Expensive vs Cheap Calipers

Oh man... I have one of those cheap ones I got from Amazon and worked well for what I was using it for. But somehow, I lost the lid/cap or whatever you want to call it that covers the battery, so now the caliper is useless. I may have to invest in a better one, like the $30 range you mentioned. Thanks for sharing this info!

I just use 7$ calipers from my local hardware store they work perfectly fine I have bought them a few time but that cause I work with metal and use them for making scribe lines if I used them properly than one set would last forever

I loved you video on how to make dowels and subed. Thanks

There was so much going on with this video to the point that it distracted me from the Callipers. AND I AINT MAD AT IT 😜

Mitutoyo calipers don't need zero calibration each time when they are powered on. Once in three years the battery needs replacement, that's when you set the zero point. After that, they are ready to measure whenever your power them up, even with jaws open. Which is a huge time saver and (IMHO) the biggest reason to buy them over the cheap ones.

The original battery in those calipers will be really cheap make, and could have been in the caliper for a long time.. I always fit a decent brand new battery and have always had good battery life, even with cheap Lidl or Aldi digital calipers.. Most calipers actually come with a second battery in the case, but it will be a cheap make.

I have pretty much all of the calipers you talked about - even Mitutoyo’s. I disagree with your assessment of the $10 plastic ones. I get them for $7 when they are on sale. Use them all the time for woodworking. They do the job and work fine.

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ZERO information given.

Thumbwheels are garbage... Press on the movable jaw itself, not the body when measuring.

Just picked up a Pittsburgh Caliper yesterday because 30% off made it 7 bucks. I am not doing machining and such so this was more of a fun buy. Plastic jaws. "Close enough for government work."

Great video but thumbs down for suggesting imperial over metric! 😢

Plastic or metal which is better?

Buy once, cry once. Just buy the good ones and enjoy! Mitutoyo, Brown and Sharpe, Starrett, etc.

I have a Workzone Digital Caliper, which is at least 10 years old. Cost about £15.

I've just checked it against 2 Micrometer standards (1" and 2"), and it's dead nuts. 😎

Note that 0.0005" is five-ten-thousandths of an inch, not five-tenths. Five-tenths is one-half.

Measurements in increments of 0.001" is commonly needed for work with guitars.

The cheap calipers that you just bout provides measurements in increments of 0.01". That would be fine for most woodworking, but not some. That store where you bought it sells some much better calipers, at a more expensive prices.

I've tested my metal digital HF calipers that I bought about 15 years ago for $12 against a friends Mitutoyo and they tested fine for all but really fine machining work. You can get the same ones today for $23($16 if you wait for 30% sale). After all, it is only carpentry.😉

Lol about the Imperial, love how stubborn some people are.

When doing woodworking, even the cheapest calipers are as good as the most expensive. The amount wood expands and contracts over the course of a single day makes one part in a thousand accuracy absurd. Cabinet making isn’t machining.

Most cheap calipers DO NOT save energy when off. They turn off the digits but the current draw is only a teeny tiny bit less. So unfortunately one must remove battery to have good battery life with them. This is actually one specific area where the mitutoyo stands head and shoulders above the others. They tend to use 1/3rd the amps of others when operating, and turning off, 1/15th.

Why do woodworkers use fractions? Fractions are stupid. Metric is so much easier.

One place the plastic calipers shine is when electricity is involved.

The Hyper Tough $9 caliper drops to 1.5 uA when off.... Hyper Tough is the only one I have (out of 5) that goes below 16 uA when off... So oddly, my cheapest crappiest caliper is the only one that really shuts off when it is off.. (well almost off at 1.5 uA) ...

The others I have, all cheap, when off still draw 16 uA to 25uA which might drain a battery in 200 to 300 days or so.... when off...
I assume the more expensive calipers do not do this......

NOTE: uA= Micro Amps.



If the above does not make sense... it just means on some calipers, when off, they draw almost the same energy as when on.... really weird... but I checked all 5 of mine and 4 of them did... I checked them because my batteries kept going bad even when I did not use a caliper for a while...

patent on battery saving, only in the USA 😂

This dude has a nice clean face. He should do commercials.

0.47 "measures down to .01 mm, which is less than I thickness of a human hair"
Shows a picture with . 01 mm scale at the bottom that is clearly much shorter than the thickness of a hair
Buddy...

That Pittsburgh caliper you threw away is my favorite. It's very accurate...and cheap enough so you can buy five or six and have one within reach anywhere in your shop.

If you are looking for accuracy with no battery issues or chips in the rack, get yourself a vernier one..little harder to read, but it is significantly more accurate..

I have a set of metal Pittsburgh calipers that I've had WELL over a decade, and STILL haven't switched the battery out. I still have the spare that it came with. The movement on it is kinda scratchy feeling, but otherwise I have no complaints with them.

was almost going to listen to what you have to say.. then you said to use imperial.. mmmm yikes

Use imperial? Unsubscribed

I buy cheap calipers ( less than $20) because the accuracy is sufficient for the woodworking that I am doing. My problem is that even though I treat them carefully and regularly replace the battery, they only last about a year or two and then the display starts to freak out or dies completely. I am afraid to buy good ones as they may do the same thing.

He left off the most important issue in making this choice today: Absolute origin.
The Mitutoyo caliper shown here "might" do it, and all iGauging products do - this means you do not have to continuously set the "zero' point (or wonder if you did). It is ALWAYS right!
This feature by itself is far more significant than any of the quality comparisons made here, so this video is unfortunately a bit useless.
Japanese Mtutoyo dethroned the famous US manufacturers decades ago because of their supreme quality control, but what goes around comes around. Mitutoyo have now been dethroned by iGuaging Absolute Origin products, not so much through supreme quality control, but through technical innovation.
If you want the best of the best today, sadly it is no longer Mitutoyo, but iGauging.

No real accuracy comparison on the calipers though 😕

I've never heard of ten-thousanths of an inch referred to as tenths of an inch.

I had Mitutoyo calipers, cost $220 in 2009. Needed to use WD-40 or white lithium grease (mfg recommended) to keep them smooth. However, they were *awesome*. High quality. I used them to measure weld defects when doing ultrasonic flaw detection. Unfortunately, one day someone stole them out of my desk. If you are going to use digital calipers every day, get Mitutoyo. That being said, I just bought a $20 pair of calipers at Harbor Freight (Pittsburgh brand) for a job I have tomorrow.

Most machine shops (even in the US) use metric sooo..... mayve you should use metric 🤷‍♂️

Ok so i've gone my whole life calling those Vernier's lol......are those completely different?

i just discovered that my CraftRight calipers are over half a millimeter out from reality, this is not even close to usable and has cost me days of headache trying to prototype some new fittings the last few weeks, Do I am telling you now that there is a rice point that is too cheap to go.

Cool. I've never seen a set of calipers that displayed fractions.

I just want a set of calipers that doesnt have a cheap battery cover that breaks.

This is a great video and I appreciate the comparisons but that water test wasn't fair. It said splash resistant and you drowned it in the faucet. Pretty funny bit for the video though. lol

Great video and great information

We have dial analog calipers that are both metric and imperial and they also display fractions :D I'm actually thinking of buying one. They have two needles.