- Joined
- May 3, 2017
- Messages
- 1,997
Ray, I find your last comment to be very interesting. I am on my second pair of digital calipers - good quality - and I am not very happy with them. This second pair is essentially brand new (3 months old, maybe), and its lack of precision is very disappointing. I can close the calipers, set them to zero, turn it off, immediately turn it back on, and it will be off plus or minus .0005 - .0010 (every now and then, .0015). More often than not, when using them, I can set to zero, take a reading, then close back and the closed reading will be something other than zero. I've wondered if maybe it's a little bit of trash on the jaws, but I've had the same result many times under very controlled circumstances. I'm ready to go back to dial calipers myself. Anybody else out there have this kind of problem? (I prefer to not mention a brand name, but it's one everyone will recognize. The calipers (both pair) were a little over $100 each - not the el cheapo's.Well everybody, thanks for your thoughts. As far as DRO on the lathe... I'm not feeling the love and burning desire. When I work on a part, I measure it and calculate how many passes are needed for the bulk removal. When I get to that point, I have a method of closing-in for the kill. On those last few passes, I toss a dial-face indicator against the compound or cross-slide and I usually snug the jibs just a tad. The indicator helps me determine exactly how much was dialed in; a micrometer tells me how much came off... Do that little rain dance 2-3 times in a row and bingo -all done.
When I'm making shoulders, the iGaging thing helps get really close and calipers & mics tell me the rest of the story.
Last year, I got rid of most of my digital calipers and switched-over to dial calipers. ...Troglodyte, I guess.
Ray
Regards,
Terry