I may have an answer

to this Gordian riddle

The next time yer shopping

Just get one fron Lidl!

Simon ,

Some while ago , I had exactly the same experience with my 10+ year old Mitutoyo , which was most upsetting, I removed the battery and consigned it to a vacant spot on a shelf , resorting to using a cheapo in its place .

Always wanting to have the Mitutoyo back in service I considered sending it away for an overhaul, however , to my surprise some months later , when I got it out and put new batteries in , it functioned perfectly , and has done for almost a year now .

Hang on to it for a while , give it a rest having removed the battery, hopefully yours also will rejuvenate itself as did mine . I do hope so .

Simon, it will be the cold weather, I have a Moore and Wright which performs faultlessly during the warmer months but as soon as the weather chills down the display starts misbehaving ; the remedy is to take out the battery and warm it gently then put it back and the fault should resolve. My workshop has background heating which maintains about 10 degrees but this is cool enough to cause the display to misbehave.

Dave W

With my ones, which are not Mitutoyo, I have found that they can misbehave when the track gets dirty. This is the part with printed on numbers that runs down the length of the body. Underneath is actually a fancy little printed circuit that the digital part reads capacitively to figure out how far it has moved. But if it gets too dirty, especially with the nice conductive graphite from machining cast iron, it will misbehave. The dirt does not always show much, but a good clean can make a big difference May not apply with Mitutoyo of course.

John

A lot of digital devices seem, somehow, to "load up". Removing the power source for a minute or two seems to allow the memory to discharge itself, and things return to normal ,for some time, before needing a repeat.

Cleaning the track, and / or the contacts on the board is also a cure in some cases.

(Has not worked with my Tailstock display which steadfastly refuses to switch off. Having been sans battery for some weeks, maybe I should give it a try, before buying a new one at Ally Pally?)

Howard

I have the Arc one in the link and it has been reliable and certainly does not eat batteries.

I now have about accumulated about 10 different calipers and have one or two favourites that get used the most. I find that there is little difference in accuracy and repeatability between the cheapest LIDL and the dearer Mitutoyo. The more expensive ones have a better 'feel' and smoother action but regardless of price I prefer usability.

Auto power off (especially if its too quick) is very annoying, even more so if the reading resets when switched back on (the Arc one does that). If I am measuring pitch centre between holes and have offset the zero, I want it to remember that number until I want to change it. This is also even more important if the caliper has been adapted to use for example, as a slide DRO.

Calipers with fractional displays might be useful to USA woodworkers but make no sense even when working in drawings dimensioned in imperial decimals.

Ian P

Be careful what you wish for. As Mitutoyo is Japanese, I offer a 5-7-5 syllabic Haiku:

Swarf in my duff gauge
A flat battery perhaps
Blame the beast of the east

My gold-standard poet is the great William Topaz McGonagall, of whom this example is typical:

’TWAS in the month of December, and in the year 1883,
That a monster whale came to Dundee,
Resolved for a few days to sport and play,
And devour the small fishes in the silvery Tay.

So the monster whale did sport and play
Among the innocent little fishes in the beautiful Tay,
Until he was seen by some men one day,
And they resolved to catch him without delay.

and so on

Dave