A paint thickness reading is only useful when the substrate under the paint is known, and on a modern car that substrate changes from panel to panel. This range is built around that problem: the probe identifies what it is standing on and the reading follows from there.
Product overview
Five models share one measuring engine, one 3500 µm range and the same ruby-tipped probe. What separates them is how the instrument is held and where it is used: a general-purpose body, a rechargeable version of it, a version with the probe on a cable, and two rated for cold bays, one of which carries a second screen that rotates.
The instrument is small enough to be held against a panel with one hand. There is one key and no menu; the reading appears when the probe is pressed down, and the backlight changes colour with the thickness band. For an inspector working along a row of cars, that matters more than a feature list.
The intended work is paint and body inspection: checking a delivered vehicle, verifying a repair, or screening stock. It reads the coating without cutting into it, so the same panel can be measured and then sold.
How the gauge reads through a coating
Two sensors sit in the probe and both respond to the gap between the probe face and the material beneath the paint.
Over a ferromagnetic substrate, a Hall effect sensor measures the field in a magnetic circuit that the coating interrupts. The coating is a non-magnetic gap, so the field strength at the sensor tracks the distance across it. Over a non-ferrous but conductive substrate, an alternating field induces eddy currents, and the impedance change in the coil tracks the lift-off. Both are relative measurements, which is why the instrument recognises the substrate before it reports a number: the same gap means different things under the two methods.
Recognition covers galvanised steel, steel, aluminium and non-metal panels. The last case is the one that catches people out: over plastic there is no substrate response to measure, and the reading is a coating thickness only in the sense that the probe is measuring the paint film itself against the body underneath.
Iron powder filler produces its own response, distinct from paint. The instrument flags it rather than reporting a paint thickness, which is the point: a filled panel and a thick paint layer are different facts about a car, and only one of them is a repair.
How to select the right gauge
Start with the panels. A steel body inspected at ordinary workshop temperature is served by the general-purpose model. A body that mixes steel, galvanised steel and aluminium is where automatic recognition earns its place, and every model in the range has it.
Then the access. Door frames, engine bays, the inner edge of a wing and the area behind a hinge are places the body cannot lie flat against, and the split probe on its cable is the answer. If the work is on flat panels and sills, the integral probe is quicker to place and there is one fewer part to damage.
Then the temperature. Two models are rated well below freezing and carry a display that keeps working there; the other three are for a normal bay. If the inspection happens outdoors in winter, this is a specification decision, not a preference.
Then the cell. Two models charge over Type-C and are rated for a large number of measurements per charge; three run on AAA cells that are replaced. A workshop that forgets to charge things should say so.
Finally the screen. The dual-screen model can be read from the front or the back of the body, which helps when the probe has to be pushed into a low sill or reached over a roof.
Measurement limitations and selection considerations
The gauge measures a coating over a substrate. It does not measure the thickness of the steel or aluminium itself, and it does not see a second coating layer separately: a panel with primer, colour and clear coat is read as one film. Where individual layers matter, a different instrument and a cross-section are needed.
Curvature and edges bias the reading. The field spreads sideways, so a measurement close to a panel edge, a swage line or a tight radius has less material around it than the calibration assumed, and the number drifts rather than failing outright. The minimum area and radius figures in the specification are the conditions under which the reading is valid, not a suggestion.
Thickness alone does not prove a panel is original. A repaint of the same thickness as the factory finish reads the same, and a filler repair under a thin topcoat can read as an ordinary paint film if the filler is outside the probe’s field. The instrument is a screening tool; the judgement still needs the panel history and, where it matters, a physical inspection.
Cold affects the display before it affects the measurement. Below the rated temperature the screen is the part that stops being readable, which is why the low-temperature models are specified by their display as much as by their range.
Panels that are plastic, or composite, or covered with a film, are outside what the substrate methods can resolve. Saying so in the enquiry is what gets the right instrument proposed instead of a number that looks plausible.
Every value below is taken from source documentation. Where a parameter is not stated in the available material it is marked as information required rather than estimated.
