I need something my 51 year old eyes can read. Looking for something accurate enough to measure seatpost diameters, etc. Are $20 offerings on Harbor Freight good enough?

I did search, and found this thread from 2010 on vernier calipers. I'm kind of curious how much progress 3Alarmer has made with regards to saving civilization . Though I do have a cheap set of plastic vernier calipers, which I can even sometimes read. I don't really trust them though.

Picked up a nice digital caliper yesterday for $11 + tax. That's a coupon deal I received by mail but check the HF site if interested. Oh, sale ends today but there's always a sale and they've the 20% off any single purchase coupons on a regular basis. 6 in. Digital Caliper

I have a Mitutoyo and it is outstanding, durable, accurate and easy to read. It is also expensive.
I also have a couple from Harbor Freight and the like. Besides being less durable, they are just fine.

iGaging makes a good one on Amazon Prime for $20USD thereabouts.

They are fine. Here's one on sale for 10 bucks which even reads in fractions: 6 in. Digital Caliper with SAE and Metric Fractional Readings
I have a long-reach one which is nice for measuring OLD on hubs without having to struggle with the hub flanges (or many cassettes) interfering: 6 in. Long Reach Digital Caliper

For general bike work I have 2 or 3 of the cheap HF ones scattered about the work areas as they are "close enough". If it's important I go get my Mitutoyo out of my big tool box.

I was taught that vernier meant, very near.

They can be extremely accurate, but require some feel and usually a magnifying glass to read, and yes, are almost impossible to ruin unless you bend them.

Any dial caliper should be periodically checked against a known standard.

Even the plastic digital ones should be good enough for anything you'd be doing on a bike unless you are actually machining parts.

If you are getting down to tenths, it's time to get the micrometers out anyway.

I use a 20+ year old HF digital caliper in the garage, and have another in my desk. We also get them at work. The quite rugged, and cheap enough to use for things you would never get close to with a Mitutoyo. The HF are good for ±.001"

And another HF caliper buyer. Make sure you get one that measures depth as well. I picked up one that also has fractions. It comes in handy. Get a free/cheap multimeter while you are there too.

-SP

My HF digital caliper seems to work well. Checked it a few times against the analog (?) cheap caliper it replaced and they seemed to agree with each other.

Thanks for all the recommendations! I think I'll be getting one of thes is my Xmas stocking. I'll probably get my 9 yo old one as well. He loves this kind of stuff.

My old school eyes find that a simple magnifier does wonders in reading verneir scales. Andy.

I have one of those HF calipers. I checked it against a set of gage blocks, and it's accurate. On the other hand, the readout updates slowly, and it goes through a battery in a few months.

I've also got a Mitutoyo vernier with both inch and mm scales, and a Mitutoyo dial. When I got a new seatpost, I decided to try all of the calipers for the task of discerning the 0.2 mm increments of seatpost diameters. They all did just fine. A magnifying glass definitely helps for the vernier. What helped even more was checking the table of seatpost diameters at St. Sheldon's site.

Another vote for the HF digital caliper. I will also attest to the terrible battery life though. Mine will kill a new battery in a few months even if i don't use it.

Large screen with 1/2" numbers
Blindman's Fractional Electronic Caliper - Lee Valley Tools

One thing to remember: it's a measuring device, not a clamp. I like digital calipers, but all I have at home is dial calipers. Life is too short for vernier calipers. Vernier micrometers are ok.

I would go to Shars and get one before I use one from HF.

I always figured HF had a buyer in China that looks for the worst example of any given item to stock in their stores.

No, Vernier was a French mathematician, who invented the Vernier scale to allow reading measurements more accurately. The Vernier scale slides along the primary one, and where they are in line with each other indicates the distance between primary measurements on the main scale. Thus if a measurement is between 4 and 5mm and the two scales meet at 7 on the Vernier scale the measurement is 4.7. Digital calipers are therefore not correctly called Vernier calipers, as they make no use of that feature.

Another vote for HF digital calipers. Mine are a few years old and work great. I wouldn't use it on the space shuttle but for anything bike related it's good enough.

I have plenty of experience with nice Mitutoyo gauges at work. They're excellent but I wouldn't spend the money on one for home use.

As long as your not machining parts for a precise tolerance they are fine.

For some reason the garage has Snap-On utility pick set that I like better than the Park offering, I've got a Pedro's Double Rock Stand that I like better than the Park professional shop stands, and I use a quality Precision Instruments dial type torque wrench that doesn't lose its accuracy from not being "dialed down" and is accurate throughout the whole range unlike a Park, Pedro's, or Effeto Mariposa click style. So I like using good tools, not just good enough.

That being said I do use the Harbor Freight 6" digital caliper. I probably use that tool in my bike shop more than ANY other single tool. Always working on tandems and the strange spacing and lack of a standard (160mm Santana, 145 Co-Motion and modern C'dales, 140 older C'dales, and 135mm some cheap steel Burley/Trek/etc tandems).

That same caliper is rebranded as Harbor Freight and can be had for as cheap as $12.99 with coupons, but it also sold in other venues branded as a Hornady Digital Caliper for shootists at Sportsman's Warehouse for $27.99:

Hornady Digital Caliper | Sportsman's Warehouse

I prefer Pedro's tools to Park typically, and really love Abbey bicycle tools. I'd buy an analog vernier caliper if Abbey ever made one, just because their stuff is gorgeous. I'd buy a Pedro's digital caliper if they ever made one, which they won't. Eventually I'll buy a Park, but I've never had a need. My cheapo HF tool works perfectly. The only precaution I take is I have to remove the battery from it after every use or it will die. Its stupid how cheaply HF sells the tool. Most HF stuff is just garbage but there are a handful of tools I have from HF that I put alongside anything else I have, believe it or not. They are accurate to about .005" which is beyond any tolerance needed for wrenching, even frame building, and are accurate enough that the user error in placement is more significant than their native accuracy.

best rated is this Mitutoyo $117 .. https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00...219.1449011549
Mitutoyo America Corporation - Precision Metrology Equipment

Starrett is the top US Brand Starrett Precision Measuring Tools and Saw Blades Since 1880

but under $20 is probably adequate.

I'm ashamed to admit that I gave that caliper to my good friend. I had bought a analog stainless steel caliper just the week before. (A birthday gift to myself.)

My friend had told me of his faithful HF digital caliper which still worked despite a healthy dose of carb cleaner. The special was so good and his need so obvious, I had little choice in the matter. Haha

I find it's often cheaper to buy a new HF caliper when on sale W/coupon than to buy new batteries for it.
I do like mtnbke and flip the battery over when not in use to keep it fresh.

It was a joke.

just about everything with a dial that needed precision had a Vernier scale in the pre-digital era.

Radio receivers and transmitters, surveying instruments, weapons of war, etc.

The tenths scale on a micrometer is also a Vernier scale.

The art comes in when the scales don't quite coincide and the you have to guestimate which gradation is

Very near.

I picked up a very nice Brown & Sharp on ebay for about $10 with a wood case and the T end fitting. It is an older model but looks like new.