DIGITAL CALIPER, Brown & Sharpe, 1982

The first idea to digitize caliper measurements was proposed in 1972 by the Swiss Meyer, the first president of the Swiss Sylvac;

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DIGITAL CALIPER, Brown & Sharpe, 1982
Swiss Tesa is part of the American holding giant B&S.
The American company "Brown & Sharpe" several times discovered fundamentally new directions of development of the world meter (the first serial modern micrometers of the 1902 model, the first modern digital calipers of the 1978 model, the first serial measuring hands of the 2000 model). According to the number of available US patents in the field of geometric measuring, B&S holds the championship together with the Japanese giant Mitutoyo.
The advent of digital electronic calipers in the late 1980s coincided with the Third Industrial Revolution (general automation).
Quite an interesting story of the emergence and development of digital electronic calipers:
The first idea to digitize caliper measurements was proposed in 1972 by the Swiss Meyer, the first president of the Swiss Sylvac;
The Swiss company Sylvac together with the Swedish company AB C.E.Lohansson in 1980 completed the development of caliper measurement technology by the phase shift method;
Japan's Mitutoyo and Switzerland's Tesa (part of the American B&S) patented their own electronic calipers with photovoltaic scales almost simultaneously in 1978, which were first manufactured by the Swiss in the same year (48-year-old advanced photovoltaic caliper Digit-cal II »From the Swiss-American" Tesa-B & S "is exhibited in our" Museum of Industrial Tools "MICROTECH);
Photovoltaic calipers require significantly more power than electrostatic calipers, which were completed in 1978 by the Japanese company Mitutoyo together with the Swedish Royal Institute;
The Japanese Mitutoyo manufactured its digital electronic caliper with an electrostatic incremental scale in cooperation with the Swiss Sylvac only 5 years later;
In 1983, the Japanese Mitutoyo patented a wire connection between an electronic caliper and a computer;
The incremental scale proved to be more energy-efficient than the photovoltaic scale, so the Swiss Tesa, 10 years after the manufacture of its first photoelectric caliper, began production in 1987 (according to a 1982 patent) of its own calipers with an electrostatic scale;
The famous American company Starrett intervened in the competition of two world giants in 1983 with its own patented caliper, but its calipers did not become more competitive;
Over the past 30 years, Japan's Mitutoyo has developed and patented more different types of incremental scales in the United States than any other global firm combined, but only a small number have reached customers;
Swiss Sylvac has developed, patented and started production in 2010 of innovative electronic calipers with an electromagnetic incremental scale with a resolution of 1 μm, which provided them with significant marketing advantages and rapid distribution around the world;
- In 2015, Ukrainian MICROTECH developed, patented and began production of several models of computer calipers with built-in microcomputers, which are adapted to the latest system "Industry 4.0".