Harbor Freight Digital Angle Guage and Protractor

[Uncle Hook]

The Harbor Freight Digital Angle Guage and 3 in 1 Digitial Protractor are on sale in stores through August 11, 2008 for $25.00 each.

http://www.harborfreight.com/cpi/cta...emnumber=95998

http://www.harborfreight.com/cpi/cta...emnumber=94694

[sweensdv]

Cen-Tech stuff is usually pretty accurate so that Angle Gauge could be another one of HF's gems.

[LCHIEN]

THREE 3-volt cells?! Probably the CR2032 or CR2025 Lithium coin cells. Cost you a fortune to re-battery that thing when the time comes. I think the Wixey only takes one Battery.

[sweensdv]

THREE 3-volt cells?! Probably the CR2032 or CR2025 Lithium coin cells. Cost you a fortune to re-battery that thing when the time comes. I think the Wixey only takes one Battery.

You're probably right and actually I, and hundreds of thousands of others, just received an email from Woodcraft stating they have the Wixey on sale for $29.99.

[jgscott987]

You can get button cell batteries on eBay for next to nothing. I've ordered several sizes and they have all worked great.

Here's one example- 10 CR2025s for $3 shipped. That's about what you'd pay for one battery at the drug store.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...m=360075087024

I don't know anything about this particular seller, it's just the first item that popped up. Just do a search for CR2025, or whatever you're looking for.

These things usually ship out of Hong Kong, but generally arrive within a week. Hard to imagine how they can profit on that.

[Bill in Buena Park]

You're probably right and actually I, and hundreds of thousands of others, just received an email from Woodcraft stating they have the Wixey on sale for $29.99.

I looked at the HF website, and I just saw this ad - so not having used one, I have a question about application.

It appears this measures blade angle relative to a theoretical dead-level plane. If so, accuracy of this type of angle measuring device is contigent on getting your TS table set to dead level. If you have a mobile base on your TS, and you move it, you'd need to reset to dead-level before each time you use this, right?

So for cabinet saws and non-mobile TS that are leveled, this could be handy. But for any kind of mobile saw, in addition to having your blade-angling mechanism well calibrated, wouldn't a protractor-style angle finder be the most accurate and expedient?

[LarryG]

Bill, these gadgets have a "ZERO" button (on the linked-to HF gauge, it's labeled "CALIBRATE") that you press to indicate the baseline for subsequent readings. It doesn't matter whether it's actual zero degrees ... the saw could be sitting ten degrees off-level, but the gauge would still consider that to be zero degrees, and would compute the relative angle from that.

[just started]

Larry's got it, and it will also stick to your band saw blade or drill bit in your DP to measure/verify those table settings. It can be used with non-magnetic surfaces also, just hold it in place while you take the readings.

[Bill in Buena Park]

Bill, these gadgets have a "calibrate" button that you press to indicate the baseline for subsequent readings. It doesn't matter whether it's actual zero degrees ... the saw could be sitting ten degrees off-level, but the gauge would still consider that to be zero degrees, and would compute the relative angle from that.

Thanks for the info, Larry - a calibration button makes sense. So each time you move a mobile saw, before making any mitre cuts, you should make sure the blade is square to the table and re-calibrate the gauge, correct?

[LarryG]

So each time you move a mobile saw, before making any mitre cuts, you should make sure the blade is square to the table and re-calibrate the gauge, correct?

Well ... not exactly, although that's close. For what follows, assume we're talking about a table saw.

You would begin by setting the saw up, placing the digital angle gauge on the table, and pressing the Zero/Calibrate button to zero it out.

You could then stick the angle gauge to the side of the theoretically perpendicular blade to verify that it is, in fact, perpendicular to the table. If it is, the gauge should now be reading 90*. If it isn't, your saw is out of whack. But this step is optional, because ...

... even if it is out of whack, technically that is irrelevant to making a bevel (you said mitre: more on that in a minute) cut at, say, 38* because you'd just crank the blade over until the gauge read 38*. The reading is relative to the "zero" baseline (whether or not it is actually zero in the real world) so it doesn't really matter if you started with the blade square to the table.

IOW, with one of these angle gauges, you set the blade angle using it alone, ignoring the degrees marks on the saw's tilt mechanism.

Regarding "mitre" vs. "bevel," AFAIK there's no way to use the first product, the digital angle gauge, to check the accuracy of a miter. For that you'd need the second product, the digital protractor.

BTW I don't own either; I just know how they work. The "zero" aka "calibrate" function is essentially identical in concept to that of a digital caliper, which I do own.

[LCHIEN]

technically, they're labeled "zero" buttons, they set relative zero.
"Calibrate" would generally imply that they make sure a degree is a degree, this is not calibrateable but set by a optically generated circular array of fine reference marks in the physical electronic sensing mechanism in this type of device.

Digital calipers also have a zero button, the reference marks are linear array (rather than circular) and used to count motion of the measuring head.

[radhak]

This has puzzled me - I have heard that the Wixey can measure only vertical angles, and cannot be used to measure (say) miter angles.

I assume that means it uses gravity in some way to do this measurement? Then how does the 'zeroing' out work? If not, then surely there must be some work-around to measuring a miter angle?
(okay, on second thoughts : mebbe the zeroing out marks the angle against gravity and measures subsequent angles relative to that...?)

I just now googled for it, and landed up at this page : the TS-Aligner Jr Lite. They claim to be a far better (more accurate and multi-faceted) tool than the Wixey and many others - for a price of about $79 for the lite version. Interesting...

[LCHIEN]

This has puzzled me - I have heard that the Wixey can measure only vertical angles, and cannot be used to measure (say) miter angles.

I assume that means it uses gravity in some way to do this measurement? Then how does the 'zeroing' out work? If not, then surely there must be some work-around to measuring a miter angle?
(okay, on second thoughts : mebbe the zeroing out marks the angle against gravity and measures subsequent angles relative to that...?)

I just now googled for it, and landed up at this page : the TS-Aligner Jr Lite. They claim to be a far better (more accurate and multi-faceted) tool than the Wixey and many others - for a price of about $79 for the lite version. Interesting...

basically you can think of it as having a pendulum internally, so the unit has to be upright. It measures angular rotation around an imaginary axis thru the center of the square face. Or another way of thinking, the face of the unit has to be vertical, and it tells you the tilt right or left.

there are what I call protractors, that have a lever arm and a straight arm. they measure the angle between the two arms and this work in any plane and would be good for measureing miter angles in a horizontal plane.

The good thing about the Wixey is that its free-floating, so when you attach it to the saw blade and turn the crank, you get a continuous reading of the blade angle even as its changing. The protractor, you have to keep moving the arms to match the angle - OK for measuring the angle of something that's fixed but less convenient for setting an angle. each has their own use, best get both.

this thread talks a bit about the differences and advantages of each type:
http://www.bt3central.com/showthread...&highlight=arm

[Uncle Hook]

I bought the Harbor Freight Cen-Tech digital angle guage and the Protractor and I did not consider the number of batteries they required. One nice feature of the Cen-Tech angle guage is that it has an auto off feature. I don't think the Cen-Tech protractor has this feature.

I had read somewhere that the earlier versions of the Wixey angle guage did not have an auto off feature. The Woodcraft website does not say which version they are selling, assuming that there are two versions of the Wixey guage.

[ke4rdb]

I have both got the protractor on sale for $19.95. It works very well for what it is designed to do. I've checked it and it is dead on accurate. I would buy again.
The angle finder I have seems to be off by .01 of a degree when zeroed (bounces between .00 & .01). i used it last night to reset the 90 and 45 degree stops on my Rigid TS3650 TS. The thing I found interesting is that when checking the angles on the left side of the blade I could get it set up to within .01 degree. But when checking the right side of the blade (after setting up on the left and locking) I could find as much as .03 of a degree difference ( say left side is 89.90 degree the right side would read 89.60 degree) This might have to do with the fact that the angle gauge is facing a diff direction. I also checked with various machinist squares and it looks like the left side is correct. Of course a .03 degree diff. is really pretty small when you think about all the moving parts involved. I would recommend this angle gauge. By way both this one and the wixley are both Chinese Manufacture. As for batteries I believe with out having it in front of me it does take 3 - CR2022 batteries. I can buy these in a pack of 5 at Dollar Tree for a buck.

James