Shopsmith Forums

I've had a digital Mitutoyo for about 30 years. It averages four years between battery changes, but I store it in a heated house.

Mike

Question

I have 50 year old Scherr Tumico 6" calipers. What advantage does a digital caliper offer? For example, is a Harbour Freight digital 6" ($20) as accurate, more accurate?

Accuracy of a fifty year old precision device may be a function of how well it was cared for. If I am not mistaken, the Scherr Tumico Vernier Caliper was made in Germany. In that era, German made tools were extreme high quality items. I would bet that it is as accurate as any that we have been discussing here on the forum.

db5 wrote:Question

I have 50 year old Scherr Tumico 6" calipers. What advantage does a digital caliper offer? For example, is a Harbour Freight digital 6" ($20) as accurate, more accurate?

The advantage in my shop is - I don't have to use a magnifying glass to read the vernier scale. My old caliper is a standby just in case the battery fails and I don't have a spare.

Both have the same accuracy!

db5 wrote:Question

I have 50 year old Scherr Tumico 6" calipers. What advantage does a digital caliper offer? For example, is a Harbour Freight digital 6" ($20) as accurate, more accurate?

Db5, my older brother (Skouson here) got a BUNCH of the 6 inch HF model ($10 or so)
for Christmas presents, to all his male siblings. So far, mine is working just fine.

He also included a slip of paper in each one;

When you need to know, EXACTLY by how much, you've failed to meet expectations.
(He should have sent me the 12 inch model!)

steve

I have Mitutoyo digital calipers at work, and Mitutoyo dial calipers at home. My dial calipers are accurate to 0.001". I assume that the digital one is also, being professionally calibrated, but I don't use it for anything that fussy, and have never checked it myself.

Here's my opinion of dial vs. digital. At work, I like the digital, for no other reason than I can switch the readout between Imperial and metric. The stuff I measure there is a mixed bag. In my woodshop, I rarely measure metric stuff, and prefer the dial calipers. The reason is that I can directly see small relative displacements, without having to do mental subtraction, or futz around with zeroing a digital caliper to measure relative distance.

Years back, a lot of car companies started putting digital speedometers in their new cars, because they could, and thought it was cool. But most people prefer analog speedometers. I can't remember the last time I saw a digital one in a new car. Unless you count "analog" gauges that are really just graphics on a digital display.

putttn wrote:I like mine too but batteries don't last very long. I have to keep them in our house in the winter because the garage shop is cold in Spokane until I crank up the heaters.

Helena winters aren't much warmer.
What I did was buy a package of 10 CR2032 batteries for about $8. They are in a wood working bench drawer. The gauges may deplete power quickly, but never used stored in cold weather has not seemed to affect the new batteries. I opened one after two years (winters) and it worked fine.

Just a thought.

Be well,
Ben

We used to put dry cells in the fridge to extend longevity. Worked good!!