Rechargeable calipers

[Exhaustgases]

Many years in the machinist industry here, and I will never own a precision measuring tool that runs on a battery, its bad enough trusting a DRO.

 

[Hohn]

I hear ya, but we know from results 357 buttons can last ~2 years. Mitutoyo has pulled it off (for decades).

Chinese manufacturers are simply too cheap to employ true shut down. Instead the display goes blank but it's still chewing power invisibly in the background.

My three 6" calipers have batteries in them constantly. They're used regularly so removing and inserting batts is flat out unrealistic. My fourth is solar and that's the REAL solution. It works in very low lighting -- lower than my failing eyes would ever want to do anything that requires a caliper.

Exactly right. The display is shutoff but the power sucking electronics for sensing position are still alive.

This is because this is how they provide a "absolute zero"-- they never shutoff.


A real absolute reference like Mitutoyo or Mahr, Brown and Sharpe or such uses a much more expensive mechanism that doesn't need to be electrically hot all the time to know where it is. What's why they're $250 instead of $25.

 

[Hohn]

There are videos on how to judge fake vs. real. It's quite easy since the fakes are so poor.

Regarding cheap calipers, iGAGING makes some decent ones. Feedback on durability and accuracy is good.

View attachment 346169

I have two of them. The yellow ones have been decent.
The "Coolant cal" silver/blue, not so much.