Digital Calipers | Everything You Need to Know

Digital calipers, as opposed to popular belief, are not just for professionals. Even if you work on your car at home, chances are you will be needing a digital caliper soon.

Without a digital caliper chance are you would be making projects with wrong measurements, and end up with parts that don’t fit. Apart from that, you will find a digital caliper with engineers, interior designers, architects and anybody who works around measurements.

What is Digital Caliper?

Commonly utilized for inspection for manufacturing in providing accurate measurements, a digital caliper is a pretty handy tool. It is designed as a pair of jaws, which are in turn attached to a lengthy beam and a marked scale. It is also utilized to take the interior, exterior, and steps measurements.

The scale has one jaw fixed at the end, and the other jaw sliding along at a gearless accuracy for measurement taking. With an electronically derived reading, it is displayed on a high-resolution digital screen. All as a singular value too.

You can make many measurements with a digital caliper. You can use it to determine the differences between objects. You do it by zeroing on the digital display on any point of the scale.

The Types of Digital Calipers

There are many kinds of calipers to choose from. It depends on which one you are comfortable with and what project you are actually working on.

But, below are the kind of Calipers available for you.

• Vernier Caliper
• Inside Caliper
• Outside Caliper
• Divider Caliper
• Dial Caliper
• Digital Caliper
• Oddleg Caliper
• Micrometer Caliper

Uses of Digital Calipers

When it comes to the uses of the digital calipers, you are sure to find them in rooms of architects, wood smiths, engineer, and even mechanics.

Widely used to measure parts and distances between objects to the very acute measurements. Digital calipers have made a mark for themselves in delivering accurate readings down the very zero for objects.

You can also use them to measure the inside and outside of objects and get the accurate reading. Here is the thing, without a digital caliper change are you would be making mix-matched parts that don’t fit anywhere.

Heavily used by mechanics in repairing car parts, you are sure to find one of these in every tool arsenal.

How to Use a Digital Caliper

Digital calipers are fairly easy to use. But the below instructions are geared to maximize your utility form the digital caliper while helping you make accurate measurements too.

Rule 1

Never use a digital caliper around strong magnetic fields. Neither apply any form of voltage or even engraving with an electric pen. It will damage your digital calipers circuit.

Rule 2

Unlock the top thumbscrew before using your digital caliper to clean the jaws. You can slide your finger over the surfaces and also pay attention to the jaw tips. You can find dirt, grease accumulated there from time to time. This ensures you can accurately set it at zero position too. Once cleaned, you just have to close the jaws and press on the zero buttons to set the digital caliper at zero.

Rule 3

Never rotate any object on the jaws as you apply pressure when you measure the round bars and stocks. Just open the jaws, and rotate the bar and simply close the jaw back to get your accurate measurement. It helps you preserve the flatness of the jaw surfaces of your digital caliper.

Rule 4

Always use the thick parts of your digital caliper jaws to measure (when possible). The excessive use of the knife-edged tip will wear out your digital caliper. Using the thickest parts mean you will eliminate all tilting between the work object and the jaws because that causes errors in measurements.

Rule 5

There is nothing you can do with the digital caliper except for making measurements. So, avoid any form of tampering with it. The only things you can tamper with is the battery cover and the battery to change it from time to time.

EndNote

Having a digital caliper is super handy if making measurement is part of your daily job. You can easily find your required digital caliper from the above list.