DIGITAL CALLIPERS @ LIDL

Returned fron holiday to find that LIDL are doing a Digital Calliper, or Angle Gauge for £9.99, until Wednesday 5th October.

If you, or know of anyone who would want one, go for it.

There may be some left after the Wednesday closing date.

For anyone concerned about how good,

My calliper is many years old, in regular use, and still fine despite my having broken off the thumb wheel and now needing an O ring to hold the battery cover in place!.

Howard

I noticed that, but I already have 3 of them and there is something that I have noticed also. The first one is still in use, excellent value, but the successive calipers bought about 3 years apart are mechanically inferior, while being electronically more advanced. That was enough for me to transplant the reading head from the last one into the body of the first. They are not in the same class as my Mitutoyo or Tesa, but only a fraction of the cost.

I got one but my battered original is still going strong

I got the angle thingy as well

Ady, what do you think of the quality of your new calipers?

Edited By old mart on 02/10/2022 19:03:07

Seems fine, not as smooth as my original which has been opened and closed about a million times

I always open/close the jaws on these cheapo jobs before measuring, to get a decent zero

The rough movement of the more recent ones is the problem, the slideways look like they have been hand ground by a monkey.

The last cheapo Lidl ones I bought a couple of years back had gouges and angle grinder marks down the sliding edges. I took them back.

Store the angle gauge with the battery out; it drains quite quickly, but other than that, a very handy gizmo.
The drain on the caliper is quite high too, compared to a high end model, but I gets more use, so less of a problem in some ways.

Bill

I bought one a couple of years ago, it was rubbish even after I tried to sort it out. Hope no one else gets one as bad as I did!

I have both (angle and callipers) from Lidl. They perform well and are accurate enough for hobby users. I don't remove battery's from any gauge and I don't switch them off. Batteries cost only a few penny's (Netherlands) and the on/off button of my lathe gauge has worn.

I have a calliper (€30,--) that keeps the zero point even when switched off. That is really nice to have. It saves a lot of time and prevents false zeroing.

We don't have LIDL in Australia but have ALDI which are both German based companies (not related) and sell some similar items. I use their digital calipers for everyday use. Not as good as my Mitutoyo but great for the price and have done so for many years.

Most of their tools are of reasonable quality AND if there is a problem come with a 60 day refund or replacement warranty and a 1 or 2 year manufacturers warranty.

I got a set of callipers from Lidl something like 10 years ago. They've been great to use - smooth and accurate and are still going strong. No real difference in feel or accuracy to the Mitutoyo ones at work. I saw them come up in Aldi last year, so picked up a set as a backup.

They new ones are absolute *crap*:

Very rough action;
Poorly ground (a rough, rather than a satin surface);
FULL of grinding grit and residue (absolutely black with it inside);
Not really hardened (I know you shouldn't do it, but scribing with the tip of the jaws bends them - I've been getting away with that on the other set for years with no visible effect...)
When you close them fully, the internal jaws catch on each other when you open them again.

The reading varies a lot with jaw pressure,

The new ones remember their setting when "off" which would be handy for poor men's DROs (whereas the old ones reset their zero whenever they're switched on).
Shortly after, I picked up a set of callipers from Lidl and was equally unimpressed  

Full of grit and really badly finished. They're not the same as the Aldi ones, but of an equivalent standard.

My 'good' ones (that I though were Aldi) turn out to be old Lidl ones (circa 2007).

From top to bottom: Old Lidl, current Aldi, current Lidl:

Old (good) Lidl after 10+ years of abuse. If you run a fingernail across the closed jaws, you can barely feel the joint.

Current Aldi (new) - you could trip over the step between the jaws...

Current Lidl (brand new) - likewise, there is a pronounced misalignment of the jaws.

What the pictures don't really show is the difference in the 'ground' surfaces. The old ones are satin smooth with flat surfaces and square corners - not much different from Mitutoyo ones at work. The newer ones (Aldi & Lidl) are rough and uneven - I doubt that they're ground - more like waved past a belt sander.

I took the Aldi ones to pieces to clean the grit out and stone off the burrs - the grey is loose grit (& look at the grinding on the jaws!):

Inside the current Lidl ones (I didn't take the back off, just slid the jaw out). Grit again (this is straight out of the box - they haven't even been in the shed yet).

I cleaned them up as best I could without taking the back off (which means peeling the label on the rear back) as I was thinking of returning them. They still feel like cheap callipers, but at least they don't make your teeth itch every time you move them.

The battery in the old calipers lasts for years; I've had to change the batteries in the newer ones several times in the last year.

Not the bargain that they once were IMHO.

('current' in my description was ~ May last year)

Edited By Andy_G on 03/10/2022 09:43:10

Yes, I have to agree, the old ones from the likes of Aldi/Lidl were decent quality but the more recent ones can be awful. I was tempted to buy a spare last year and it was just hopeless. The electronics worked ok but the movement was as rough as hell. It went back the next day for a refund and I won't be tempted again.

Doug

I bought the angle gauge a couple of years back but don't really use it, or think much of it for that matter. You have to zero it against a known flat surface, it seems to use its battery even when switched off, and its resolution is 0.1 degrees.

My motheaten old M&W Vernier protractor that someone gave me has slightly better resolution at 5 MoA, uses no batteries and doesn't need zeroing, so it's this that ends up doing most angle work that needs gauging.

I happened to be in Lidl today and saw that they had the calipers. Out of curiosity, I took one out of its box and slid it open. AAARGH! It felt like it had been on the beach. I quietly boxed it back up and put it back on the shelf.

You get what you pay for, I guess.

Thing is, you don't have to pay a great deal of money to get something really good.

A couple of years ago, I bought these iGaging ones for CDN$69 on sale (then, about £40) and they are super in all respects. I regularly forget to turn them off and I've yet to replace the battery.

Time to roll-out the “quote” that is often attributed to john Ruskin:

"There is hardly anything in the world that someone cannot make a little worse and sell a little cheaper, and the people who consider price alone are that person's lawful prey."

MichaelG.

.

Ref. __ **LINK**

https://victorianweb.org/authors/ruskin/quotation.html

I one I bought a couple of years ago. It is brilliant I use it all the time. I checked it against my Moore and Wright micrometer, and it compares spot for measurements.

I have also one from Aldi which was great but it gave up the ghost. So that sit in a drawer.

I also have a Mitutoyo non digital imperial vernier which though a brilliant tool , I no longer use.

If I were rich I would buy a Mitutoyo digital vernier. but I will make do with the budget ones from Lidl/Aldi.

Rob

As we have a Lidl 1/2 a mile away, I thought having read all your depressing posts re the caliper they have in stock at the moment, I thought I'd go and have a look.

they took a bit of finding, because Lidl can be a bit chaotic. But after a search I spotted them. I noticed someone else had opened a box to look, so I did the same. It did feel a bit rough , so I returned it to it's box and tried another. That was much smoother. So I bought it.

Got it home and checked against my 3 year old one and My Mitutoyo imperial caliper (non digital) I checked them all on a piece of 5/8" ground bar, and they all measured spot on.

Gave it a clean to remove any possible grit, and it is ok.

I am pleased with my £9.99 purchase.

Oh yes I forgot to say the difference in quality against the Mitutoyo is so obvious, but what should we expect ? The one would cost around £150 and the Lidl one at £9.99 ........ say no more, eh !

Rob