Today I was glad I had splurged on a Mitutoyo calipers/micrometer

[Helio_Centra]

I dropped my box of needles for unclogging the nozzle and all the sizes got mixed up. But at least I had an accurate measuring tool.

[james_s]

Mitutoyo is a top notch product, although for this specific task a Harbor Freight cheapie would probably work just as well.

[Helio_Centra]

Harbor Freight cheapie

In Canada we call it Canadian Tire and the brand name would be Mastercraft instead of Hercules. But they are essentially the same company.

[jpanhalt]

I was going to say the same as james_s.  That is, anything would work for sorting needles.  Having said that, I have never scrimped on my measuring tools and have never regretted splugging on them (within reason).  They include Mitutoyo, Brown & Sharpe, Starrett, and Fowler.  HF is noticeably absent.  I do keep my first caliper by Helios in the barn.  It's a great dial caliper and is 50 years old. 

[james_s]

One of these days I'll buy a good quality caliper. It would be worth it just to not have to remove the battery every time I store it. A hard power switch would be infinitely better than the soft switch that still drains the battery in a few weeks of sitting turned off.

[mc172]

I think Mitutoyo anything is a good investment. I've messed around with a few brands of digital caliper and Mitutoyo are the only brand* that I've not been able to race up to a number larger than the maximum capacity, or even a number obviously larger than the jaw width. For this reason I still prefer Vernier scales over digital but Mitutoyo seem to have got it right on their digital products. As have Heidenhain on machine tooling from my experience.

*I haven't tried them all, don't shoot me.

[mc172]

One of these days I'll buy a good quality caliper. It would be worth it just to not have to remove the battery every time I store it. A hard power switch would be infinitely better than the soft switch that still drains the battery in a few weeks of sitting turned off.

In my experience the batteries in Mitutoyo calipers last so long that you can almost consider them to last forever. They easily last 2, maybe 3 years? I'm not sure, changing batteries happens so infrequently and it's such an insignificant event that I can't really remember.

[jpanhalt]

Same experience here.  The battery in my older Mitutoyo 6" caliper, a 2032, does seem to last forever.  In fact, it's been so long, I had to open it up to see what battery it had.

[james_s]

Yeah I meant the cheap calipers, mine drains the battery in a few weeks and from what others have told me this is pretty typical for the $20 sort and one of the big reasons I've considered buying a good one. The cheap ones do a fine job of measuring things but it's the other details where they lack.

[jpanhalt]

A good 6" dial caliper's battery never goes dead.  My Helios (circa 1970) and Mitutoyo (circa early 1990s) give the same results.  In fact, the dial caliper is a little easier for comparative measurements.  The Mitutoyo reads to 0.0005", but I don't believe it any more than when the Helios is in between 0.001" marks.  The main disadvantage of the dial is that you need to keep junk out of the rack gear.  That is really not a significant problem.  Except for the DRO on my mill all of my other gauges are dial or vernier.

In sum, you can probably get an as useful and accurate good dial caliper for less.  I would definitely consider going in that direction.  I do not think I would consider a used dial caliper, though.

[james_s]

I do have a dial caliper, it's a fairly cheap one too but it does work reasonably well. The thing I like about a digital caliper is I can easily switch units. Decimal inches, fractional inches and mm all with the same instrument.

[TimFox]

Dual switchable units is a good reason for a digital calipers, since with age I can no longer read a vernier scale easily (vernier calipers usually have inch and mm scales).
I have seen technical people pick up a vernier calipers and have no idea how to use it, like it were a sliderule.
For my purposes, which are biased to inches, I use dial calipers which I can still read despite presbyopia.
In the US, millimeter dial calipers are harder to find, but roughly the same price as corresponding quality inch dial calipers.

[jpanhalt]

I do have a dial caliper, it's a fairly cheap one too but it does work reasonably well. The thing I like about a digital caliper is I can easily switch units. Decimal inches, fractional inches and mm all with the same instrument.

I agree.  That is one use for my digital Mitutoyo digital calipers that my dial calipers cannot do.  (The Mitutoyo calipers I have do not do fractional inches.)  But consider that most imperial dials indicate 0.001".  Most metric dials on cheap machines go to 0.05 mm ( 0.002").  At least the ones I have seen do. 

I do keep sets of both fractional inch, alphabet, and numbered drills with my metric set which is in 0.2 mm (0.008") increments.  Neither system is more accurate than the other. The conversion just gets a bit messy sometimes.  Of course, when a hole needs to be accurate, I do not depend on a drill. 

Any old machinist will tell you, digital and CNC are not more accurate, they just give the same accuracy easier. That is why I have have splurged on my measuring instruments.  I'm a hobbyist, and my time is almost free.

[thm_w]

Yeah I meant the cheap calipers, mine drains the battery in a few weeks and from what others have told me this is pretty typical for the $20 sort and one of the big reasons I've considered buying a good one. The cheap ones do a fine job of measuring things but it's the other details where they lack.

Few weeks is very fast, not typical. All of the cheap ones I have will last months (3-6 months?), but yeah not 2-3 years. Could be bad leaky LR44 cells used as well.

As we discussed in the previous thread, igaging with a CR2032 battery is a good middle ground (2 year battery life).
https://www.eevblog.com/forum/mechanical-engineering/how-to-spot-fake-mitutoyo-calipers/