Digital calipers that are not crap?

tvrgeek

Scott
Corporate Member
I have several pair. All crap. Inconsistent. All miss-function. Half died. $12 , $25, $45 seem to all be the same. Only one with consistent reviews is the Mitutoyo. OK, I'll pay for a real tool, but darn, it does not have a fractions function! ( Machinists don't care) The basic technology is the same in all. Probably the same chip but games played on support components, battery, and overall machining. Yes, I have read about the counterfeits.

Does anyone know of a 6 inch digital caliper of similar quality with fractions? Preferably smart enough to say 1/2 instead of 64/128 .001 is fine. Actually .01 would be fine of the darn thing worked reliably! ( but would still get the Mitutoyo for metal work) Do I have to revert to dial calipers just so they work every time?
 

Oka

Casey
Corporate Member
I have a Neiko that is pretty nice, but, TBH, I am so used to converting decimal to fractions I don't even use the fraction function (because of the 128th thing). Don't remember which digital one I have does show 1/16th, 3/32nd ...etc. but, if it is 1000th off it then shows in 128th's. It would be nice if they had a programmable limiter that truncated the numbers based on settings.
 

Phil S

Phil Soper
Staff member
Corporate Member
I use Brown & Sharpe digital and Mitutoya dial. The Brown & Sharpe does not eat batteries like most - auto shutoff works great. The Mitutoya is .001" with .1 per revolution. The Brown & Sharpe is both imperial (.0001) or metric. I normally keep it on metric as that is by far my preferred system. I only use inches if I must
 

RedBeard

Burns
Corporate Member
Not sure which kind you have used, but I have iGaging and have worked for me and not expensive. Does fractional, metric, and decimal imperial.
 

junquecol

Bruce
Senior User
Every caliper I have ever used did fractions, tenths; hundredths, and thousandths, all of which are fractions.
 

Oka

Casey
Corporate Member
This is the one I have, it is actually pretty nice considering it was 22-23 bucks. Like I said I don't use the fractions all thatr much.
 

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bob vaughan

Bob Vaughan
Senior User
I tried a Shars Aventor a while back and I'm still using it. For the price, I'm impressed with the ease of use and repeatability. I've got regular brand calipers and the Shars seems to keep up. I'm also impressed with the longer battery life. Uses a CR2032 instead of the short-life LR44s.
 

Michael Mathews

Michael
Corporate Member
I grew up in a machine shop so I learned how to read dial calipers and vernier calipers at a young age. It's really helped me out throughout my career. So now I prefer to use dial calipers in the wood shop due to the fact that the batteries are never dead :cool::cool::cool:. Simple math is all that's required or a wall chart to convert decimals to fractions to get you close enough. I keep both inch and metric calipers so I'm covered no matter what scale I'm working in.
 

tvrgeek

Scott
Corporate Member
Alkaline, Silver or Li. Yea, cheap ones use the cheap batteries. Part of the problem. Some bleed down when off. Some don't turn off like they should, and some you have to close them to shut off.

One of my cheap ones worked fine for about 2 years. Now it is flakey. There must be 50 brands of $12 to $25 sets, but if you look at the posted reviews, uniformly across all of them, about 10% have failures. We are talking thousands of reviews. Most positive ones are first day users. Only the Starrett and Mitutoyo are the only ones without this huge failure rate. I expect the B&S to be good too.

It is a shame we did not convert to metric back in the '60s when it would have been much cheaper. But my calibrated eyeball in in inches.

One does need to read between the lines on some reviews. Many complain they don't work if there is moisture or grease on them. Well, of course not, they are capacitive sensors. They must be clean and dry. Some bad reviews are for dead batteries but that model does not shut off unless closed. It is the huge number of " great until" reviews. My experience.

Ah-Ah Shars Does make a dial caliper in 1/64. That is what I need for day to day woodworking. Might think about that one too.

Well, going out on a limb and ordered the Shars 303-1554 FWIW, $2 cheaper direct through them. Notice, Amazon "Prime" prices have gone way up.
 

Matt Furjanic

New User
Matt
I have had the same issues with the digital ones, so I switched to the dial calipers They seem to work much better and no batteries.
 

kelLOGg

Bob
Senior User
I bought a cheap set at Lowes not expecting a great quality tool BUT I am very pleased with it. It operates consistently in my unheated shop as well as the dead of summer. It has fractions, decimal (inches) and metric and can switch anytime among the three. Zeros consistently if I wipe any debris from the jaws. Exceeded my expectations.
 

gamiller3rd

Pappy
Senior User
A little pricier but Fowler’s 54-100-330-1 work flawlessly for me. Come with 2 batteries. My first battery lasted about a year. These are my first digital calipers so I don’t know if that is good or bad longevity.
 

bob vaughan

Bob Vaughan
Senior User
'Long-term' is relative these days. My first set of Fowler digital calipers cost me $80.00 in 1982. That's $224.00 in today's dollars. They still work today, beat up and repaired as they are. Those calipers were bought in a different time when the users and the makers had a much different ethic. These days buyer's have the luxury of many choices and at much lower costs.
 

tvrgeek

Scott
Corporate Member
I still use a veneer caliper so what do i know?
never had a battery die though.
Highly reliable, but tough on old eyes.

Reliability of a brand 20 years ago has little to do with it now with our race to the bottom pricing. Crossing my fingers with the Shars.
 

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