Moore and Wright Value Series

[Matt HarringtonParticipant @mattharrington87221]

Having lost my patience yesterday with a far east digital caliper, I find I am in need of a replacement! I notice that Moore & Wright have a 'value' series and seem very cheap. Anyone any experience of these?

Here is one firm selling them:

http://www.machine-dro.co.uk/150mm-6-digitronic-digital-caliper-moore-wright-basic-line-110-dbl-series.html

Even the fractional ones seem reasonable

Matt

[Matt HarringtonParticipant @mattharrington87221]

[David lawrence 3Participant @davidlawrence3]

Hi, I bought a 6" Moore & Wright digital caliper from them at the Doncaster show for around £ 24.00 which works ok. I have gone through many cheap calipers in the last few years, some have battery corrosion problems, other have been messed up with fine dust / swarf from other machines in the workshop such as bandsaw, grinder, the fine dust gets into the slide and give odd results. would the £ 120.00 item be any better.

[JasonBModerator @jasonb]

I think my Mitutoyo must be getting on for 30yrs old and never missed a beat so maybe you do get what you pay for and it does not eat batteries.

[AjohnwParticipant @ajohnw51620]

I've only had 2 digital callipers in over 20 years. The fist one is still fine and I only bought the 2nd one to go to 200mm.

The first one is unbranded and came from a catalogue I used to get that offered all sorts at good prices. Circa £30 odd at that time was a good price. It took many months to arrive so I suspect they were made to order when enough people had paid for them.

The 2nd 200mm one is Mitutoyo. I just waited for a nice price on Ebay. There is some risk of clones but I don't think that happens as often as dealers might like people to think. It's also sometimes possible to find them at lower prices on tool dealers web sites at times. I keep it clean and mostly use mic's for work anyway. I've had some of those for over 40 years. One owner. Callipers to me are for things I can't measure with the mic's I have. That goes up to 4" following the amazing Draper deal that was about I mentioned. The price will have been down to a mix of excess stock and shelf life of the batteries in them. That can happen on all makes.

All I would say is don't buy too cheap. It just costs more in the long run. What make to buy is difficult though.

I made a bad purchase a long time ago. I bought a set of Mitutoyo metric mics as my own were imperial. After some years I found out why they were carbide tipped and a lot cheaper than what I would normally buy. The spindles were plated. This managed to corrode in the case they came in. Something to do with the type of foam used to line it I suspect. One not in the case was still fine. Not used very often so that corrosion took around say 10 years. Some time later – far fewer years the one that was ok doesn't look so good. Replacing them has costed a lot more than I saved.

Just for interest on battery life I just got the Draper mic out. It looked like the battery had gone flat just sitting there unused. I opened the battery hatch, moved the battery around, closed it and it sprung back into life again but needed re calibrating. The same thing happens on Mitutoyo. If used a lot it doesn't seem to happen. Only when unused for long periods. All down the minuscule currents they draw in standby mode.

John

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[steamdaveParticipant @steamdave]

I've got a M & W 6" digi calliper. Very pleased with it. Battery is CR2032 rather than the usual SR44 (I think) and battery life is well over a year, even with it left on over night at times.

Dave

The Emerald Isle

[Matt HarringtonParticipant @mattharrington87221]

Thanks guys – just ordered one and will see how we get on. If its up to scratch, I'll try the M&W fractional one as well.

I'll keep my eyes open for a Mitutoyo as I have used these and they seem to be faultless in returning to zero when opening and closing.

Matt

[KWILParticipant @kwil]

Have not used my digital calliper for years, probably does not work now, but the mechanical verniers never let me down,

Edited By KWIL on 21/07/2016 16:45:37

[NJHParticipant @njh]

The mechanical verniers might not let you down but you may find, in time, that your eyes will! 😥 !

Norman

[AjohnwParticipant @ajohnw51620]

Posted by KWIL on 21/07/2016 16:44:48:

Have not used my digital calliper for years, probably does not work now, but the mechanical verniers never let me down,

Edited By KWIL on 21/07/2016 16:45:37

I;ve got a 2ft long version of one of those – don't think I will be buying a digital one. Some one who sold tooling now and again persuaded me to buy it. I reckoned I'd never use it. I have twice but don't ask me what on as both instances were many years apart and I just can't remember.

I changed the Mit battery I'd guess 3 years after I bought it – not sure. It hadn't failed but I had purchase a few batteries as I needed one for something else.

John

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[MWParticipant @mw27036]

Posted by JasonB on 21/07/2016 13:13:43:

I think my Mitutoyo must be getting on for 30yrs old and never missed a beat so maybe you do get what you pay for and it does not eat batteries.

You said it Jason,

I always forget to turn it off and i've owned it for a good couple of years now and have never changed the battery. I got scoffed at the time because i paid full RRP for the unit in it's box but seeing the amount of fakes around i'm glad i did now. I can just tell from the quality of the grinding on the jaws, to very sharp points that it's definitely genuine, aside all the product information etched onto the back of it. 

Michael W

Edited By Michael Walters on 21/07/2016 18:17:20

[Tony SimonsParticipant @tonysimons69671]

Got fed up with electronic callipers, I have a mitutoyo, oxford precision and an Aldi set. Gone back to my Mitutoyo Dial Callipers. I have a metric set and an imperial set.

[Martin ConnellyParticipant @martinconnelly55370]

I'm with KWIL on this. Mechanical calipers work every time and the zero never moves.

I have trouble getting digital calipers to give the same reading twice in a row. Mechanical vernier calipers with thumbscrew drive give repeatable results that match micrometer readings. The rolling thumb drive on some digital calipers make it hard to get the same pressure for every reading. I only use digital calipers for rough guides, I also worry that the risk of using them with the zero set wrongly is too high for parts with a lot of time invested in them.

Martin

[AjohnwParticipant @ajohnw51620]

You must have bought it some time ago Michael W. I have a few bits made by Mitutoyo and all serial numbers etc are on something which isn't part of the body of the "instrument". No on off button either.

My digital calliper doesn't always zero when I close it up. Usually more pressure will do that but it really means that the anvils need cleaning much the same as mic's do from time to time. Then it zero's and always has.

I suspect mine came cheap because of a model change. Just colour of the main shaft. Spec's are the same and at the time both could be bought. But they can be about will under full price for a number of reasons.

I looked at the 200mm absolute coolant proof ones on ebay at the moment out of curiosity. There is a listing that I would trust and another that I would wonder about. In practice both are probably fine.

John

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[Anonymous]

I've never owned a digital caliper, and I don't trust the electronics anyway. I do have small and large mechanical sets, but rarely use them. The small set gets used mostly for measuring electronic components when creating 3D CAD models. The larger set is used when I need to measure something larger (>16" ) than the capability of my micrometers.

Andrew

Edited By Andrew Johnston on 21/07/2016 22:00:44

[AjohnwParticipant @ajohnw51620]

I suspect you might trust them once you accept that the last digit in most cases wont indicate the actual accuracy of them Andrew. It's often on the iffy side of things even from Mitutoyo.

The digital callipers are a little like a vernier one. Those can just about show that something is some amount over or under some thou reading. The digital callipers are much the same plus repeatability, count and linearity errors. Decent makes do seem to give results very similar to good quality vernier ones but from what I have seen that has to be paid for. It just doesn't come that cheaply.

John

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[MikeParticipant @mike89748]

Agree with KWIL and others.. Had two digital callipers, both wildly inaccurate when checked against Moore & Wright and Mitutoyo micrometers. Have some of us forgotten how to read a vernier scale?

[MWParticipant @mw27036]

Well i have a manual micrometer and a digital vernier caliper both mitutoyo and i often check one against the other and due to the skill involved with using a vernier well you are bound to see some variation between operators (this has been proven in experiments) and i'm rarely more than .03 of a millimeter off the micrometer reading, and usually within .01 so i don't see how my digital is any worse than a manual. It's all down to the skill of the operator who takes the reading.My micrometer is .001 increments and i can read it accurately. I spent years measuring plastic where you must have a most delicate touch only just touch the surface of the part and not crush/bend it. This ability was scrutinized on a fairly regular basis. 

Regardless of whether you choose digital or manual you should be considering a quality measuring instrument because nothing can be made more accurately than how accurate your measuring is. A digital one is more likely to cost you more, i paid around £70-80 for mine so thats a ball park, I paid £40-50 for the manual micrometer. I'm as thrifty as the next bodger comes but when it comes to measuring i wont skimp on the equipment. 

If it sees years of regular (ab)use then you should consider getting it calibrated. 

Michael W

Edited By Michael Walters on 22/07/2016 09:26:29

[Neil WyattModerator @neilwyatt]

Posted by KWIL on 21/07/2016 16:44:48:

Have not used my digital calliper for years, probably does not work now, but the mechanical verniers never let me down,

Edited By KWIL on 21/07/2016 16:45:37

I used my (not inexpensive – £32 in about 2000) mechanical verniers once, and discovered the vernier scale is misplaced and there is insufficient adjustment. In 17 years I haven't got around to enlarging the holes so I can set it in the right place. perhaps I will fix it when I run out of AG3 batteries.

My Proops digital ones which are slightly older are still going strong!

Nile

[JasonBModerator @jasonb]

I suppose a lot comes down to what you think you need to be able to measure. I only have two micrometers one manual the other digital that are 0-1" , both Mitutoyo. The digaital will read to 0.00005 and the manual has a tenths vernier scale. Can't remember when I last used the digital as I just don't like the feel of the friction wheel for getting repeatable pressure on the anvil so tend to use the manual one with its ratchet. Also being a lot less bulky it is easier to hold correctly in relation to what is being measured.

So for everything over 1" long and 99% of stuff below 1" I use the digi callipers. All my models seem to runn OK with no sign of tightness, looseness or knocking.

My Mitutoyo calliper switches completely off when off eg it will not remember the Zero so it is just zeroed each time I turn it on simply by closing the jaws and pressing zero, no comparing with a mic or gauge blocks because I don't have them. As mentioned by Martin the Mitutoyo has a very mice thumb wheel so you can be reasonably sure of applying teh same sort of pressure each time, I have a Machine DRO 12" one that feels absolutely horrible to use by comparrison – just as well I don't use it that often but as it was a lower quality I was not expecting much. Same with a digi depth gauge from the same source really does not feel nice to use.

So its a case of deciding how much you will use an item and what degree of accuracy you can and need to use it at that should also be considered not just how many places behind the dot there are on the screen.

[David ColwillParticipant @davidcolwill19261]

I picked up a set of digi calipers in Aldi about 3 years ago. They were reduced to clear and about £6. They are fantastic, they have an auto shut off and the battery lasts over a year. Unfortunately they only had one pair. I wish I could get more of them.

David.

[MWParticipant @mw27036]

"So its a case of deciding how much you will use an item and what degree of accuracy you can and need to use it at that should also be considered not just how many places behind the dot there are on the screen."-JasonB

I'll probably get a wholloping for this but i think for the record, 0.01 resolution is just fine, i can't work to greater tolerances than that.

Michael W

[Fowlers FuryParticipant @fowlersfury]

To add to the praise for Mitutoyu dig-calipers, mine are (is?) also over 30 years old and it gets used and abused daily. I occasionally check it against a standard and cognisant of ambient workshop temperature, it's always been accurate.

I can preset it to to the 3rd decimal place (inch) thanks to the aforementioned excellent thumb wheel and it's then even been abused by light scribing of lines etc with no detrimental effect on the jaws' sharp points over the years .

My eyesight is no longer good enough to read a vernier scale without finding a magnifier so the 0-1" M&W micrometer gets little use. The other great benefit of a digi caliper is surely its ability to zero at any point. Put a piece of rod in the chuck you need to turn down to say 0.250" D, set the Mitutoyo to that dimension – zero it and then measure the diameter of the chucked rod. Divide new reading by 2 and wind tool in to that.

Cheap Chinese DROs, calipers just eat batteries, because – I'm told – they draw considerable current even when switched off. The Mitutoyo requires a new battery about once per year. I've never once begrudged the cost of buying it.

[SillyOldDufferModerator @sillyoldduffer]

Posted by Fowlers Fury on 22/07/2016 12:35:47:

…

Cheap Chinese DROs, calipers just eat batteries, because – I'm told – they draw considerable current even when switched off. The Mitutoyo requires a new battery about once per year. I've never once begrudged the cost of buying it.

My £4.99 Lidl digital flattened it's original battery in less than 3 months. Intrigued by the stories of excessive current being drawn even when they are switched off I set too measured it. Not everything on the internet is trustworthy. Mine takes 25 microamperes, which isn't a lot.

Short battery life might not be the caliper's fault. I've noticed that the quality of batteries I buy varies wildly. There seem to be a lot of fakes, low capacity versions, and elderly cells out there. Some types, including the CR2032, have rather short shelf lives.

My cheapo calipers have been going strong for over a year on the same battery. As a special treat I bought it a new expensive named brand cell. It might be a coincidence that it's lasted better than the 5 for a quid bargain I fell for at a car boot sale!

I'm guessing that cheap calipers come with a cheap battery and the likes of Mitutoyo come with a good one and a proper 'on/off' switch. For hobby use, buying an expensive caliper to save on batteries is surely bad economics. You can get an awful lot of good batteries for the price of a quality caliper. I'm not knocking quality calipers – there are plenty of other good reasons for investing in one.

Cheers,

Dave

[Brian GParticipant @briang]

Funny thing is, the Aldi calipers i keep in my desk (I'm in a wheelchair most of the time and need things handy) have auto power off and eat batteries, whilst the Kennedy ones on the bench stay on for days sometimes if I forget them, but have only needed one battery in the last 5 years.

Having watched my son get a measurement an inch wrong because he had never used a Vernier scale before, I'll probably stick to digital

Brian

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