Digital Calipers

Uilleann Pipes
1

Lidl are selling Digital calipers for £8 from tomorrow , Ideal for reed making.

2

http://www.lidl.co.uk/uk/home.nsf/pages/c.o.20090216.index.ar11

I got my Digital Calipers from Screwfix.com a few years ago for around £20.00. The Digital Calipers looks the same as my one.

Cheers

Ferg

3

Hi Ferg , just bought mine and they look well worth the £8.

cheers

Mei

4

The ones I have work off a hearing aid-type battery. The battery was always going dead. I gave up and got a manual one.

djm

5

Interesting … I have the same problem with mine, made by Darson. Seems like the batteries should last longer, given that I use the caliper for only brief periods at a time. I just keep 3-packs of spares. A vernier caliper is cool, but the digital readout is very handy.

£8 does seem like an excellent price, if the quality is there.

6

I believe many of the digital calipers are always on (hence stay zeroed) so even if you only use them very little the battery is being drained constantly. The display is turned off but I also read that the battery drain is almost the same with or without the display. So I guess you have to remove the battery to turn it off.

7

Why not just get a dial caliper? Digital is handy if you are constantly going back and forth from imperial to metric, and vernier is great if you need the accuracy, but a dial is plenty accurate and fast, and a cheap one will not cost very much and never need batteries. If you are making pipes, you get to know the analog positions very quickly for repetitive work. FWIW, if you are looking for a good one, I found the Brown and Sharpe to be more rugged and much smoother in operation to the Starrett. My first B&S lasted 10 years through all manner of abuse, and the Starretts were always getting clogged with chips and junk.

8

I have had a Samona digital,metric and imperial,which has a large battery(ag13) which i have only changed once in 2 years of reedmaking.I bought a packet of 4 replacements for $1 ,so I still have 3 left.I don’t think the battery is being used when switched off because I have to zero it when I turn it on.I paid $22 Can for it.

9

I have both dial and digital calipers. I just recently got the digital calipers, they can even read in fractions (on sale for $10 U.S.).

They are not at a constant zero, because I can open them up before I turn them on and they show zero where ever they are at when I turn them on. So when I turn them off, they are off.