Digital calipers

[Downwindtracker2]

The first Chinese dial calipers I found were only $20 or so, about 25 years ago. I bought them for work, I was miilwright, not a machinist. They were smooth and repeatable. So I bought a set for reloading. My young lab seeing me use them thought they might be toy to play with. She slept in the garage/workshop. They didn't work after that. I replaced them with Starrett. When I retired, I put my Starretts away and use my Chinese work ones.

[Mr Ron]

I've read many points by multiple people on multiple threads saying much the same Ccfl. I've even got a 4" and 6" set of cheap digitals around here somewhere I was given for a couple of magazine subscriptions. There simply not worth my time pulling them apart to clean the grinding dust that's still in them and properly deburr them. Not when they'll still eat batterys every 6 months or less no matter how much time I spend on them. As far as them or even Harbour Freights calipers being just as accurate, repeatable, and nice to use? Not a hope, I've handled probably a few dozen different brands of cheap calipers at various stores and not one of them ever came even close to what Mitutoyo provides right out of the box. Lot's I've seen had enough jaw misalignment you could see light through them with the jaws closed.The capacitive tape strip on the cheap ones may well be accurate or not I can't judge that. But it takes extremely well made and very tight tolerance mechanical parts to go along with that tape no matter how accurate it is. And that always costs money no matter where it's made. Some of what Mitutoyo sells is actualy made in China today. But it's made to there exact engineering specifications and quality control. My Mits cost me right around the $200 mark and there still worth every penny of that cost to me because I can be confident in whatever measurement there giving me every time. They never skip a number and repeat every single time. When they don't it's always because of some contamination on the jaw faces as others have said.

I agree. When I use my Mitutoyo caliper, I have confidence that the reading I get is right on (after cleaning the jaws first). With a cheap caliper, I never know if the reading is correct or not.