Hi
I've had one of these tape measures for about 3 years now and it still works as good as the day I bought it. I've used it in my workshop for long periods so its had its fair share of knocks and dings as well as being covered in sawdust. I did happen to drop it once when the tape was out which produced a small kink in the metal, but it hasn't affected the accuracy at all. I did have a problem with the battery connecter at one time and got a sighted friend to cut the old one off leaving just enough of the red and black wires protruding to attach a new connecter. If you try this yourself you have to make sure you don't leave too much excess wire as the battery is a very snug fit in the compartment. Before I had the cobolt measure I had one made by Bosch which I bought from Screwfix, here in the UK. It had an LCD screen which I was just able to make out. Unfortunately one day when I retracted the tape the end came off and I lost the tape inside. As I was unable to fix it I bought a new one. However the design had changed and the LCD display was very much harder to see and so eventually I bought a talking one. I recently heard about a modified version of the Bosch tape measure which can be bought here in the Uk from a few suppliers. I bought mine from www.ic-online.co.uk and it cost £58. The model number is CT-VOXTAPE and below is a short description taken from the website. Accurate and Robust measure produced by Bosch and adapted by CareTec to offer excellent speech output with reliability. Measures in either metric or feet and inches up to 5m (16 feet). The Tape can be set at zero in any position, memorises a total of 60km (37.3 Miles). It's as accurate as the cobolt version, not as bulky and best of all in my opinion it only requires one AA battery. I'm sure there has been mention on here a few times about a talking measure that only requires an AA battery, but up until a short time ago I thought it was only available in the US or Canada. Anyone thinking of buying a talking measure should seriously consider this model as it's as about as accurate as you can get and of course accuracy is the key to doing good work. Darren. ----- Original Message ----- From: Howard Traxler To: [email protected] Sent: Friday, November 23, 2007 5:55 PM Subject: [BlindHandyMan] Cobolt Talking Tape Measure Has anyone else bought the talking tape measure; I think it's from Cobolt? Bought mine through SpeakToMe. It has stopped working a few times. I don't know what brought it back each time, but this time I think it's gone for good. When I put the battery in, it starts to say "error, memory clear, 0 milimeters". Sometimes it gets out the whole announcement and sometimes it doesn't get out the first sylable. After that, it's totally quiet except for a slight click when I put the battery in and out. When it was working last, it would continue to repeat the last measurement and not turn off. The last measurement, of course, was zero, as I had just retracted the tape. So, has anyone else had such a problem and what did you do about it? Was it a waste of money and can I get a good Braille tape measure somewhere? Thank you much, anybody. Howard K. Traxler, Technology Specialist www.TraxlerEnterprises.com /*-- THINK GOD --*/ [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
