Craftsman 3/8" Drive Digi-Click Torque Wrench $55 + Free In-Store Pick Up (expired)

how come the sale price isn't shown in the cart? it shows 99.99 for me. anybody else have the same problem?

Quote from TinCanFury : I've read and talked to many an auto mechanic that the electronic torque wrenches are not as trust worthy as the click-style, which are only nominally less trust worthy than the mechanical beam style, based on comparing the three. ie Beam>Click>>>electronic a few that I talked to said they use the Click style for bolts/etc first, then where the absolute torque can be off by a few lb/ft they leave good enough alone, for absolute they will then verify with the beam style.

That may be true at the very low end but not really true universally. My better digital wrenches are far more accurate and have much greater precision than any of the rest of the dial, clicker, and beam wrenches. But then they are designed to be and were a lot more expensive.

Also, you have more than one type of accuracy involved - instrument and practical. That is, the accuracy of the reading of the tool usually is less significant and somewhat independent of the accuracy in actual use in applying torque to a fastener.

Beam type wrenches generally aren't that accurate given fairly low-precision scales and difficulty in using them consistently at a practical level. But they are cheap and durable with nothing to break and they'll roughly return the same result over time/with use, so they work pretty well for higher-range things like wheels. Not so great for a series of bearing caps where actual values are critical and required tolerances are lower and consistency is more important. They're also kind of hard to use in some applications since you need to be able to see the scale straight on in order to see the value. Looking at an angle introduces a lot of error. Also at higher values the cheap ones start to have error due to the handle flexing relative to the needle and people use all kinds of bad techniques (bouncing, etc.) to try to get them to hit high numbers. But again for something like wheel you don't really need to be that accurate anyway so they're not a bad choice.

Clicker-type wrenches are better in terms of accuracy (assuming a decent wrench and the calibration is good anyway) and generally yield better practical results for most people since they break over at the same set mark. You have to have pretty bad technique or actively try to miss your setting when using them even where you can't see the scale. That's why most assembly operations use these types of wrenches, They can be calibrated, set, locked, and handed off to a monkey and they'll end up fairly consistently actually delivering N torque +/- whatever instrument error is to N fasteners x 1,000. The down side is that the springs, pawl, and other parts wear and most don't maintain accuracy as well as some other types so they need to be calibrated to maintain instrument accuracy. That's what you're paying for with the better tools (beyond brand names) - better quality, better QC, more durable components, springs that are more consistent, factory calibration, etc.

Dial-type tend to be very accurate at an instrument level but again without a break/stop, they require more in the way of technique in order to yield good practical results. That is, even with a beep/light, you can come up more short/over your mark by percentage of error that's greater than instrument accuracy fairly easily.

Higher-end electronic wrenches do all kinds of tricks. I can get precision down to 2 decimal points, have it alarm as I approach a value and/or some limit range above/below, record the actual application curves, set steps, get the deviation across a series of fasteners, etc., etc.

But that's not really what w're talking about with something like this Sears wrench. Basically, all they've done is add a display and some sensors to a regular old wrench. Assuming that the sensors that they use are decent, then the displayed instrument accuracy should be reasonably good. But it's not going to be any better than the wrench that it's built on (possibly worse given variance between sensor/wrench). My main concern would be more along the lines of reliability versus accuracy. You're kind of just making a simple tool more complicated and dependent on that display. It may show readings at a greater level of precision, but you're not really getting any better accuracy. Mostly just introducing more things to go wrong with it.

Please keep in mind this wrench measure just clockwise direction!
For some rear cases like left thread and some other it won't work.

Quote from dphamt : how come the sale price isn't shown in the cart? it shows 99.99 for me. anybody else have the same problem?

It was a deal of the day that ended yesterday.

DEAD

In for one, ordered yesterday, before the deal is dead, thanks.

EDIT - points fixed themselves.

Got my torque wrench today. Looks and feels great! Now to get some batteries and test it out.

Quote from decolores9 : Beam type torque wrenches are the most repeatable, accurate wrenches, because they indicate torque base on the physical properties of the beam material, which does not change. However, we can only read a pointer on a dial to about 5% accuracy, but that is well within the torque range for nearly everything.

Maybe in theory but not at the level of the typical $10 Harbor Freight beam wrench with a poorly marked, low-precision scale that was slapped on by a Chinese guy making $2/day and a needle that doesn't even align with zero at rest which doesn't even start moving until you hit 40 ft. lbs. ; )

Quote : The click and electronic torque wrenches change slightly with every use as well as simply in storage, which is why they have to be recalibrated every 6 months. The electronic wrenches report more digits in the readout, but it's not actually an increase in accuracy - 100 ft-lbs of torque measured to an accuracy of 1 ft-lb is still 100 ft-lbs whether the wrench reports it as 100 ft-lbs or 100.893764 ft-lbs. For applications requiring more accuracy, the split beam type torque wrench is the most accurate - but they are also more expensive and difficult to use.

Yep, as I said above.

The better resistance-/clicker-type wrenches really don't change that much in most cases in my experience from whatever they are off to begin with in any short period of time unless there's some problem. But if you're doing something critical then you obviously do need proper calibration.

The better electronic wrenches do in fact deliver greater accuracy as well as greater precision. For example, a CDI wrench that I have is rated at +/- 1% from 20 - 100% of scale, CW and CCW, at 0.1 increments from 25 to 250 ft. lbs. You're not getting close to that with anything else. They and the dial-type both work on the same basis as do the split beam, i.e., torsion versus resistance in the case of the click. They simply display the information in different ways and, in the case of digital, employ electronic sensors. But again we're not talking about the cheaper Sears digital wrenches as here.

Don't know if this is the right location to post this, but here are possible alternatives if a Digital Torque Wrench is not your thing, and you prefer a clicker:

http://www.sears.com/craftsman-mi...931424000P
http://www.sears.com/craftsman-mi...931423000P

$33.99 (Regular price $79.99)

A little update after I did some research on these as I wasn't familiar with this exact model.

I was surprised, these aren't actually digital torque wrenches. They're over glorified clicker wrenches. There is no strain gauge employed, at all, on these units. Highly disappointing. I would say their sales description might be a little misleading, or actually my fault for assume a digital torque wrench meant, a digital torque wrench. This only sets digitally, the torque is still accomplished with using a spring and detented ball, just like this Craftsman wrench for $22 less. [sears.com] And now you get to keep watch batteries on hand just to use a clicker torque wrench with no real gain! Pass!

Quote from LordAthens : A little update after I did some research on these as I wasn't familiar with this exact model. I was surprised, these aren't actually digital torque wrenches. They're over glorified clicker wrenches. There is no strain gauge employed, at all, on these units. Highly disappointing. I would say their sales description might be a little misleading, or actually my fault for assume a digital torque wrench meant, a digital torque wrench. This only sets digitally, the torque is still accomplished with using a spring and detented ball, just like this Craftsman wrench for $22 less. [sears.com] And now you get to keep watch batteries on hand just to use a clicker torque wrench with no real gain! Pass!

can you explain more?

i need to tourq something at 14ft lbs. if i choose this setting will it stop at 14 lbs? or keep going or make a noise or something?

and what type of batteries does it need? AA? AAA?

Quote from timtim2008 : can you explain more? i need to tourq something at 14ft lbs. if i choose this setting will it stop at 14 lbs? or keep going or make a noise or something? and what type of batteries does it need? AA? AAA?

The only thing digital to it is the "set" display. It uses a digital display to set the torque value instead of laser engraved or embossed numbers on the handle. Otherwise, it is just a plain old clicker-type torque wrench. If you set it to 14 ft lb, the head will click, just as less expensive wrenches do. I suspect they were trying to get customers to believe that it was a strain gauge type of wrench, which are far, far more accurate. This is not the case.

Quote from decolores9 : All he is saying is that this wrench uses a click-type mechanism rather than a strain guage. As a result, it will have the calibration and inconsistency issues that affect all click-type and spring-based torque wrenches. True digital wrenches use a strain guage to measure torque and can achieve accuracy and repeatability as good as or better than a beam type torque wrench.

^ This