Calipers play an important role among measuring tools, especially in the fields of manufacturing, engineering, automitive and aerospace. They measure objects with high precison. There are many different types of caliper, each with different features and benefits. It's important to know what they do and where to use them.
Here are three types of calipers that you often find in a mechanics tools box.
Vernier caliper mainly used to measure outside diameter, inside diameter, step and depth, etc. When measuring, the integer part of the value is read from the master ruler and the decimal part is read from the vernier ruler. The vernier principle is to use the difference between the line spacing on the master ruler (referred to as line spacing) and the line spacing on the vernier ruler to read the decimal part. There are three reading graduation of 0.02mm, 0.05mm and 0.1mm for metric and 0.001'' and 1/128'' for inch. The measuring range including 0-150mm, 0-200mm, 0-300mm, 0-500mm, 0-1000mm, 0-1500mm, 0-2000mm up to 0-3000mm for metric and 0-6'', 0-8'', 0-12'', 0-20'', 0-40'', 0-60'', 0-80'' up to 0-120''.
Vernier caliper available with open type and mono-block type, monoblock vernier caliper designed with vernier plate is prone to slipping under external force, foreign customers prefer mono-block vernier calipers to ensure measurement accuracy.
2. Dial Caliper
Dial caliper a measuring tool with reading comes from dial face, uses the pitch of precision racks and pinions as a known length, and an indicator table with corresponding indexing as an amplification, subdivision, and indication section. Dial caliper is on calibrated precision measuring tool that is useful for taking accurate measurement, can solve the problem of reading errors of vernier calipers. Dial calipers can measure internal, external, depth, and step.There are two readings 0.01mm and 0.02mm and 0.001'' for inch.
Dial caliper measuring range available with 0-150mm, 0-200mm, 0-300mm, 0-500mm, 0-600mm and 0-1000mm for metric measurement and 0-6'', 0-8'', 0-12'', 0-20'', 0-24'' and 0-40'' for inch measurement.
3. Digital Caliper
Digital calipers are measuring tools used to measure the length, width, outside diameter, inside diameter, and depth and steps. It is similar in design to a traditional vernier caliper, but instead of a vernier scale, digital calipers have an LCD screen that displays the measurements. Clear LCD display that displays the measurement results in real time and is easy for the user to read at any time, improved the measurement efficiency a lot. The commonly used resolution are 0.01mm/0.0005'', there are also available with 0.001mm/0.00005'' for high precision readings.
Digital caliper provides both metric and inch measurement, available 0-150mm/0-6'', 0-200mm/0-8'', 0-300mm/0-12'', 0-500mm/20'', 0-1000mm/0-40'', 0-1500mm/0-60'', 0-2000mm/0-80'' up to 0-3000mm/0-120''.
As an multifunctional measuring tool, caliper has four way measurement as below:
1.Outside measurement
2. Inside measurement
3. Step measurement
4. Depth measurement
In production and manufacturing, we also often meet workpieces with complex shapes, such as narrow grooves, center distance, gear thickness, odd fluts,etc, the standard calipers can not measure, therefore, special calipers become an necessary tools for the special measurement. There are various non-standard calipers, such as 3 point caliper, gear tooth caliper, groove caliper, centerline caliper and many other, we also can customize some special calipers in order to meet the different measurement requirement for the customers all over the world.
