Caliper with/without fine adjustment? - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / general

author: aneevuser
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: September 24, 2020, 08:06:21 pm
content: I want to buy a vernier caliper. Some have a fine adjustment screw, some don't. It's not clear to me whether or not I need a caliper with one.What exactly are the benefits or disadvantages of the fine adjustment screw? - one potential disadvantage that I see is that it may be easier to overtighten the jaws with a screw control, but I'm not sure if that is indeed the case. I am in fact rather unclear as to the advantages - what can I do more easily - or perhaps only - with fine adjustment?

author: thm_w
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 24, 2020, 08:48:14 pm
content: Photos of what you are talking about, what precision are you planning to measure to? Normally calipers you don't need anything like that.Are you sure you aren't looking at a micrometer? In that case you'd get one with a ratchet to prevent overtightening.

author: Gyro
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 24, 2020, 09:21:38 pm
content: Yes, a fine adjustment screw is useful. It's useful for 'comparator' applications where you want to set the caliper to an accurate position, lock it and then see if something fits between the jaws or not (i.e. has it reached the finished size or is it the required size). It's almost impossible to stop the jaws at an exact figure just sliding it by hand.In practice, there's no danger of overtightening the jaws, the clamping mechanism will slip first.Calipers without a fine adjustment screw are fine for just sliding up to an object and taking a measurement, but that's missing out the other useful function of the caliper.P.S. You should at least get one with a fine movement thumbwheel.P.P.S. I'm assuming that you do indeed mean a "vernier caliper". Fine adjustment screws are pretty rare on digital ones.

author: KL27x
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 24, 2020, 11:58:25 pm
content: QuoteYou mean the thumbwheel?The thumbwheel provides leverage. When measuring stuff down to the thous, any sticking in the slide or any elasticity of the material you're measuring can come into play. The thumbwheel helps to make consistent measurements. It is easier to overtighten the jaws, but it's also easier to let off. You'll have more control over this range of compression. You can take min/max or to just use a consistent pressure for this particular measurement after you calibrate yourself for your own standard.Most of the digital calipers that go down only to hundredth of an inch don't have a thumbwheel. Not only they have less resolution, but they're also made of plastic and slide better, so the thumbwheel isn't as important.

author: Kjelt
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 25, 2020, 08:26:12 am
content: Just get a good digital caliper like Mutitoyo upto 0,01mm and you don't need that wheel.With a bit of practice you can set it correct to that 0,01mm.There is a little fastening screw to lock it you set the caliper just a few 0,01mms outside the target, tighten the screw a little bit and now softly tick with your finger so it gets to the exact distance.Then tighten the screw. Ten minutes practice done.

author: aneevuser
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: September 25, 2020, 08:40:38 am
content: Quote from: Gyro on September 24, 2020, 09:21:38 pmThanks - I hadn't thought of that problem - I guess setting two metal surfaces at sub-mm relative positions will indeed be tricky by hand.QuoteHmm. What about with softer materials, like plastics?QuoteYou've convinced me.QuoteI do indeed - digital things are full of electronics, which is the work of the Devil and can go wrong, and need batteries.

author: aneevuser
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: September 25, 2020, 08:47:47 am
content: Quote from: KL27x on September 24, 2020, 11:58:25 pmBy "take min/max", do you mean take measurements with tighter/looser jaws, as controlled by the fine adjustment?QuoteAre there any calipers made of plastic that aren't junk? Surely it deforms too easily under pressure to be reliable?

author: aneevuser
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: September 25, 2020, 08:50:17 am
content: Quote from: Kjelt on September 25, 2020, 08:26:12 amI'm going to go for good ol' sliding metal-on-metal, with graduations - nothing to go wrong, no batteries to change. And cheaper.

author: tautech
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 25, 2020, 09:03:54 am
content: Calipers at least need a thumbwheel and a movement lock.If needed for Go/NoGo you need the adjustment screw.Any caliper without a thumbwheel is a right PITA for fine work and for the bulk of uses a thumbwheel and movement lock will serve you fine.

author: drussell
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 25, 2020, 10:09:59 am
content: Quote from: aneevuser on September 25, 2020, 08:40:38 amThereis, of course, something in between a vernier caliper and a digital...A dial caliper.

author: Gyro
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 25, 2020, 10:28:17 am
content: Quote from: aneevuser on September 25, 2020, 08:40:38 amIn practice, fine adjustment screws have a very light operation, you can easily feel when things are beginning to tighten up. For soft materials you need to use as much of the jaw area as possible to avoid compression. If too soft, then you need to decide what constitutes contact anyway. That's where fine adjustment screw, locking the jaws, and checking for a sliding fit is more useful.QuoteI have one of each - a digital one (with thumbwheel) for when I can't be bothered to think, and a vernier with fine adjustment screw for trickier sliding fit measurements (or when the battery in the digital one has gone flat!).A small micrometer is a good idea for highest accuracy - as long as you don't need to go beyond 25mm, and the relatively small contact area (with one surface rotating) isn't too much of an issue. Again, for soft material you need a gentle touch.

author: coppercone2
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 25, 2020, 02:52:33 pm
content: its useful if you want to measure something then find exactly half of that measurement to mark the half way mark on something when you are doing layout. I have one without a thumbwheel and it is sometimes irritating to get to the thousanth if you are doing a whole bunch of hole marks quickly. I would think its a useful/essential feature if you can afford it. If you want to put holes one inch away from the side in 4 corners, its very useful because you can set it to 1 inch very easily then lock it.If you are just measuring parts for dimensions without doing marking (i.e. measuring components), it is not useful. So, useful for marking but not measuring. (the beak of a caliper is made of carbide and its meant to scratch little marks in stuff so you know where to put holes).

author: Kjelt
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 25, 2020, 03:09:56 pm
content: Quote from: aneevuser on September 25, 2020, 08:50:17 amYou're choice but even the proffesionals use them these days. It is like saying I want an analog multimeterPS battery SR44 costs 3 euro and lasts two to three years.Oh yeah you als have the absolute setting, you measure for instance one rod of 5mm push zero and when you measure the other rods you can directly see the difference.But your choice, for the good 'ol mechanical calipers, look at second hand sites, these things are now practically given away.

author: Doctorandus_P
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 25, 2020, 03:26:11 pm
content: I really dislike calipers with those thumb wheels.They mess up with the feeling of the force I use to adjust them.It also makes it harder to open the calipers, as the travel distance is only half of what your thumb does.The thumb wheel does have the (at least theoretical) advantage of a finer adjustment.Another disadvantage is that it's only on one side. I've ground the back corner (opposite to the side of the ribbed thumb support) of my Mitutoyo's because I used them in weird angles too many times and the only way to exert a measurement force in those positions was on the back side.In the end though, it's mostly what your're used to I guess.Having both variants, and taking turns using them is the most nuisance though, as you have to adjust the measurement force for reliable measurements.The adjustment with the screw can be useful in some situations, depending on what you use your calipers for. You often see them on height gauges, and I have a 500mm calipers with it, but have not used it much.Most important though is to avoid the cheap garbage.I have 3 mitutoyo's and I've had 2 of these for 30+ years and they're still good. Mostly have slight scratches on the backside.I've bought a bunch of the cheap digital ones, and they all ended up in the garbage. A few years back I bought a digital Mitotoyo CD-15APX and it just keeps on going on its first battery.I can sorta understand if you don't want to sink EUR100 or more into a set of calipers (even when they last 30 years, that's EUR 3 per year!). But still. Avoid the EUR15 cheapies. There are some decent quality chinese calipers for around EUR 30 to EUR40.

author: drussell
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 25, 2020, 03:32:54 pm
content: Quote from: Doctorandus_P on September 25, 2020, 03:26:11 pmOn all of the calipers I have that have a thumbwheel, the thumbwheel is disengaged unless you're actually pushing up on it with your thumb. I've never had those problems you describe.

author: thm_w
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 25, 2020, 09:34:23 pm
content: Quote from: Kjelt on September 25, 2020, 03:09:56 pmand the whole "nothing to go wrong" thing... some day in the future, OP will do the wrong mental math or look at the wrong graduation, and screw up a simple measurement.I mean if your budget is less than $40 thats fine:https://www.amazon.com/iGaging-ABSOLUTE-Digital-Electronic-Caliper/dp/B00INL0BTS/(battery lasts 2 years)

author: aneevuser
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: September 26, 2020, 09:13:07 am
content: Quote from: thm_w on September 25, 2020, 09:34:23 pmThat's an utterly feeble argument against a non-digital tool - you may as well say that we should throw away all of our steel rules with imperial and metric calibrations as we may look at the wrong graduation. The calculations required are trivial anyway, and it's entirely clear from the main scale what the approximate measurement is going to be, so it's easy to make a sanity check. And of course, there's that old saying "measure twice, cut once" - if you don't stick to that, you deserve what you get.Quite apart from that, you've missed the point: you are pointing out a different source of error - an error made by the user - to that which I referred, which was error due to some failure of the device. I think that it's clear that a vernier caliper has fewer failure modes than a digital caliper.QuoteHowever, you're on stronger ground here, as I came across this yesterday, and yes, this seems to be a serious contender against the Mitutoyos at a more sensible price - maybe I'll go digital after all. Hmm. That bloody analysis paralysis strikes again.

author: KL27x
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 26, 2020, 10:11:50 am
content: On the plastic calipers I suspect expansion with temperature is probably a bigger problem then flex of the jaws/slide. You have to be gentle on the pressure when trying to get high accuracy, anyways. Wear on the jaws might also factor in over time.The plastic ones are lighter and cheaper and less pokey if you want to slide a pair of calipers in your pocket. And $10 is pretty much disposable. That said, I only have one of these plastic wonders, and it's mounted to my drill press for a depth gauge.`

author: chris_leyson
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 26, 2020, 10:29:41 am
content: I've used the same 150mm Mitutoyo analog vernier for over 30 years, just as accurate now as it was 30 years ago and I don't need to find batteries for it.

author: drussell
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 26, 2020, 02:21:29 pm
content: Quote from: aneevuser on September 26, 2020, 09:13:07 amIf you've never used a half-decent or better quality digital, you're missing out. The half-decent ones don't even quickly self-discharge the battery like the el-cheapo ones do if you leave it turned off with the battery in it.I have various others, but my good digital one is definitely my go-to caliper for sure.I have several left around for other specific purposes, too, like a cheap plastic one stays by the CNC engraver to easily measure plate sizes and text sizes and whatnot for making signs, etc. I don't need to be able to repeatably measure to half a thousandth of an inch for that application, so a cheap one stays right there with the various cutters and other accessories to always be at hand.Youareallowed to ownmultiplecalipers, you know.Just don't go crazy and start hoarding test & measurement equipment or you'll end up like those nutters over in the TEA thread.

author: TimFox
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 26, 2020, 03:57:39 pm
content: With advancing presbyopia, I had to give up on vernier calipers and restrict myself to dial calipers. Unfortunately, dial calipers only work for English or metric, not both, but verniers normally work for both.I bought a good metric dial calipers before traveling to Saudi Arabia for an installation, since the temperature range on most digital equipment is up to 40 C.

author: drussell
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 26, 2020, 05:25:49 pm
content: Quote from: TimFox on September 26, 2020, 03:57:39 pmYeah, switching between metric and imperial and easily converting between the two at the touch of a button is one of the features I love best about the digital ones.

author: KL27x
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 26, 2020, 10:32:16 pm
content: QuoteI keep a set of digital calipers everywhere I know I'll use them. None are sitting in a case. I can buy a new pair of Mitts if and when I need to make a certified measurement, rather than digging through a drawer and hoping I find them.I keep one at the electronics bench, one at my garage workbench, one set of calipers and one dedicated digital depth gauge at the router table (which is also where I set up my redneck lathe). The cheap calipers work pretty great. I never had the first problem with any of them. They're all trustworthy, up to at least 1.5" or so, to the nearest thou. My oldest one is over 10 years old. It has fallen onto concrete innumerable times, bumped or vibrated off the edge of a bench. The glass cracked and has been replaced with plexiglass. And I had to disassemble it for cleaning, twice, when the buttons stopped responding from the dust creeping inside.

author: aneevuser
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: September 27, 2020, 11:14:43 am
content: Quote from: Kjelt on September 25, 2020, 03:09:56 pmI'm a rank amateur though - maybe I should stick with vernier? And as for my analog multimeter - it has 20 thousand ohms for each and every volt, I'll have you know!But yeah, you may have a point. Maybe I'm weakening - maybe I'll go digital. The ghosts of my youth are returning to torture me - 5 years of slide rules before using a calculator leave a deep impression on a man - the thought of buying a digital caliper feels a bit like cheating.

author: aneevuser
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: September 27, 2020, 11:18:59 am
content: Quote from: drussell on September 26, 2020, 02:21:29 pmYes, but in these post-COVID times, money is scarce, so I'd rather buy a decent tool just the once.QuoteNo chance - I have the personality to do so, but not the cash.

author: Gyro
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 27, 2020, 11:26:00 am
content: Quote from: aneevuser on September 27, 2020, 11:14:43 amDon't forget to buy a digital watch at the same time!Quote

author: chris_leyson
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 27, 2020, 01:21:59 pm
content: @ aneevuser, if you need to make a lot of measurements either in metric or imperial with a resolution of 0.01mm then by all means get a Mitutoyo digital caliper, they are well built, very easy to read and the batteries last a long time, about £110 from Farnell. On the other hand, a classic Vernier scale Mitutoyo will cost £32 or £38 for 0.05mm and 0.02mm resolution respectively. The fine adjustment feature is useful if you want to measure small differences. The only draw back with classic Vernier calipers is that I now have to use a x10 magnifier to make use of the 0.02mm resolution. If you don't want to go digital then I would recommend Mitutoyo 150mm dial calipers, much easier to read and 0.01mm resolution. At work I use a Mitutoyo dial caliper because the display isn't cracked and there is no ty-wrap holding the battery compartment in place.

author: drussell
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 27, 2020, 03:16:29 pm
content: Quote from: aneevuser on September 27, 2020, 11:18:59 amI realize money is tight right now,believe me, I know!You don't necessarily need to spend a lot of money for something decent and perfectly usable, though. Justpleasetry to get something better thantheseorthese:I bought one of the various versions of plastic(!!) digitalPower Fister brand caliper one time on sale for $4.99 and although I've probably got my $5 out of it over the years, I don't really recommend doing that.They sit on top of my fridge in the kitchen beside a tape measure for random household measurements.Astoundingly, though, the fact that they've got a regularly-priced sub-$14 stainless digital makes me want to buy one just to see how terrible it is. I'll bet if it were disassembled, de-burred, properly cleaned of machining residue, lightly oiled and re-assembled, it would probably be far more useful than the plastic one in the kitchen.If I ever see one ofthoseon sale for 50% off for $7 sometime when I'm at Princess Auto, it'll be very,verydifficult to resist the urge to buy one.... but then again, I follow the TEA thread even though I don't hoard multimeters, frequency counters or oscilloscopes. I'mtryingto avoid becoming an addict likethosejunkies. I certainly can't affordtheirhabit!

author: Kjelt
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 27, 2020, 03:56:26 pm
content: Quote from: aneevuser on September 27, 2020, 11:14:43 amCheating ? It has higher accuracy (0.01 vs 0.05 or 0.02 with guestimate) and I don't know how good you're vision is but locking the slider and then removing the calliper before having a good view to interpolate between the last digits can also divert the measurement.Bedn there done it fir twenty five years, went digital and never looked back.Even with a measurements clock where an analogue dial gives a better insight in tolerances when moving, a digital one with large display is also very handy for many measurements at distance. You decide, your money, just sharing my personal experience and preference with both.

author: Kjelt
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 27, 2020, 04:04:45 pm
content: I'll give you an example , the first two are 30,00 mm.Now you tell me the third

author: coppercone2
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 27, 2020, 04:19:26 pm
content: those plastic calipers are a good idea if you are positioning stuff with glue on it (i.e. you coat something with glue and you position it near where it needs to be then move it around on a X-y axis to get it to a particular position by poking it and then clamping it. You don't want to forget epoxy on a real caliper).Normally you would use a adjustable square to poke things, but I can see a plastic caliper being useful for small things gently riding on glue.

author: CatalinaWOW
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 27, 2020, 04:29:17 pm
content: It has been mentioned, but it is worth repeating. What are you doing and what accuracy do you need? I use dial calipers by preference and have no problem setting them within 0.001 inch (0.025 mm) using a thumbwheel. By that I mean less than a quarter of the space between graduations. Doing it without the thumbwheel is a bit tougher, requires some technique but still not out of line. No need for a fine adjustment screw.My actual measurement requirements tend to be well larger than those tolerances in almost all cases. The only time accuracies approaching that are necessary is when fitting dowel pins into holes and the like, and even there other problems like burrs, eccentricity of the parts and the like rapidly become the dominant errors.I suspect you will do just fine without the fine adjustment screw, but again, your needs may be different.

author: drussell
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 27, 2020, 04:30:03 pm
content: Quote from: coppercone2 on September 27, 2020, 04:19:26 pmOh, absolutely. Those cheap blue ones are great for certain purposes but measuring crankshaft bearing shell thickness is not one of them.I'm sure I still have my very first light blue Radio Shack plastic vernier ones from the late '70s or early 80s around somewhere, my very first calipers that I got as a kid. No idea where they are right now, probably in some desk drawer somewhere around here, but I still remember being astounded at the accuracy you could measure to with the vernier as a kid. The concept of aligning the lines to get accurate measurements just absolutely blew my mind. Brilliant!Of course, for plastic vernier ones, they were reasonably well built back then, with actual scribed/engraved/molded-in lines filled with paint instead of cheap Chinese silk screening that will rub off if you look at it wrong like those PowerFist ones shown above. Still probably well worth it when you might need a "disposable" caliper, though.

author: chris_leyson
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 27, 2020, 04:51:44 pm
content: QuoteI would say 1.02mm or 1.03mm just by eye. A digital gauge still has to translate a linear displacement using a capacitive encoder. Resolution is one thing but accuracy needs to taken into account as well as zero offset and temperature. I have a Mitutoyo analogue dial gauge that will do 10um per division with 2um accuracy at 20C, it's purely mechanical with no added cost of a digital encoder.

author: Kjelt
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 27, 2020, 06:12:50 pm
content: Quote from: chris_leyson on September 27, 2020, 04:51:44 pmIf you look again you see the bar between the 0 and the 1 almost exactly on mark which means best guess would be around 1.05mm.That is because the mechanical caliper has an accuracy of 0.05mm the rest is best guess.The digital caliper has an accuracy and repeatability of 0.01-0.02mm and it is pretty accurate over the entire range of 0-150mm which I checked with calibers.

author: drussell
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 27, 2020, 07:25:39 pm
content: Quote from: Kjelt on September 27, 2020, 06:12:50 pmFrom the angle in the photo, it actually looks like it's shifted ever so slightly to the left, so I would have guessed about 1.04mm, but that's just the thing with vernier calipers. Theycanbe extremely accurate but it takes far longer to read each measurement and you have to hold both the caliper and your nose atjustthe right angle, then stroke your beardthusly, in order to get anywhere close to a fine-grained measurement.Obviously, this level of detail is rarely required in actual practice for most things, but as soon as you use a digital you'll probably never want to go back to anything else.A quality dial indicator or dial caliper excepted, perhaps. Those are still super swanky, too. Interestingly, I don't own any digital indicators, and don't see any need to get one, yet have several dial indicators, but they're really used for different purposes than a caliper, and you don't want to be actually touching them in any way while taking a measurement anyway.... but I digress....I bought my original (and still probably the best digital I own) no-name digital caliper from a local auto parts & tools supplier on special order in 1992 or 1993. I was trying to decide between buying a small set of micrometers or these new-fangled digital calipers. It was a close to a couple hundred bucks either way, and neither was quite Mititoyo grade, but the counter sales guy convinced me to special order the digital caliper instead of buying the mic set they had, and I've been grateful ever since for making that choice.Obviously, the best tool for the job really depends on the application, but folks like us tend to have a wide variety of use cases, so something that is good to excellent in most average cases is the winner, IMHO.YMMV!

author: tautech
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 27, 2020, 08:02:13 pm
content: Good vernier calipers will last a lifetime when cared for yet your eyes won't.Get some dial or digital ones in preparation for old age.In use here:Plastic................real POS and only used for approximate measurements....faster than engineers dividers and a steel ruler.Cheap stainless verniers (~$15 IIRC) on the reloading bench as 'good enough' for those tasks.Imp dial calipers at the lathe in the workshop as quick and simple and accurate enough for most tasks.Cheap digitals in a plastic case and here on the bench that float to wherever more accurate measurements are required.

author: aneevuser
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: September 27, 2020, 09:23:06 pm
content: OK folks, the decision is made, no more arguments are needed - I ordered an iGaging digital caliper.

author: eKretz
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: October 01, 2020, 03:20:36 pm
content: Verniers are pretty easy to read accurately, but it does take longer than a digital to do so. If you have hundreds of parts to measure that can add up to a not insignificant amount of time. The "hold everything just so" method isn't really necessary, one merely needs to ensure that the eye is looking straight down on the graduations to avoid what is known as parallax error. Analog multimeters are no different and this is the reason for the mirror behind the needle - when you can't see any more than one needle you are looking straight down. Better verniers have both scales inline with each other rather than one overlapping the other to avoid this problem. Notice that the Mitutoyo shown above does not have this feature but they did bevel the face of the vernier scale so it's almost on the same level as the main scale. This helps but will not completely eliminate parallax issues.All of that said, and having plenty of both types of caliper, I'd go with a digital if you're only getting one. I see that decision has already been made, and it was a good one.

author: Electro Fan
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 04, 2020, 01:48:12 pm
content: Quote from: aneevuser on September 27, 2020, 09:23:06 pmCongrats - Plz let us know what you think after you have used it a few times. I’m betting you are going to be really happy at first and then more happy each time you use it to solve for something else as you do various projects. After your first half dozen or so projects with it you will wonder why it took you so long to adopt it and why everyone doesn’t have one. Just my guess - YMMV, but that’s the prediction.

author: aneevuser
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: October 06, 2020, 01:30:29 pm
content: Quote from: Electro Fan on October 04, 2020, 01:48:12 pmOK, here's an update. I've received the iGaging caliper(s?) and have made a few measurements that I wanted to make - these needed sub-mm accuracy so the 0.01 mm accuracy that I get is currently irrelevant; however I needed the calipers for the jaws and depth measurement. They cost me about £37 including delivery.1) the build and general fit-and-finish is good - no visible gap between jaws when closed; very smooth movement with no rough spots; returns to 0 when jaws are closed with almost 100% reliability (very occasional 0.01 mm error). The only noticeable weak point is the thumb wheel, which catches on the body from time to time when engaged, and a perhaps 0.01 mm discrepancy between end-of-outer-jaws and center-of-outer-jaws.2) I've only ever used manual verniers before; I find that the real-time feedback of distance to an accuracy of 0.01 mm is slightly disturbing - tiny motions change the numbers and make me feel that I'm making an incorrect measurement - I think that, at the moment, I prefer the set/remove/read process of a manual tool.3) I'm not mad keen on the added bulk of the display/control box - I feel that it could get in the way of jaw placement in confined spaces.Overall, these are very nice, and I'm glad that I bought them...however, yeah, they're nice. A bit too nice to use in a cold garage where they could be damaged, maybe? So I'm now thinking that I want some cheap vernier calipers that I care less about, with say 0.1 mm accuracy, which will be OK for many measurements that I want to do. So I've bought, also, a set of the real cheap plastic calipers listed upthread, just to see how cheap you can go. (I got them for £1.89 including delivery, so yes, they're cheap - I also saw them being used on that Youtube channel where the Finnish guy crushes things with a press, which piqued my interest).And, it's quite amazing (to me) but with a bit of care, I can get about 0.1 mm accuracy (as checked by the iGaging) with the cheapo plastic things - with the outside jaws at least - depth measurement is about 1 mm off, so useless. The smaller pink/orange one is actually better than the larger grey one - the larger grey one gives an error of -6 thou when closed, on the mm scale (yes, I only had an imperial feeler gauge to check with), but I can fix that up with a bit of aluminium foil or something. I've spent some time checking between the plastic junk and the iGaging magnificence, and I'm reliably able to measure to about +/- 0.15 mm with the plastic things.So that's the current state of play - if I can find some 10 quid steel verniers that reliably measure to 0.1 mm, I'd be even happier, but I think that at that price point, you can buy unusable junk on the internet and simply be 10 quid down - hardly matters for £1.89 though.

author: CatalinaWOW
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 06, 2020, 03:22:12 pm
content: Quote from: aneevuser on October 06, 2020, 01:30:29 pmIf the 1 mm error is consistent it isn't useless, just inconvenient. If your memory doesn't support storing the error for correction purposes, use a sharpie to write it on the caliper. One thing that plastic excels at is retaining those markings.

author: aneevuser
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: October 06, 2020, 10:24:31 pm
content: Quote from: CatalinaWOW on October 06, 2020, 03:22:12 pmYes, I could do that, though having done similar in the past, I'm not too keen on having to apply a correction to each measurement. (I'll remember about 95% of the time...)I may be able to lengthen the depth gauge with some effort, if I can be bothered. Annoyingly, both calipers have the depth gauge too short, so it's not a matter of filing them down.

author: CatalinaWOW
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 07, 2020, 12:14:25 am
content: Quote from: aneevuser on October 06, 2020, 10:24:31 pmIf you are feeling bold, there may be enough meat to file the body down. Another bodge with only a couple of pounds to lose is to use your soldering iron to embed piece of piano wire into the end of the depth probe and then file that down. This is all just for the fun of it. You have a good one when you need it.

author: KL27x
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 07, 2020, 09:32:50 pm
content: QuoteYou just have to treat your iGaging like they cost 10 quid, and your problems are over.If you can't do that, what good would Starett or Mitt calipers do a guy besides keeping the pin gauges company in the bottom of a drawer?That would be a little like splurging on a solid gold toilet but caring about the cost. Then you have to take a crap... but not in THAT toilet!Use 'em like you stole 'em. That's how you get a return on your investment. If they break the first time you drop them, then you'll know you paid too much, lol.I've dropped my digital calipers onto concrete many a time, and they're still just as accurate as ever. Depending on how they hit, you might have to stone the tip of the jaws. Or you might need to replace a cracked LCD cover with plexiglass. But I'm not gonna stop to find my "cheap calipers" to make a measurement. Even if I'm making a part to fix something that costs $5.00, I'm using these 0.001" digital calipers to take measurements. (Actual example, making a new plastic piston bit that goes in an air compressor blow gun that started leaking excessively). If I dropped my precious Mitts in the garage while doing that, I suppose I should cry.