Summary

+The Litko ruler is almost exactly 12" (11.9955")

+The FFG ruler is under 12" (11.955")

+The Corsec ruler is very slightly shorter than the FFG ruler (11.92") but the FFG ruler is not cut very square, so this is a fudgy number

+Without more FFG rulers to determine production variance, it is difficult to evaluate whether these 3rd party rulers are appropriate for use

Background

Aftermarket rulers should fall within the natural variation of the supplied Armada ruler. Especially in boundary cases, a small but significant difference in printing/manufacturing may result in an attack being legal/illegal.

Scope

1 sample each of FFG's ruler, Litko's red range ruler, and Corsec's green ranger ruler were examined using Mitutoyo calipers (calibrated).

Examination

All rulers were lined up on the "blast" side and then compared. Some fish-eyeing is going on, so the rulers' offsets look kind of worse than they actually are.

This is the end of the ruler. In order of lengths: Corsec (11.920"), FFG (11.955"), Litko (11.996"). You can see that the FFG ruler is not actually cut square such that the right hand side is much closer to the Corsec length.

The short/medium ends. You can see that the Corsec ruler is offset by about the same distance for both medium and short (.0280"). The Litko range bands are just plain differently spaced and are impossible to simultaneously align. The "medium" band takes out the variation that may be due to the die-cut being offset on the FFG ruler and so I think makes the best test of the production capability of each company. With this regard, the Corsec can line up almost exactly (.005" too long) while the Litko is clearly impossible to align (.025" too long).

Conclusion:

I have a hunch that the CorSec ruler will comfortably fall within production variation of the FFG ruler because I believe the offset is probably due to variation in the die cutting machine. I contacted Litko about the inaccuracy of their ruler, to which they responded that it matches the sample they have exactly. I find that hard to believe based on how repeatable printing itself is (which ought to guarantee that medium band is identical, as is the case for the CorSec). Also, due to the natural bend of the cardboard, the "practical length" of the FFG ruler for range checking is pretty much identical with the CorSec. In short, while I think the Litko ruler looks the nicest, the CorSec ruler is probably the one you want to buy if matching the original ruler is a greater concern. If I ever get some more rulers to compare, I'll update this post.

If you're curious, they cost about the same (8.99, plus shipping and whatnot).

By the rule definition the range ruler is supposed to be 12".

Sounds like Litko is the most accurate.

Oddly enough mine match up for my CorSec. I use them almost exclusively but I have 2 coreset rulers as well.

The Tournament rules allow for the variation and a player can request that they use the same ruler if they want in a tournament.

If you ask me, you'll need more rulers for this to be truly interesting, especially FFG's cardboard ruler (which I imagine has a larger variance to it, being cardboard, and since it is the norm the others should follow). Otherwise, you don't really know what is an acceptable range for the other rulers to be within.

Yup, the FFG cardboard rulers will have variations in them and FFG has even stated as much in the tournament rules.

I have a third party range ruler myself (Applied Perspectives.) I'm not sure I've ever compared it directly to another range ruler to verify it's accuracy. Then again it's not obviously aberrant, so it's never been an issue at any tournament yet.

If you ask me, you'll need more rulers for this to be truly interesting, especially FFG's cardboard ruler (which I imagine has a larger variance to it, being cardboard, and since it is the norm the others should follow). Otherwise, you don't really know what is an acceptable range for the other rulers to be within.

If you want to send them to me, preferably inside more unopened core sets, I'd be happy to oblige .

Seriously though, I agree, but I thought I'd post initial findings for those who would like to make their own decisions about which 3rd party ruler to purchase.

If you ask me, you'll need more rulers for this to be truly interesting, especially FFG's cardboard ruler (which I imagine has a larger variance to it, being cardboard, and since it is the norm the others should follow). Otherwise, you don't really know what is an acceptable range for the other rulers to be within.

If you want to send them to me, preferably inside more unopened core sets, I'd be happy to oblige .

Seriously though, I agree, but I thought I'd post initial findings for those who would like to make their own decisions about which 3rd party ruler to purchase.

Sure! Just send me the money for the sets + shipping and I'll happily buy and ship them to you from Sweden

Absolutely, I think it's a good initiative and interesting to see how the differ. Although it seems, like previously stated, that the Litko is the best, since they are supposed to twelve inches according to the rule book.

Is there anywhere with the exact dimensions of the rulers. And the different sections? Short. Medium. Long range. Fighter 1,2,3,4 5 speed?

No, and purposefully.

Such information could only come from FFG themselves, and they're not releasing the information to the public.

I have a Corsec, which matches close enough to the FFG one I have. I think a less than one mm variance is totally immaterial.

Is there anywhere with the exact dimensions of the rulers. And the different sections? Short. Medium. Long range. Fighter 1,2,3,4 5 speed?

Just in case its poor manners to share the FFG dimensions, I'll only include the CorSec and Litko measurements:

Litko

4.8955

2.5195

4.5805

Corsec

4.8550

2.4885

4.5765

I also have the fighter distance rulers and will post a similar comparison as time permits. Spoiler: the CorSec, again, matches much more closely with the FFG ruler (though offset, again probably due to the die cutter location being different for each ruler), though the Litko is prettier and is actually 12".

I'd normally agree that the 1mm isn't such a big deal, but from the looks of it, Litko simply made a rounding error when they were programming their etching tool, as the error stack gets larger and larger with each range band. It'd be a simple fix for them, but hey, they didn't seem to put too much stock in my feedback.

Then it's good for them that their suspected rounding error made their ruler more accurate than FFG's.

To clarify: the Litko is only more accurate in overall length. The range bands are much less accurate than the Corsec in terms of matching the short/medium bands as well as the distance markings- that is the rounding error I'm referring to. There are multiple dimensions going on here.

-Your friendly manufacturing engineer.

So litko is the closest overall after a single test?

Lol...don't matter. Gonna keep using my Corsec, unless someone complains, which I highly doubt. But it's nice to know it matches closer.

In terms of matching... The technical specifications, or the punched FFG ruler?

I'm not sure that trusting the FFG range ruler to be infallible in regards to range/distance ticks is the best course of action considering that we already know that it is less accurate, and the most likely to have the highest margin of variation.

Although the technical measurements are not publicly available the site I bought mine from said that his were made to the provided technical specifications - obviously there is a reasonable amount of room for error, but I'm guessing that Litko might be following technical specifications, rather than CorSec which seems to (based on one sample) follow the FFG ruler.

In any case, the difference in ranges is completely negligible. If a shot is made or broken by less than a tenth of an inch, then the measurement is already prone to human judgement error anyway.

Lol...don't matter. Gonna keep using my Corsec, unless someone complains, which I highly doubt. But it's nice to know it matches closer.

Matches his one sample closer, but every metric of difference is less than 1/10 of an inch. Anyone who would have a problem with that... Well they're probably looking for justification to lose to you.

According to Litko, their ruler is based off a sample ruler in their possesion. It is possible the person I communicated with was mistaken, but I have no reason to doubt that response. I think maybe i was being unclear earlier about my observations, so I'll try another go:

I have worked with printed materrials before, and because they are typically high resolution they tend to be extremely repeatable. If you print multiple copies of a picture, you expect them to be identical to less than .0001" in terms of color placement (otherwise the printings would look pretty funny from one picture to another!)

Because the FFG ruler is printed, i expect the variation in their graphics to be so small as to be beyond measurement precision (barring exceptionally bad printing!). However, in addition to the printing is the die cutting and the natural variation in overall initial position of the cardboard both in the printer and the cutter.. This is where we expect to see the major differences in the rulers: the die cutter is a separate operation from the printer and will punch the otherwise identical graphic in a different place each time. What should stay constant, however is the relative distance from mark to mark (since thats independent of the die cutter) as well as the overall length (since unless its extremely old and worn out, die cutters tend to be pretty consistent in terms of the shape they punch). This is why i picked the "medium block" as a good metric for overall match to the ffg ruler. My observation is that the CorSec products are extremely faithful to these relative distances while the Litko exhibits tolerance stack up on the ticks as you go down the ruler (typical of rounding errors in manufacturing via numerically controlled tools) and its my gut instinct as a professional mfg engineer that they probably goofed on that part (as its not all that uncommon of a goof!)

However, they did make their ruler actually 12" unlike FFG so by that metric alone, Litko beats the ffg ruler as well!

No, and purposefully.

Such information could only come from FFG themselves, and they're not releasing the information to the public.

Or, you know, anyone with a range ruler and a measuring tape.

No, and purposefully.

Such information could only come from FFG themselves, and they're not releasing the information to the public.

Or, you know, anyone with a range ruler and a measuring tape.

But people are already establishing, including FFG, that due to the Die Stamping nature, each FFG one is potentially incorrect in some way.

Sure, you can get close by measuring them - even arguably close enough to not care,

But its not an official designation of measurement intention .

Deliberately, we get rulers that are close enough rather than exact ... And the exact measurements are not stated, in such a way as to make all 3rd party rules just as potentially inexact .

That is what my statement was getting at.

Due to the nature of die-cutting cardboard, about half the rulers will not be accurate. Thanks to the Target clearance sales at $12, I wound up with a very large stack of X-Wing core sets in order to field squadrons of fighters for big scenario games. I recycled all of the range rulers that were shorter than 30cm and/or misprinted such that the lines didn't match up on the two sides.

I kept 8 out of 16.

As shown, FFGs rulers are not 100% accurate. They themselves acknowledge this.

Therefore a variance of 1mm or so simply isnt important (and in fact since 30cm/12" is the correct ruler length, some of these are BETTER than FFGs). Anyone that complains about such a tiny difference needs a slap. Obviously if the variance is significant, sure....but 0.5-1mm isnt.

What is the width of the distance separator line?

Also, kinda tired, but given your picture shows the die isn't square, could the measurement vary from side to side?

Finally, couldn't we see printer to printer and die to die variance (we're different printers and dies used?)

If we really wanted to establish the "correct" values, shouldn't we compare the rulers against a sample set of the range rulers?

Is there anywhere with the exact dimensions of the rulers. And the different sections? Short. Medium. Long range. Fighter 1,2,3,4 5 speed?

Just in case its poor manners to share the FFG dimensions, I'll only include the CorSec and Litko measurements:

Litko

4.8955

2.5195

4.5805

Corsec

4.8550

2.4885

4.5765

I also have the fighter distance rulers and will post a similar comparison as time permits. Spoiler: the CorSec, again, matches much more closely with the FFG ruler (though offset, again probably due to the die cutter location being different for each ruler), though the Litko is prettier and is actually 12".

I'd normally agree that the 1mm isn't such a big deal, but from the looks of it, Litko simply made a rounding error when they were programming their etching tool, as the error stack gets larger and larger with each range band. It'd be a simple fix for them, but hey, they didn't seem to put too much stock in my feedback.

So, looking at these values, the correct design values are:

4.9

2.5

4.6

Which strangly matches the design length of 12 inches.

Which means the Litko ruler is a closer match to the design specifications.