Detailing World Forum banner

CEM DT-153 Paint Thickness Guage

4K views 15 replies 4 participants last post by  CharliesTTS 
#1 ·
Hi all

After months of being undecided about whether to get one it arrived today, checked it on the shims and it was giving pretty accurate readings for FE and NFE Ferrous and Non Ferrous I believe.

I decided however that I could calibrate it and get it close to bang on, guess what, I've b-gg-red it up, it now is way out on the NFE readings ie 99um shim reads 155um, 0m reads 53UM etc, the FE readings however are still pretty accurate however. Tried for couple of hours to get it right, various youtube vids etc and failed miserably.

Its one step away from being sent back (glad I got it from amazon and not an ebay seller from China) unless anybody can advise on the calibration method or has any links for calibration that are in english.

I'm off work tomorrow so i'll give it one last go to get it right, so any ideas will be greatly appreciated.

Edit: title should read DT-156

Thanks all.
 
See less See more
#5 ·
Hi Phil

Yes I saw this video yesterday and it was the best I could find for calibration, Iv'e had another look again and I'm not sure I was hitting the zero key when calibrating the 252UM foil so try again.

Results after trying again and following the vid properly

Calibration

0.0UM shim calibrated
252UM foil calibrated

Switch off and try readings

252UM Foil reads 252UM consistently, success
0.0UM shim reads 0.5UM, 0.3UM etc ???
99UM Foil reads 73UM, 79UM etc ???

Tried again calibrating going through the same process with various foils 99UM, 252UM, 49UM etc and you only get success with the last foil calibrated, all others foils give vary degrees of incorrect readings including 0.0UM shim???

Stumped
 
#6 ·
Conclusion, I must have a dodgy guage but undecided as to whether to ask for a refund or replacement as it appears to be a popular reasonably priced PTG on the DW community.

Anybody got any thoughts or experience of other similar priced guages before I send back or get a replacement.

Cheers
 
#7 ·
I had this when I first had my gauge, and I eventually found it was down to the sequencing of the buttons in the process that I was doing slightly wrong. I watched the vid about 3 times, and then redid the process and realised I wasn't calibrating in the correct initial mode.

Once I corrected this, I could calibrate accurately every time. I suppose it is possible that you have a defective gauge, but as yours appears to be doing what mine was doing, I just wonder if you are doing the same as I was initially doing wrong?.

I have to say that I initially was about to return mine, but once I got the video and tried to make sense of it without any meaningful commentry, it was worth the effort, and I would not be without mine now.

I hope you find a solution to the issue,

All the best

Phil.
 
#9 ·
Well I tried again to get it calibrated twice and it was still giving the inconsistent readings for NFE whilst the FE readings we're pretty close, so it went back to Amazon on Monday and waiting on refund.

The good news is I found a secondhand Paint Detective PD8 for £ 95 on Ebay which arrived today which on unpacking looks like new and it works a treat, the NFE and FE shims consistently read 0.0 UM and the foils are accurate to within a few UM's. The only thing that was missing was the instruction manual and a quick email to Paint Detective and within the space of an hour a PDF arrived from Victoria.

So all in all a result apart from the initial few days of frustration as the PD8 seems a lot more user friendly :).

Still not sure though if the DT156 was dodgy or was it just me who couldn't work out how to calibrate it :confused:
 
#10 ·
I ordered mine just before I read this thread a few weeks ago......mine turned up yesterday and i'm in exactly the same boat!

Getting frustrated with it it after a few hours trying to calibrate...…...unfortunately I took the cheap route and purchased through ebay….its going back after another couple of attempts
 
#11 ·
Yes, the calibration process isn't what you would call easy, the instruction booklet wasn't a lot of help, some of the you tube vids are better, so it's either another dodgy one or there's a basic error in your calibration process, as with me, I wasn't sure.

If you send it back wait for a secondhand PD8 to pop up on ebay they can be had for similar money to a new DT156 and they are very easy to calibrate.
 
#15 ·
Well if you get it sorted you have more patience than me. Yet I believe it's very popular and it was the one that Jon (Forensic Detailing) was using on his PTG vid on you tube.

With the PD8 PTG I've now got you just zero the FE and NFE metal shins and that's it for calibration and then check against the various foils 49, 99 um etc and they read very accurate within a few ums etc.

Don't think at this price point £ 100 to £ 200 etc for the guages you are going to get any better than that.
 
This is an older thread, you may not receive a response, and could be reviving an old thread. Please consider creating a new thread.
Top