New micrometer

[Bill DawesParticipant @billdawes]

I posted a while back about my digital micrometer giving up the ghost, it is a Machine DRO brand.

Now decided to invest in a new one, well hopefully someone else will as a Birthday/Christmas present, my Birthday is a week before Christmas.

Initially decided on a Mitutoyo. I have a caliper of that brand. However they are expensive of course so now wondering if I should rein in my ambitions and settle for a budget one (which my Machine DRO was)

Looking at the ones from ARC Eurotrade, a company I have much respect for.

Anyone like to venture an opinion as to best budget micrometer please.

Bill D.

[Bill DawesParticipant @billdawes]

PS. I accept that many of these budget onew are of a generic nature, almost certainly made in China so supplier is irrelevent as far as product is concerned other than level of service.

Bill D.

[Chris CrewParticipant @chriscrew66644]

The Dasqua brand that is sold by Chronos and RDG look very good. As far as I can ascertain the brand originates in Italy but the fact that something is made in China doesn’t mean it has to be avoided.

[Dave WoottonParticipant @davewootton]

I’ve recently bought a Dasqua 0.2 to 1.2 inch imperial bore micrometer and am pleased with it, feels nice to use and sems to be well made. This is the first budget brand measuring equipment I’ve bought  and I was rather apprehensive when buying, but used it quite a bit in the last couple of weeks and am quite impressed. Mine came from Chronos, comes complete with a setting ring gauge.

[Andy_GParticipant @andy_g]

A company I do some occasional work for uses ‘Insize’ brand measuring equipment. It is well made, pleasant enough to use, accurate and seems to be reliable enough to last well in an industrial environment.

An IP65, coolant proof, 0-25mm digital micrometer is ~£140 inc VAT:

Link

(No affiliations)

[Russell EberhardtParticipant @russelleberhardt48058]

I’ve had the ARC Euro one for a couple of years.  Completely satisfied with it.

Russell

[peak4Participant @peak4]

For what it’s worth I have several, in different anvil configurations and sizes.
All give the correct reading(s) on gauge blocks
SPi seems to work well
M&W feels OK in use, though they make more than one grade.
I’ve an unbranded  one in a plain blue box just labelled IP54, which works as well as any of the above.

Lastly I’ve a couple of the very cheap Chinese ones; mine came off eBay for less than £15 delivered.
It’s a bit pot lock with those; they have been discussed on this forum before with different folk having different experiences.
Some looked like the carbide anvils had never been ground, or at least finished very badly.
All 3 of mine are highly polished, appear flat and parallel, and are good enough finish for a gauge block to wring on OK.

These very cheap ones in the plain wooden boxes do have a comparatively short battery life.

This last point leads me to another; The cheapest ones, and the M&W, all have thimbles with metric graduations, so they can still be used with a flat battery.
My SPi has imperial graduations, but the unbranded IP54 one just has a plain rubber/plastic sleeve on the thimble, so is useless with a flat battery.

Bill

[Bill DawesParticipant @billdawes]

Thanks all.

Bill D.

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