Found out my cheap calipers were reading 0.5mm off

I was checking some parts for a project last night and kept getting weird measurements. Grabbed my coworker's Mitutoyo calipers and suddenly everything made sense. Anyone else ever trust a cheap tool too long before realizing it was way off?

3 comments

3 Comments

beng5116d ago

Oh man, that hurts. I've been there. Cheap tools can waste so much time before you figure out they're the problem. You end up chasing ghosts in your parts or your technique. It's money well spent to just get something decent from the start. Once you use a real caliper you can't go back.

parker_webb16d ago

Did you ever try using a cheap digital caliper that gives random readings when the battery is low? I had one that would jump around so much I thought I was losing my mind. Finally threw it in the trash and bought a halfway decent one, and now I don't second-guess every measurement. Made me realize how much frustration I was saving myself.

pat_harris16d ago

Gotta push back a little here... I mean, is it really that serious? I've been using a $15 digital caliper for like three years now and it's still dead on. Sure, when the battery gets low it acts up, but you just change the battery. It's not like we're building spaceships, you know? If you're measuring wood or basic metal parts, even the cheap ones are fine as long as you check them against a known standard once in a while. Seems like a lot of people blame the tool when maybe they just need to slow down and read it twice. But hey, if you wanna spend $80 on a caliper for your garage projects, more power to you...