So I was walking around a flea market and I stumbled across a box full of calipers, mostly Mitutoyo.
What was odd is that all had missing battery covers. I could understand one or two without battery covers, but all??
Seller obviously had no idea why, he just had them and was selling them for a few bucks a piece.
Of course I bought one and I clamped the battery with a strip of metal held with a screw and nut from both sides.
Caliper seems to measure fine, at least at 0.1 precision, but I am not an expert and don’t have those measuring blocks so I cannot know of it measures ok at higher precision.
My guess is that they are uncalibrated beyond repair and were taken from a machine shop trash, and that machinists take the battery cover off before throwing them in the trash to prevent other people from selling them, or prevent people from buying them.
Is there a machinist here that can confirm my theory?
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This 8” caliper from Harbor freight for $30.00 is a good buy. I have several calipers from 6” to 24”, Brown & Sharp mostly, but this one is my workhorse. It needs de-burring out of the box new, but its accurate for any caliper job. Great for around the house and the 8” is easier to handle.
I have used this one for 10yrs already !! Auto on and off saves battery life, Mitutoyo always stays on. https://www.harborfreight.com/8-in-digital-caliper-63712.html
I got a set of cheap (ie, plastic) calipers, slide-on battery cover.
Parasitic drain killed one button cell in a few months, so since then I always remove the battery and stick it in the packaging (plastic + cardboard insert). Lately, found that the cover is hard to get on or off. Hmm, wonder why.
The f’n button-cell is bulging at the back. Still full voltage, but the back ain’t flat anymore.
My guess is that a lot of these cells suffer the same fate, and pop off the covers.
In mine, the thing works fine without the cover, as it holds the cell around the periphery.
None of the machine shop guys that i know and work with would take the time to re-assemble a broken or swollen-battery cover on a pair of calipers before throwing them in the trash—they would just pitch it, cover and all.
Likely the dumpster diver didn’t get the covers.
i’ve tried to repair calipers that had alkaleak battery damage with limited success. Most use a COB and the corrosion is fatal.
I am the Mitutoyo Factory Sales Specialist for all Mitutoyo capital equipment in the Pacific Northwest USA, but started out years ago specializing in small tools… Regarding the battery cover, in many cases someone would break one or both ear tabs off the battery cover and throw it away. Without a cover the battery would probably get dislodged or come loose. This would be/is frustrating. Instead of purchasing new battery covers or making one in house they threw the calipers in the trash or gave them to a surplus type store. The calipers you have may be discontinued and the battery covers might be no longer available. I see you are in Europe, I would contact a large industrial supply house like MSC or Grainger or similar to your area that could possibly still have some older covers in stock. I would see if we still have them here at our USA Corporate Headquarters but getting them to you would be the challenge. I’m happy to help out in any way that I am capable of.
Let me know what you find out.
We have been seeing some counterfeit products pop up on various sites and do our best to track them down. We have some information regarding counterfeit products on our website. In short, all our digital calipers, when in inch mode, have at least 4 full numbers to the right of the decimal. Counterfeit products only had three full numbers for quite some time and now have 3 full numbers and 1 half size number to the right of the decimal point.
Hope this helps.
Thanks for the pictures, I like your battery holder, nice and sturdy. We did have a battery cover re-design on newer models which has reduced cover breakage to nearly zero.
LT