Dial caliper
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Looking for advice on a good set of digital dial calipers. The Hornady set has finally given up on me, and I want to upgrade this time around.
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I use the Mitutoyo 8” ones @orkan recommended and they’re worth every penny.
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There it is. :)
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Thanks fellas just ordered a set
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I also listened to orkan and travis and got the Mitutoyo.I am very happy with it.
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As a machinist for almost 30 years, I have used about every type of caliper ever created by man. So my advice on this one is also go with the Mitutoyos. Someone that uses them every day like me can instantly tell the difference in quality, precision, and accuracy between good calipers and cheap ones. I expect all of you will also be able to tell the difference if you ever get to compare them side-by-side.
And stay away from the low-end Mitutoyos. I am not sure exactly what they call them, but they are blue. I made the mistake of buying a set of these because I wanted a set to carry in my computer bag and thought I would save a few bills and go with the lesser Mitutoyos. I was highly disappointed when I got them, and immediately realized that they weren't budget Mitutoyos, but overpriced cheap discount tool house calipers. They are no better than some of the $15-20 calipers I have used. A complete waste of money.
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And watch out for fake ones:
Ebay is a minefield of fake, knockoff garbage. You are better off to stick with a reputable retailer.
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@flyinphill
I have a 6" Mitutoyo digital caliper my boss man gave me when i was working in a little three man job shop years back. He told me to take them home and use them with my reloading stuff. He didn't like them and we used Starrett dial calipers mostly. I still have them and they work fine. I don't know why he had a problem with them, something about touching them with coolant on your hands and having to keep them clean. No different than rolling a chip up in the rack of a dial caliper. He splurged and bought a Starrett digital one time and it didn't make a full week before it crash landed right on the points of the inside anvils off of one of the tool carts. I just eased out the door for a little break while he cooled off.
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Yeah, coolant on regular digital calipers can be annoying. For anyone that has never experienced this, the coolant throws off the capacitance field that is embedded in the caliper frame, which is how the calipers determine their location from zero. If they are wet and you go to slide them, they may lose count of how many increments of capacitance they have passed and lose location. A real pain in the butt. I have a set of these to solve the problem:
They use a different application of the capacitance technology that never loses location, even completely underwater. Close to $300, but kind of a necessary expense when you are working with digitals around pressure coolant CNCs.
And bigfoot, you can't ever argue with free Mitutoyos.
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@flyinphill
I agree, the price was right. Capacitance field, don't hear that every day but works for me. We did lots of work for a company based in Taipei Taiwan and all the engineers carried a pocket full of Mitutoyos and that kind of irked my boss also. He always had to break out the micrometers when he went to the plant to measure parts they drew using calipers. I think that was his real problem with calipers, period. We had all kinds of digital measuring devices but only dial calipers stayed on the carts, except for that pretty Starrett that committed suicide. We did some parts that had bearing fits that had to be measured with a digital bore system he bought. Connected to his computer and cost as much as a nice car. I hated to even touch the damn thing but it didn't get much better than this. Snap gauges, no way. Those engineers would perk up when we broke that thing out and the calipers disappeared. That's enough hijacking got to shut up.
