Digital calipers made in same factory?

A few months ago I bought a Moore & Wright 0-12" digital caliper (on left in photo) to measure big things, it was their 'value line' model, and it is a very nice caliper, smooth ,accurate etc. And I also have some cheapo Aldi supermarket calipers 0-6".

On the back of the calipers is the exact same label, with the exact same information on Whitworth threads and ISO metric threads.

So my question is....... Are these calipers all made in the same factory? If so, they seem to make a range from nasty cheap stuff to really good quality stuff.

My Japanese made Mitutoyo caliper is top of the range by comparison.

Ian

Think you will find that calliper manufacturers buy in their labels, make sense to let someone make thousands at a time, economies of scale equals bigger profits.

Dave W

I'm surprised to see that the cheap Aldi one on the right is properly CE marked as required for measuring instruments in the EU, whilst the Moore & Wright isn't.

Brian

You can see the jaws, nibs and display casings are significantly different, as is the finish on the sliding surfaces. It would seem a lot of unnecessary design and engineering resource use to make them so differently in the same works, when it'd be easier to design a consistent product range that could simply be finished and calibrated to different quality standards.

On the other hand, it's highly possible that they buy their reverse-side label from the same supplier. I used to have a Polish-made vernier from the mid '70s with, I think, an extremely similar or identical table affixed to the back.

The labels are not identical tho, the data is the same (obviously) but it's not the same label.

Damn! I knew I shouldn't have said 'exact' . The M&W Are very good quality though, it shows on the jaw faces which show signs of being lapped in. So I think if the same factory makes them, they must bang out cheap stuff without the same care as the more expensive stuff.

Ian

The manufacturers of the cheap ones are good at copying. The M&W is CE marked (and probably done properly, I would not be so sure about ones sold on ebay). The difference is in the details.

Robert G8RPI.

When China copies, it copies everything (more or less...)

I have the Moore & wright calipers + Mitutoyo as well, i have had the mitutoyo for probably 30-35 years & the M&W for 5 or 6 years. For the money the M&W are very good & nice & smooth, i find them to be every bit as accurate & repeatable as the Mitutoyo. I would def buy another pair of the M&W again if i needed another pair considering the price.

The CE mark on the Moore & Wright looks incorrect to my eyes, the letters are too close together. All that means is "Chinese Export"

The CE mark on the cheap ones actually looks to be the correct spacing as far as I can tell.

Google it if you are not sure what I mean, A correct CE mark is very specific.

Phil

Ian

Adding to the list of differences between those 'exact same' labels:

Did you spot the voltages ?

MichaelG.

As above ^^^^

Also the engraving on the right is inferior - a real giveaway!

I bought a Mitutoyo calliper 30 odd years ago and it is still an outstanding tool, I bought two in Lidl for an outrageous £8 and some pennies each and have got a freebie from someone with a rotary table, the best value one was from Machine DRO and has a large digit display and very smooth operation, checking against my Mitutoyo slip gauges it acquits itself very well, not bad for £26.

Mike

Genuine or fake? Just to put peoples minds at rest, I bought the Moore & Wright and Mitutoyo both from Machine DRO. They don't sell fake stuff.

The Aldi calipers were from er... Aldi and could be fake knock off copies of fakes, and for under 8 quid who cares? I bought four of them, converted (butchered) one into a odd leg scriber and another into a height gauge.

The voltages are different because they use different batteries. M&W uses 2032 and the Aldi thing uses LR44.

One important difference between cheap stuff and Mitutoyo stuff is the voltage leakage when not in use. That's why a Mitutoyo battery will last years and cheapo caliper batteries will last weeks. Quality electronics as always from a high end product. And I would never butcher a Mitutoyo!

Ian

.

Glad you noticed that, Ian

I only mentioned it because your opening post stated 'the exact same label'

[which it is very clearly not]

MichaelG.

I have said before on digital calliper posts that I use Aldi ones as every day tools. Every bit as accurate and smooth as my Mitutoyo and SPI branded ones. I butchered an Aldi 6" one to make a readout for the lathe tailstock around 18 months ago, still running on its original battery. The posh ones do come out of the box for some jobs but by the very nature of design are not really that accurate if you are chasing precision. Most of my jobs are only to a couple of thou so a calliper does the job and at £8 it does not matter if it is dropped.

Yes!!

I also got one with the fractions option, thinking it would be, just like Thomas, really useful.
I find this option a really useless waste of time and money.

There is always the possibility that they did come out of the same factory.

Many factories make similar items at different specs for different sellers. While M&W probably have a long-term arrangement, Aldi probably shop around for a good deal every time they import a batch.

This doesn't tell us anything about quality. My M&Ws are better than my Aldi ones regardless.

Neil

I have got Mitutoyo callipers that are years old and still work perfectly, but I also have a couple of pairs from Lidl that I am very pleased with and recently I purchased a pair from Aldi, only because they opened a store near me and I went in for a look around and saw a pile of them and decided you cannot have too many pairs of callipers. Strange thing with the Aldi ones is that they have a button marked l/c on them, when you press this it multiplies the measurement by pi, cannot really see the point and only any use if measuring round bar, but for £8 and a three year warranty who cares, batteries can be got from the pound shop for you guessed it, one pound for a card of about thirty assorted sizes so who cares if they only last a couple of weeks.

The M & W one is not correctly CE marked so it is currently illegal to sell in the U.K. so is it genuine? Still if Boris has his way any old rubbish will be legally available.

Russell

Edited By Russell Eberhardt on 15/08/2019 09:54:18