Tools, Parts and Supplies

Digital and Dial Calipers

I started out using a digital caliper and love its three modes, but I don’t use it that much and the battery wears out way too fast. So I switched to a dial caliper like the one shown further down the page, that doesn’t require a battery. A dial caliper is a little harder to use, and the small numbers on it are tough on my old eyes. Oh, and you’ll need to be comfortable with a little bit of math, but once you get the hang of it, it’s fine.

Digital Calipers

Digital caliper

Digital calipers are accurate, easy to use, and many brands have three modes — decimal, millimeter, and fractions (I love these conversion features). But the battery drains over a couple of months, even though it has auto-shutoff after a minute or two of inactivity.

So if you don’t use it a lot, you’ll want to remove the battery between uses or stock up on spare batteries.

Perhaps a better option would be to purchase a dial caliper which doesn’t need batteries.

Here is an ‘Amazon Choice’ caliper at Amazon

Dial Calipers

Dial caliper

An analog (dial) caliper might be a good choice if you don’t use calipers a lot. It doesn’t have the automatic Inch/Fractions/Millimeter conversions that digital calipers have, but it does have inch and fraction readings that are easy enough to use. And it doesn’t have a battery to drain.

You’ll want to be ok using a little simple math (like adding decimal places or fractions sometimes. Watch the videos below to see what I mean.)

If you have trouble reading small type, or are severely math-challenged, the big, automatic display on the digital caliper might be worth the extra battery usage.

Here’s an ‘Amazon Choice’ dial caliper.

If you use metric as your main measurement system, just add ‘metric’ to the search.

Here’s a short and general tutorial from a gun-related Youtube channel. Regardless of how you feel about guns, it’s an excellent brief tutorial on how to use calipers and how to read a dial caliper.

Here’s a much more in-depth tutorial on dial calipers from a machinist.


Conductive copper tape

Conductive copper tape (conductive adhesive too, so it’s conductive on both sides).

Solder station

Tin Snips (Officially called aviation snips).

You can get these at Amazon or maybe at your local hardware store. See my write up about these on my blog here.

Wire Cutter
Wire Cutter

3D Printer

Monoprice 3D Printer
Monoprice 3D Printer

See my blog post here for more about the 3D printer.