Replacing the Screen on a Digital Caliper after I broke it dropping it on the floor.
Remove All Fragments of Glass
The thing is, I’ve had this digital caliper for a few years and I like it. The newer caliper I bought is just not as nice in it’s operation.
This is a Machine DRO digital caliper.
First task was to carefully remove all of the glass, glass fragments and the glue. I did this using a scalpel.
Old Glass versus New Glass
The original glass was 1.14mm thick. It also had a white and black masked edge that obscures the glue.
The new glass is even thinner at 0.98mm thick. Not quite right, but it’s what I have available.
I recovered this glass from old large format film slides. The film transparency is held between two sheets of this glass to protect it and to keep it flat.
Cutting the glass is quite easy. I use permanent marker on the glass to give me a surface to mark and see. I then place the glass on a clean and flat piece of MDF. A line is then scored with a diamond or a tungsten point. Here I’m using a tungsten point.
I then carefully align the scored line on the glass with the straight edge of the MDF and apply and steady pressure to the glass. It will then snap along this score line.
Grinding the Edges of the Glass
Grinding the edges of the glass is fairly easy on a diamond pad. These diamond plates are great as they are very flat.
However, you can do this with fine wet and dry paper. Just glue the sandpaper to a piece of flat board as you will then get crisper edges.
The corners were carefully rounded using the diamond pad. Keep checking the part against the slot it is to fit into as you don’t need much rounding.
The final piece of glass cut and ground to size. It’s not perfect, but it looks quite good and fits snug into the caliper.
Clean the Glass Thoroughly
I either clean the glass with soap and water or with methylated spirits. Sometimes both.
I used two tiny strips of double-sided tape to fix the glass in the aperture. There we are with a repaired digital caliper.
Replacing the screen on a digital caliper was actually quite easy.
