Define "vernier"

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The place where digital calipers really win is in measuring the center-to-center distance of two holes of the same diameter. Measure the ID of one hole with the horns, zero it in that position, and then shift to one horn in each of the two holes, pressing against the opposite sides. Now you have a direct reading of the center distance between the two holes. It even automatically compensates for the chord error from the fact that the horns don't have fully sharp edges.

Another benefit, at least compared to most dial calipers, is the ability to measure in either inch or metric units at will, and to convert back and forth between them. Yes, there are dial calipers with two hands and concentric scales which read in both systems, but getting both to zero at precisely the same point is tricky. (Maybe someone makes really good ones which have no problems there, but the ones which I have seen leave something to be desired there.

FWIW -- what I have:

1 4" dial caliper -- Helios (new -- decades ago) 1 6" dial caliper -- Phase II (new) 1 150mm dial caliper -- Starrett (new) 1 6"/150mm vernier caliper -- I forget the brand. (new) 1 24"/600mm vernier caliper -- Scherr-Tumico (used, hamfest) 1 12"/300mm digital caliper -- Mitutoyo. (new, hamfest) 3 6"/150mm digital calipers -- Mitutoyo, Starrett and nameless import all bought used except for the nameless import -- all working using induction/capacitive scales. 2 Browne & Sharpe (likely really Tessa) 6"/150mm digital calipers with glass scales. Both are semi-retired for the moment -- until I make new battery compartments for them to run from a pair of CR2032 3V cells instead of four PX-13 mercury cells -- now made of unobtanium. I've verified that they work fine at the higher voltage, so it is just a matter of making the replacement battery compartment. One of these was from a hamfest back when the batteries were still available, and the other from a tool flea market much later.

With a resolution of 0.0005", the digital calipers are close enough once you develop the proper feel to avoid cocking the moving jaw. And "feel" is a matter of importance in micrometers, too -- especially those from before the friction thimbles or the ratchet spinner. Too many micrometers to list, but they go up to 12" at the top end. And one 25mm one from Russia, which is about 50% more massive than any US made 0-1" micrometers. :-)

Yes -- I use the micrometers when precision is really important, but for many things the digital calipers are quite all that I need.

Enjoy, DoN.

Note the accuracy is only 0.01" or 0.1mm. Perhaps the fractional scale suggests who the expected market is -- woodworkers. (Granted, I knew one fellow who did woodwork to 0.001" at the time of machining, but he was a perfectionist machinist. :-)

Enjoy, DoN.

Well ... many digital calipers have the ability to lock the reading while you remove it from the awkward place. And for those which don't have that -- zero it, and then after removing it, close the jaws and take your reading from there -- ignoring the minus sign. :-)

Enjoy, DoN.

Indeed.

Actually -- one of my older tool catalogs, I forget whether it was Starrett or B&S, showed a 120" vernier caliper as one of their specials. Granted, the jaws were not long enough to measure the diameter of a 120" shaft -- unless the end was accessible. My 24" verniers are awkward enough to use the few times that I need to use them. For most things I do in the 24" range or lager, a tape measure is accurate enough. :-)

I use them for some things. Ideally spring calipers both outside and inside to transfer measurements from an ID to an OD or vice versa. And some firm-joint calipers (at least some by Starrett that I have) have a fine adjustment system -- as well as the ability to open or close to move it to where you can work with it without losing the setting. I've got one outside caliper of that sort which is probably

18" capacity (never checked the maximum). And I also have a nice firm-joint hermaphrodite caliper by Starrett with the fine adjust feature. That one is one of the tools which I actually bought new. :-)

Enjoy, DoN.

When Jim Varney is standing a bit too close.

Adjective.

Antonym of Vernfar.

Christopher A. Young Learn more about Jesus

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I have seen large vernier calipers used to measure how round missile interstage sections are. Or more correctly how out of round interstage sections were that would not mate to rocket motors.

Dan

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Good one! Noted and filed away. Thanks.

Michael Koblic, Campbell River, BC

I just learned that one last week from my machinist buddy who's helping me with the CNC router build. It works a treat! Just remember to use the outside dims, not the inside, or you'll be off by exactly one hole diameter. DAMHIKT.

-- The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the unreasonable man. -- George Bernard Shaw

My I remind you that you still dial a telephone number.

John

Really? DTMF has been around for over four decades, and you press or punch the number.

Remember the Autovon 'Flash Override' button? "Hey Mr President, Brezhnev just drove a tank through the fence and wants to talk to you." Don't ever touch that button otherwise.

The official terms are tone(DTMF) and pulse(rotary) dialing.

"The version of DTMF that is used in push-button telephones for tone dialing is known as Touch-Tone."

I still have a Princess phone with a rotary dial hooked up, and somewhere an old Stromberg-Carlson Model 500 equivalent.

jsw

Yes, but you still call it dialing, and the tone when you pick up the phone is called... a dial tone even though you probably havn't used a dial in thirty years.

The point that I was trying to make was that the original calipers were vernier calipers. When dial calipers and digital reading calipers came along many people called them verniers even though technically it was the wrong name for them. The same happened with the dial telephone. The process is called dialing but in fact you are punching in the numbers or in some cases you just talk to your phone and tell it who you want to contact.

John

john fired this volley in news:T_ydnYDsXbrAIi_SnZ2dnUVZ snipped-for-privacy@giganews.com:

But did you know that the pulse dialing network not only still exists, but is mandated by law? You can "dial" a phone with the hook, if you can keep up the timing. I do it once in a while, just to remember that I can.

And vernier calipers are still being made and sold.

LLoyd

"Lloyd E. Sponenburgh" fired this volley in news:XnsA054AD7E5FC8Dlloydspmindspringcom@216.168.3.70:

Heh! I should have added that the "hook" ain't a hook anymore, either!

But the old terms DO tend to stick. How many folks call photocopying "Xeroxing"?

LLoyd

My favorite peeve is the qwerty keyboard layout! Nuts! The dvorak layout is so much better and easier there's no competition.. phil k. (dvorak user)

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Actually -- these days I am more likely to "key in" (or perhaps "punch" a phone number, and I used to have a dial telephone exchange which I built at home (using Stronger switches), so I was very familiar with how dials worked.

Enjoy, DoN.

One of my favorite word origins is the word broadcast. It goes back a lot farther than using it to describe what radio stations do.

John

And you only hear that dial tone when using a copper connected land line. Have you *ever* heard a dial tone on a cell phone?

People got lazy and started calling "vernier calipers" just "verniers", and kept doing so when the calipers switched to dials or digits for readouts.

BTW -- In reference to an earlier comment about dial calipers being easier to use -- that depends. Digital gives a more *precise* readout -- but the dial gives a quicker feel for what range you are in, and with a pair of limit pointers can quickly tell you whether something is within or out of tolerance. Just as an analog clock or watch can lead you to say "It is about a quarter after eight" while a digital one will lead you to say "It is eight thirteen" at the same time. (Most people don't specify the time from an analog clock to the full resolution of the dial unless someone else asks what the time is "precisely". (And of course, that is not really that precise unless the clock or watch is crystal controlled and was set fairly recently at that. :-)

Again -- I do *not* call it dialing (unless I have and old enough phone or lineman's handset and am connected to a phone exchange which still bothers to count pulses to route a call. At one time, you had to pay extra for a Touch Tone phone and for the circuitry at the exchange which accepted the tones, even though rather quickly the exchanges were going to understanding the tones natively, and would require extra equipment to understand the train of pulses from a dial. Today, many exchanges no longer understand the pulses.

BTW -- I heard a story from a friend whose father was in the foreign service decades ago about an exchange somewhere in Latin America which had been bought from Ma Bell, but installed by local workmen. The result was a perfectly working system -- but with the busy tone and the dial tone interchanged. They just left it that way, is what I heard. :-)

Enjoy, DoN.

And -- can you get a slide-out Dvorak keyboard under your cell phone, as you can a Qwerty one? (Granted, for the phones which display the keyboard on a touch screen, you can probably get an app which will provide a Dvorak keyboard for you.

But I use enough different computers so finding a Dvorak keyboard for *all* of them is pretty difficult and quite expensive. Some don't even have their own keyboard, but depend on a stand-alone terminal (such as the DEC VT-100 and later) with its own keyboard.

And I doubt that I could find a Dvorak keyboard for my AT&T Unix-PC/3B1/7300 (a 68010 based unix system). It is hard enough to find a replacement Qwerty keyboard for those systems. Yes, I could probably get Dvorak keyboards for the newer systems which use USB for keyboard and mouse connectors, but certainly not for the older systems like the Suns which use a variant of a mini-Din connector (not the same one that the later PC clones use) -- and there are a bunch of special keys added to these keyboards which means that a Dvorak for a PC would not be satisfactory anyway. :-)

And -- I was taught touch typing (on a really old skeleton typewriter) in the early 1950s by a great aunt before I reached junior high school (called "middle school" in some places), so switching to Dvorak would be rather difficult for me.

Enjoy, DoN.