While not the quality of high-end (expensive) professional calipers, this caliper is a great value for someone needing reasonably good accuracy at a low cost. The all metal construction is rugged (for a caliper) and the action is reasonably smooth. I use these calipers for wood furniture construction. The specified +/- 0.001" absolute accuracy is more than adequate for my needs, and the convenience of easily switching between metric, decimal inch, and fractional inch readings is very useful. For my woodworking applications, the fractional inch readings to 1/128" resolution, with automatic conversion at integer 1/64, 1/32, and 1/16" points, is really convenient. I have checked the absolute accuracy with precision machinist's calibration blocks, and the worst error that I measured was 0.0015", which I consider very good for my needs, but may not be good enough for someone doing tight tolerance work.
I like the screw-on lid for battery that does a good job of keeping dust out of the battery compartment. The included LR44 battery (equivalent to A76 or 357A) is readily available at low cost, so battery replacement is not a problem. The plastic case is nice, but nothing special, and does an adequate job of protecting the caliper and is convenient to use. The feeler gauge set included with the 6-inch model is a nice extra, and makes the overall purchase an even better value. My only minor complaint is the decimal inch display, which uses two sizes of numerals, The two numeral sizes are OK, but the transition from large to small numerals seems odd to me. The whole integer and 1/10 inch digits are large, and the 1/100, 1/1000, and 1/1000 digits are small. For example, a reading of 1.2345 inches would show the 1 and 2 in large digits and the 3, 4,and 5 in smaller digits. I would prefer all digits except for the least significant to be large for easier reading, and only the least significant (the 5 in my example) to be small. It took me a while to get used to reading the two large plus 3 small numeral format that I feel is less intuitive (and harder to read) than a 4 large plus one small format. However, overall I was so satisfied with this caliper, that I also purchased the 8-inch version, and would recommend it to anyone wanting a low-cost, good quality, moderate accuracy, digital caliper.
| Manufacturer | Proster Trading Limited |
|---|---|
| Part number | PST163-US |
| Size | 8 to 10.9 Inches |
| Colour | 8" Vernier Caliper + 32 Feeler Gauges |
| Material | Stainless Steel |
| Batteries Included? | Yes |
| Batteries Required? | Yes |
| Manufacturer | Proster Trading Limited |
| Manufacturer reference | PST163-US |
| Package dimensions | 32.21 x 10.79 x 2.49 cm; 522 Grams |
| ASIN | B08CDQ588M |
