Digital levels.....

[lastminute]

Anyone got one of the above...would you recommend?

Thanks for any info.

 

[Eric The Viking]

I have an old "Gem Red".

No I wouldn't recommend it - the idea is excellent but mine isn't properly set up and I cannot correct it. It also eats batteries. It was the type with a spirit level on top, which never worked properly (again couldn't be properly set up), and eventually the vial went cloudy so it couldn't be read at all. Later firmware may be better though - mine is getting on for seven or eight years old now.

I might try replacing it with a later one, but it's low on the agenda. Certainly, in the application where you see them stuck to tablesaw blades it's rather a joke: 0.1 degrees isn't close to accurate enough for good mitres, so you certainly can't use it for, say, picture frame work.

I have no doubt someone will be along in a second to say, "but mine works just fine". The above is just my experience - not good!

 

[SammyQ]

I'm that man Eric; Hi! Lastminute! Mine has worked fine, but merrily eats batteries! As to precision (Hi Mike!), mine resembles that of digital 'very nears' and gets me 99% accurate, sometimes better, and then test cuts finesse the settings into "spot on". I will confess to using it initially for stop setting on the table saw trunnions and the like, and since then on non-crucial, but 'looks close enough' angled cuts on table edges, moulding profiles, even holes in components. Anything that shouted out "precision joints - to Custard's standard" I test out quickly on cut-off scrap after setting up, but I must say, the digibox gets you very, very, close. My saving grace is: slow, careful, setting up, rather than use the 'wee chrome box' as a definitive, does-all, standard. I also tend to make a quick 'reference guide' from scrap MDF in case I nudge someting out of kilter. This can be quickly set in to check nothing's moved or to reset a blade after second or third operations, then binned - as raw, cut, MDF sitting around swells and changes dimensionally. This approach is slower than a production workshop, but ensures full and correct use of small, expensive resources (wood) and as a retiree, not yet of pensionable age, that suits me.
So, the wee beastie is not NASA accurate, but if you use it with common sense, backup checking where an EXACT angle is a requisite, trusting it where 'looks close enough' will do, it works fine!

Sam, anti-Luddite.

 

[lastminute]

..Thankyou both...I also have a Gem "Box" and it works fine for me.

Gerry