Unpopular opinion: that cheap $60 laser level from Harbor Freight worked better for me than my $400 Bosch

I hung cabinets in a 1950s kitchen remodel near Austin last month and grabbed the cheap laser as a backup. The Bosch kept drifting after 20 minutes on a hot day but the little red one held its line for 8 hours straight. Anyone else have a budget tool that outperformed the expensive stuff on a real job?

2 comments

2 Comments

grant72823d ago

Did you ever notice the cheaper lasers seem to hold up better when it's hot? I had a similar thing with a $25 bubbler level from the hardware store that stayed true all summer while my nice digital one kept giving me bad readings after an hour in the sun. The cheap stuff sometimes just works good enough for what we need, especially when the expensive gear gets finicky with the heat.

patriciam2223d ago

Dust off that bubble vials or check it against a known straight edge before you write off the digital one, because sometimes the cheap stuff just has fewer things to break in the first place. @grant728 nailed it with the heat issue, those expensive electronic levels have a lot of sensitive parts that can get thrown off by expansion or component drift. My old Bosch started acting up on a 95 degree day, but the basic red beam from Harbor Freight held solid even when the glue on the laser housing itself felt soft. There's something to be said for a tool that's basically a simple diode in a plastic box versus a computer with a calibration setting.