Quote Originally Posted by Frank S View Post
I will agree that a digital caliper can be reasonably accurate. I've owned dozens of them over the years but none of them seem to last for very long at least not for me that is. I once owned an 18" Mitutoyo very pricey. Far too pricey for no longer than it lasted in my opinion
At least whit the HF ones they are inexpensive enough that one doesn't mind modifying them to fit the desired application I just wish that someone would come up with a way to hare wire any of them into the machine's power And I may have just thought of a way to do just that by removing the batteries and soldering ina pair of leads to connect to a DC converter with the correct output voltage
Different calipers seem to work differently with battery life. I have an igaging DRO on the z axis on my mill drill that is basically the bar and the slide without the caliper jaws and it's 4yrs old now and still has the same lo buck button battery that came with it. Meanwhile I bought a digital 4" caliper from a well know supplier and even though I seldom use it, it eats batteries and is always dead every time I pick it up and with good expensive buttons even though it turns itself off like they all do. Igaging also has a USB port and a little charge port for some of its series of DRO's.

I personally like my dial calipers just fine and have had good luck with them.

So bobs409 how have your HF calipers been holding up battery wise? Do they have any ports like USB or charging?