Can you read an analong vernier scale?

Can you read analog measuring devices?

  • Venier scale yes; analog clock no

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • I can neither read analog clock nor vernier scale

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • Total voters
    88
Joined
Feb 14, 2006
Messages
2,724
Given this, do you know how to read it?

vernierus4.png
 

DonShock

Flashlight Enthusiast
Joined
Dec 28, 2005
Messages
1,641
Location
Belton Texas
I read a decimal vernier scale fine, but I once had a caliper marked in fractional inches that I never was able to get the knack of reading without writing it out on paper. I finally chucked it.

Edit 10/26/06: Well, what do you know! I was digging in the tool box today and ran across the old P.I.T.A. fractional vernier caliper. Maybe I'll try it out again.
 
Last edited:

bobisculous

Flashlight Enthusiast
Joined
Apr 12, 2004
Messages
1,004
Location
H-Town, 29.756641, -95.355320
Haha! Heck yes! You gotta account for that space before Zero. I read analog watches just fine. I prefer analog, but like the functionality of digital watches, therefore my watch is both analog and digital.

-C
 

ABTOMAT

Flashlight Enthusiast
Joined
Jan 9, 2004
Messages
2,869
Location
MA, USA
I can read the decimal vernier and an analog clock just fine. My best verniers are fractional, however, and like DonShock I must resort to the pen and paper (or calculator) to figure out the finer readings. I really need to get a better pair of decimal verniers--it's a huge pain to do metalworking by converting back and forth. I also can read analog micrometers.

While I haven't been very impressed with society recently, it's a shock that they had trouble with people being able to read analog clocks.
 

Outrider

Newly Enlightened
Joined
Mar 3, 2005
Messages
141
Of Course it's 9.7. Easy for me, I'm older than digital anything. State of the art when I was in school was a (gasp!) circular slidrule. With an 8" you could read to .001 with very high accuracy, AND the battery never died. Of course you had to know how do the problem on paper, not just which button to push. Something very large has been lost and our kids are are the losers.
 

ABTOMAT

Flashlight Enthusiast
Joined
Jan 9, 2004
Messages
2,869
Location
MA, USA
I'm ashamed to admit I've never used a slide rule to solve a problem in dialy life. Always had trouble with numbers at length. My electronic calculator and I are very old friends.

(next to an SL Scorpion)
calc.jpg
 
Last edited:

TigerhawkT3

Flashlight Enthusiast
Joined
Jul 2, 2006
Messages
3,819
Location
CA, 94087
I learned how to use one in some lab section at my junior college a few years ago. However, I much prefer my electronic digital calipers. It's a lot easier on the eyes, with no guesswork.

I've been using the same TI-30Xa for around eight years. It's simple, yet powerful and lighweight. I also have a TI-86 gathering dust. My preferred graphing calculator is GraphCalc.

There was an article about slide rules in Scientific American a few months ago. I thought it might be interesting to have one as a quaint anachronism, but the few I could find online ran into the hundreds of dollars. I dropped that idea faster than a hot battery.
 

js

Flashlight Enthusiast
Joined
Aug 2, 2003
Messages
5,793
Location
Upstate New York
9.7.

The 9 comes from the zero mark on the moveable jaw falling between 9 and 10, and the 7 comes from the number 7 on the vernier scale being closest to exactly lining up with on of the marks on the top scale (doesn't matter what mark it lines up with, only that the "7" IS almost exactly lined up with ONE of the marks above. Notice that if the bottom jaw were pushed a bit more to the right, the "8" would line up, then with a bit more, the "9". That's how a vernier scale is designed.
 

js

Flashlight Enthusiast
Joined
Aug 2, 2003
Messages
5,793
Location
Upstate New York
I have a nice K&E slide rule sitting just to the right of my computer monitor. Just in case the power goes out. :D
 
Top