I finally dropped $200 on a digital caliper and it burned me bad

Bought this fancy Mitutoyo caliper off Amazon thinking it would make my drafting way more accurate. Thing was dead on arrival, wouldn't even turn on after I replaced the battery. Took me 3 weeks to get a refund through their support. Has anyone else had luck with cheaper calipers that actually work?

3 comments

3 Comments

the_susan1mo ago

Ha! Sounds like you got the premium "non-functional" model. Yeah those fancy chipsets are a real blessing. My buddy dropped his $200 Mitutoyo from waist height once and it started measuring everything in metric no matter what setting he picked. Meanwhile my $15 horror freight special has been stepped on, thrown in a drawer full of wrenches, and used as a makeshift bottle opener. Still works fine. You didn't dodge a bullet man, you dodged a whole factory recall. Go buy three cheap ones and beat the hell out of them.

riley_miller251mo ago

Dead on arrival, wouldn't even turn on" - see, this is why you don't spend top dollar on fancy stuff right away. You gotta work your way up the cheap caliper ladder and learn how they break before you drop real cash. I've had a $30 iGaging caliper for like 4 years that's still kicking, and my friend's $150 Mitutoyo died after one drop. Sometimes the cheaper ones are built tougher cause they've got less crap to go wrong inside, no fancy chipsets or whatever. If you asked me, you dodged a bullet with that defective one, cause now you can get two or three solid budget calipers for the same money and have backups when one inevitably gets busted.

jade_johnson1mo agoMost Upvoted

You mentioned the "fancy chipsets" and honestly that's exactly right. Those expensive calipers have all these extra circuits and sensors that can fail or get messed up from one tiny shock. The cheap ones are basic, but basic means less to go wrong in my experience. I've seen guys spend big money on Mitutoyo and then cry when a simple drop kills the display or the electronics freeze up. Meanwhile my cheap plastic caliper has been knocked off the bench three times and still reads dead nuts accurate. So I say stick with the budget stuff until you actually wear it out, then maybe consider upgrading. You got lucky with that dead one honestly.