Workzone Digital Calipers at Australian Aldi stores?

[sausage]

Aldi currently have Workzone calipers for sale. $20 isn't too bad, but reviews are pretty mixed for the ones they've brought in the past. Anyone bought one of these this month and have any thoughts?

Based on Dave's comments on the recent amp hour about cheaper calipers being all pretty decent with their capacitance reading, it might be an OK buy.

Still I'm happy to shell out a few more dollars for something solid... but would be good to be a middle of the road price.

[BurningTantalum]

The main issue with all of these cheap calipers is the short battery life. I have a couple but never use them because it seemed that every time I got one out of the cupboard I had to ferret about for a new button cell. I have been tempted to bodge on a tiny slide switch to isolate the battery.
BT

[wilfred]

I'll second the comments regarding short battery life. They work fine otherwise. I take the battery out which is a pain but I don't use it frequently enough to think about a better solution. A solar cell like a calculator would be good. If there is one on the market that solves the battery life issue get that one.

[sausage]

Thanks to you both. I had a assumed that there would have been an on/off switch and that the calipers don't run when not in use. Clearly I'm wrong.

[tooki]

I have one of these bought years ago (so no guarantee it’s the exact same innards as today’s). Not worth the money, because it sometimes misses counts and ends up displaying a number that is off by some multiple of 5.08mm.

These things chew through batteries because the “power” button just turns off the LCD, which barely uses any power anyway… The entire measurement circuitry is apparently still on. I have no idea how Mitutoyo and others with true auto power on do it, but the cheapies don’t do it properly.

They also don’t slide as smoothly as quality ones like Mitutoyo, Mahr, Tesa, or Sylvac. Not a deal breaker as such, but just not as nice to use.



I then got a vernier Mitutoyo on sale for something like $35 which works great, and eventually I’ll get around to buying some quality digital calipers. Those also come in various useful options, like different lengths, shape of the depth gauge pin (square for disability, round to fit in smaller holes), with or without the thumbwheel, bigger displays, IP rating (so dust or water ingress doesn’t mess up measurements), data ports or bluetooth, etc.