to use just for this sort of thing. Have never missed a beat, and look as good as the day I got them when they were already ten years old.
And like others have said when I was using the cheaper ones I always had to remove the batteries or they would go flat in no time. Never could get my head around why. Can't honestly remember the last time I had to put a battery in either of the Mitutoyos, I think the second hand ones have still got the battery they came with, and I have had them for at least five years.
 
Why use battery operated callipers at all. I've had a cheap Draper vernier calliper for about 40 years which is spot on accurate every time. It measures down to 0.1mm or 1/128 inches.
Have a posher version which is more precise which I tend not to use, not needing "thous" etc.
Maybe people don't know how to use the vernier scale? It's certainly not obvious if someone hasn't shown you how to do it.
 
For most woodworking purposes, the cheap mass-produced digital callipers are accurate enough. The problem with most of them (I won't say all, as I only have experience of two or three) is that, as others have mentioned, the battery is being drained even when you turn them off; the design is such that even though the lcd display is disconnected by the OFF button, the rest of the electronics stays connected & is slowly draining the battery. It's very annoying for an occasional user such as myself to pick up the callipers not having used them for a month & find the battery is dead.
I switched to using the cheapish plastic dial callipers (ones in the £15-£30 range) - for my purposes, they are no less accurate than the cheap digitals, and much more convenient.
 
Am I just unlucky or am I buying to cheap.
I will soon be in the market to have to buy my third set of digital callipers. I’ve spent between 20 and 30 pounds at different times. I’ve had the last set for about 2 years.. looked after them and returned to their cases after use. On both set they will not hold the readings. Have eliminated battery connection problems, new batteries etc. They just give wrong or different readings. In short I just dont Trust them.
Do I need to spend more money or just buy cheap and don’t expect longevity?View attachment 112022
Sounds odd? I bought my first digital caliper from Lidl more than 10 years ago, and apart from replacing the battery and cleaning it up, it's worked properly and accurately ever since. Incidentally, I bought a backup 2 years ago and did a comparison and they're the same. Sometimes cheap is OK.
 
Am I just unlucky or am I buying to cheap.
I will soon be in the market to have to buy my third set of digital callipers. I’ve spent between 20 and 30 pounds at different times. I’ve had the last set for about 2 years.. looked after them and returned to their cases after use. On both set they will not hold the readings. Have eliminated battery connection problems, new batteries etc. They just give wrong or different readings. In short I just dont Trust them.
Do I need to spend more money or just buy cheap and don’t expect longevity?View attachment 112022
Trouble is battery drops to certain level readings all over the place, bit like car battery that drops to circa 10v difficult to start or lucky if it starts.
Do what I did bought the mechanicle one reading off scale marks cheap, had it 15 yrs no problem, and not kept in case.
Borrowed digital one from friend and it produced fluctuated measurements which made me rule out digital He's gone back to mechanicle.
 
I use a set of RS plastic dial callipers.
Had them for years. Very easy to use, 0.1mm resolution and accurate enough for most jobs.
Not expensive either
https://uk.rs-online.com/web/p/calipers/8412537/

Not quite it has a resolution of 0.4mm it's the graduations on the scale that is in 0.1mm increments.
I don't have the british standards to hand anymore but that class of caliper will probably have a tolerance of +/- 0.06 too.
From experience that 0.4 will quickly expand with use and any error will grow the further along the beam you move the dial.

Gerry
 
More to do with the button cells than the callipers I think.

I guess that callipers are so evidently simple to use that few of us bother to refer to the instructions, which clearly state that you must use 1.55V silver Oxide cells – not 1.5V Alkaline cells. The discharge characteristics of each cell are quite different. Silver Oxide maintain their voltage to a point at which they fail. Alkaline – which are already below the stated 1.55V voltage needed by the callipers, taper off and soon fall below the voltage at which the callipers will operate.

People often say “you can buy a sheet of calliper button cells for a quid at Pound Shops” but in fact you can't - not if you're buying the correct type of LR44 cell as per the instructions. Not all cells are created equal! The ones that the likes of Poundland et al sell are 1.5V Alkaline. I don't know what the initial Voltage or the capacity of a new pound shop alkaline SR44 cell is, but if it falls below 1.45V in use, (which I dare say won't take long), the callipers will malfunction. Furthermore, silver oxide cells not only have a higher Voltage – they have a higher capacity and a very different discharge curve..

Short battery life and malfunction of digital callipers (apart from dirt in the sensor head), is far more likely caused by using the wrong LR44 cells. (Using cheap alkaline cells instead of silver oxide). I've got three digital callipers of various makes - all of them budget types. (The oldest is 22 years old). They all work fine using the correct 1.55V solver oxide cell and the readings compare very closely.

I've only got one set of instructions now (for a Clarke/Machine Mart instrument) and here's what they state:

Quote:

8-<

Power Source: One silver oxide 1.55V LR44, capacity 180 mAh. Current <20uA

'Troubleshooting': Digits flash randomly or all five digits flash simultaneously: Battery Voltage below 1.45V.

Unquote.

8-<

I never remove the cells on any of my callipers and they last at least a year.

When I bought the callipers, in all three sets, the LR44 silver oxide cell was stored in the little round hole in the foam till fitted. I keep a spare one in the hole in each one for when needed. The only problems I've had with one of the callipers is that I use it when I'm woodturning and through allowing fine dust to get on it, which gets drawn into the slide so I have to remove the slide assembly and clean it with a sable artists brush. To remove the assembly, there are two tiny grub screws, one either side of the locking screw on the top side of the slide.

Of my three callipers only the Clarke one has an on/off switch - the other two auto switch off when left alone for a few seconds, so I suspect that they go into 'sleep mode' and draw a minute current till next operated, because they 'wake up' the second that the slider is moved. (It would take a long time to reduce the battery Voltage of a 180mAh silver oxide cell from 1.55V to 1.45V at only <20µA).

It's easy to make a mistake when buying them, even though it does usually state either alkaline 1.5V or Silver Oxide 1.55V on the package.

EG, these are both Energizer brand, both LR44, and both packages look almost identical except for the small print:

1.5V Alkaline:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Energizer-L...GXNDMMD3ETRRJ1

1.55V Silver Oxide:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Energizer-S.../dp/B000IX2GXI

I don't want to infer that there can't be other things that can cause callipers to malfunction, just that it's worth trying a correct cell, which might just be at the root of the problem.

Take a look at the discharge graphs on the datasheets:

Silver Oxide:

https://www.murata.com/products/productdata/8809693806622/SR44R-DATASHEET.pdf?1615298419000

Alkaline:

https://www.celltech.fi/fileadmin/user_upload/Celltech/Prod.sheets/11186.pdf


Hope that’s of interest.

David.
 
After following this thread I have just looked on eBay for Mitutoyo digital callipers and they are £35 new. Seems a bit too cheap. Any body have any thoughts on whether these are the genuine article?
Yes, and the cheapest on Amazon is £88. Is there a completely reliable source for Mitutoyo ? Even www.fine-tools.com in Germany don't do digital calipers.
 
I’ve been using various cheap digital calipers for, must be, 10 years. As Yorkieguy says, the 1.55V alkaline cells ( a pound a sheet at poundland) are a waste of time; the same-size silver oxide cells are more expensive but last much longer.

But there’s a better solution: you can find calipers that use a 2032 lithium cell. I have 2 of these, one cost me £10 or so on fleabay, the other one was (I think) about £7 from CPC - it’s plastic, branded Draper, and has worked perfectly for a couple of years with just one battery replacement.

All three of them show up within +/- 0.2mm against a QC-grade gauge block. I’m sure the Mitutoyo ones are excellent, reliable and probably (should) come with traceable calibration, but, for most purposes - certainly for me - the cheap ones work sufficiently well. But then I am a cheapskate!
 
After following this thread I have just looked on eBay for Mitutoyo digital callipers and they are £35 new.
You know what they say, If the price seems too good to be true, it probably is and yes there are a lot of fakes out, infact there are now fakes of almost everything but surely no one is going to think they are getting the real Mitutoyo callipers for £35 or are people becoming that gullable, do these ebay sellers actually sell them? When you look at all the adverts around then you can only come to one conclusion, the human race is becoming either more stupid or living in a fantasy world.

absolutely a great product but watch out for the fakes,
 
Not quite it has a resolution of 0.4mm it's the graduations on the scale that is in 0.1mm increments.
I don't have the british standards to hand anymore but that class of caliper will probably have a tolerance of +/- 0.06 too.
From experience that 0.4 will quickly expand with use and any error will grow the further along the beam you move the dial.

Gerry

Hi Gerry
Can you explain why that is so please?
I thought resolution referred to the the smallest step that could be resolved which for these is per the 0.1mm graduations on the dial as the instrument measures continually (i.e. the dial doesn’t jump in 0.4mm increments)
I think in the link RS quote 0.4mm accuracy, although in practice they (or the ones I have at any rate) are very much better than that, I wonder if it should be 0.04mm.
 
Are people really woodworking to thous?
A good observation, and something I often question. Are are we trying to be too accurate and buying tools that deliver to an accuracy we do not really need?

Well I think if you aim for more accuracy than you actually need then you stand a chance of getting what you want, to get a millimeter accuracy you need to aim for a tenth of a millimeter and you will be happy.
 
All you need here for £12.49
Measures accurately to 0.1mm, 1/128 inch
About five times more precise than a woodworker is likely to need
last forever, no batteries needed
Draper Vernier Caliper 150mm
 
Speaking of regular verniers.
You could probably get a nice one for that money.
Even the Lidl/Aldi ones are a bit nicer than than Draper one,
although looking at one in front of me, doesn't have smaller increments on the scale, so useless for measuring.

I see a Silverline which appears OK for £7.49, worth having a closer look.
Seeing what the plunger looks like, as in crooked, or seeing the milling marks and slot should indicate a better tolerance, so it won't move about.
Hopefully you can get engraved markings rather than a label.

Great tool to have about.
 
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