I received a Cobalt talking tape measure from one of my daughters for my birthday several weeks ago. I hadn't purchased one myself considering them darn expensive and apparently a little fragile and unreliable. I still consider mine to be too expensive for the versatility however it is nice to walk about and check the measurements of things. today I confirmed the approximate amount of Arborite I need for a project with the tape, quick and dirty. It is a pain though to use to set a accurate measurement for say cutting something on my miter saw or table saw or other set-ups. When I put the siding up on my house it probably would have been accurate enough for that, you want to leave a little slop anyway to allow for expansion and locking a standard tape measure and hauling it down from a ladder without loosing the measure isn't without challenge.
So far my main complaint with the Cobalt is that the hook on the end isn't sufficient for one handed work. It slips off way too easily. This is mainly because the bottom of the tape is just a little too thick. It probably houses a light sensor or light source but what ever the situation, to reach out over the edge of a ladder to hook the end of the tape on the edge of a window frame or something and draw the tape out to the desired length just doesn't work. Similarly, to pull the tape out along a stud to trim some small length off of the end is pretty difficult to do alone. I anticipate that Dan is going to have trouble using the Cobalt for measuring on his deck project. Fortunately, one can usually default to the standard lumber lengths, that is, 8 or 12 feet for such a project. 8 or 10 bucks buys a pretty good tape at the local hardware store, if a hundred bucks bought us similar functionality I wouldn't be so picky. the Cobalt is an interesting device but I know I will cry when I drop mine or it slips off of my belt. Dale Leavens, Cochrane Ontario Canada [EMAIL PROTECTED] Skype DaleLeavens Come and meet Aurora, Nakita and Nanook at our polar bear habitat. ----- Original Message ----- From: Dan Rossi To: [email protected] Sent: Wednesday, August 01, 2007 4:54 PM Subject: RE: [BlindHandyMan] Talking tape measures The cobolt tape measure can be gotten from BlindMiceMart.com for 99 bucks and from one or two other places for 95 bucks but no idea of what the shipping is. Unless this double A model is significantly better, the Cobolt one is a better buy. -- Blue skies. Dan Rossi Carnegie Mellon University. E-Mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Tel: (412) 268-9081 [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
