I wouldn't say ONLY Mitutoyo or Starrett. Many cheap, even budget priced calipers can be good. I has a 9.99 mastercraft digital last for almost 2 years at work. Calibrated every 6 months, never had to replace the battery. It probably measured 20,000 parts Including probably 200 setups, layout, and fixturing, it probably took 50000 measurements. The sticker fell off the front of the scale, it got soaked in cutting oil and water soluble oil coolant and would stop working or give crazy measurements jumping tens of inches (nothing a shot of methyl hydrate or contact cleaner wouldn't fix). Well worth the 10 bucks.
That said, you get what you pay for. Coolant/water resistant is nice, carbide points is nice, a nice tight fitting mechanism that you can feel the smoothness that only money can buy, these things increase cost and price almost exponentially. More often than not, they are not any more accurate than any other caliper (.001 maybe instead of .002 for cheapies, but more likely the same. A wise old machinist (teacher in college) once told me to never trust a caliper for anything tighter than .003. I've experienced it working in the aerospace industry, almost nothing is measured with a caliper. For the price of a halfway decent digital caliper (about $100) you could buy a 0-4" set of Fowler micrometers that will forever be more accurate.
That said, you get what you pay for. Coolant/water resistant is nice, carbide points is nice, a nice tight fitting mechanism that you can feel the smoothness that only money can buy, these things increase cost and price almost exponentially. More often than not, they are not any more accurate than any other caliper (.001 maybe instead of .002 for cheapies, but more likely the same. A wise old machinist (teacher in college) once told me to never trust a caliper for anything tighter than .003. I've experienced it working in the aerospace industry, almost nothing is measured with a caliper. For the price of a halfway decent digital caliper (about $100) you could buy a 0-4" set of Fowler micrometers that will forever be more accurate.
