Harbor Freight electronic calipers warning

"Youuu Rangggg?" ;-)

Not today, though. I have roughing-in 5 can lights on the list for today, and they're close by.

And a half dozen little calls in various far-off directions backed up because of the weather, not worth chancing it for the amount of the potential bill...

I try not to play Bumper Cars except at an amusement park. So when the weather gets bad I sit it out (except for true emergencies) and watch everyone *else* go way too fast in the rain/snow, follow far too closely, and slam into each other too solidly - on the Evening News, not in the target cross-hairs. Keeps the insurance rates reasonable.

• * * * * * * * * * * * * * * You can buy good shop lights and put them up yourself, the trick is in bringing along your Big Brass Ones and ignoring the "Cheaper is Better!" voice in your head.

Get the good Lithonia shop fixtures for $35 to $45 each instead of the crap Lights Of America for $12. Double the light efficiency, double the lamp life, and triple the fixture service life. And the proper high-frequency electronic ballasts will reduce strobing issues with lathes and drills, so you aren't tempted to grab a spinning chuck that looks stopped...

Oh, and if they are open reflectors get some Tube Guard sleeves too.

I pulled out the Keyless Porcelains and made them switched duplex outlets on the garage ceiling, and have most of my lights chain hung with cord drops and a few cube taps in the popular spots - you move things around too often to fight with hardwired lights.

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WOW, an ON topic post! My 12" Mitutoyo calipers turn off after about 15 minutes and then I need to re-zero.

These are 20 year old digital calipers so the newer ones could very well be different.

Seen Precision Machinist lately Charlie?

Best, Steve

Nah just nearfield magnetic flux.

--Winston

Thanks Don - I'll keep that in mind.

Hul

Winston - good point. The 8 in. caliper was losing the reference in an easily replicated way. The 12 in. devices wouldn't loose a digit in my living room. In the shop with, a dc motor running, they certainly would. I'll try to verify the motor being the cause tomorrow.

Hul

Sigh. 'Prolly' the comment of a know it all. :(

The RFI is caused by the circuitry rectifying the RF, and injecting noise into the analog portions on the equipment. At RF levels high enough to affect the digital portion can destroy the equipment. A fluorescent light generates noise well past 4 GHz. I used to use the one on my bench to test C-band LNAs, LNBs & LNCs before I got a calibrated C-band signal generator. Simply holding one end of a signal diode and connecting a voltmeter between the other end and earth (Safety ground) will show you how much energy is wasted as RF in fluorescent lights. I made a test fixture to sort thousands of small signal diodes by output voltage about 40 years ago. The ones with the highest output gave the highest sensitivity as a detector. I tossed the worst, and used the rest for diode logic circuits.

Are we sure it couldn't be moist, fluoridated humidifier air causing the problem? Maybe a little more would wash away that flux.

-- However beautiful the strategy, you should occasionally look at the results. -- Sir Winston Churchill

Oh! I've got a Starrett 150mm one -- from back when the bezel around the crystal was metal instead of black plastic.

And given that it is a dial caliper -- the question should have been "how does it feel?" The Starrett (metric) dial caliper feels a lot smoother than the Phase-II (inch) dial caliper, but both work well enough.

And, I've recently had occasion to use the 24" Scherr-Tumico vernier caliper which I picked up at a hamfest this last summer. It is the style with inside measurement jaws ground on the outside of the outside jaws, and you flip it over for a second scale and vernier to read from the inside measurement jaws. I wasn't sure that I would need it, but it was in very nice condition, and in a nicely fitted wooden case. (And, the vernier scale is stretched out more than the usual ones, making it easier to read with old eyes. :-)

Enjoy, DoN.

Wash it away? I was gonna store it in a flux capacitor.

--Winston

Yes -- but that gets expensive -- buying four of the adaptors per caliper. The prices are not too bad for photographic equipment.

I've verified that it will run from 6.000 V, instead of the

5.400V from four mercury cells in series. But the problem with the silver oxide cells is the shape. The PX-13 (or was it the PX-625?) has a shape sort of like this (view with a fixed pitch font like Courier to avoid the distortion which would come from a variable pitch font as is common in todays programs which act as newsreaders): (-) ________ /________\ (_.........._) |________|

(+)

And the cell holder for the caliper really *depends* on that shape to make connections between the cells, and to force the proper ones to be + side up.

So -- I plan to modify the cell holder (or make a new one if necessary) to accept two 2032 cells instead (provides enough voltage, and a lot easier to find). And -- with a switch, I should not have to replace them as often -- unlike the Starrett, it is not easy to pop the battery pack off when you put it away.

[ ... ]

Yes, I am afraid that you are right. The only caliper which I have bought new (other than the 12" Mitutoyo) is the nameless one from a hamfest about three years ago. To identify it, the only text on the beam (other than coarse printed inch and mm scales) is the words "Electronic Digital Caliper", but on the back of the carriage are two tables -- giving dimensions for metric/iso screws (3 mm to 20 mm), and Whitworth screws (1/4" to 1") -- a strange set of tables for a caliper sold in the USA, but I find it convenient to have both available. Oh yes, it also has the CE certification symbol on the same label with the thread tables.

Enjoy, DoN.

What? You got Doc to sell one to you? Have any spares? And for that matter, do you have any spare DeLoreans? Or a Mr. Fusion? The latter would be my absolute favorite choice.

Goodbye, plugging in your electric car every night.

-- However beautiful the strategy, you should occasionally look at the results. -- Sir Winston Churchill

(...)

We have a fusion reactor on line now, to offset the cost of electricity and natural gas. Instead of wires, we use an optical connection.

You can use the reactor free, to heat water and air:

--Winston

I bought the HF solar panel kit that often sells for $149 for experiments and our week-long storm power outages. Its output has been barely enough to run this laptop a few hours a day and catch the news and weather on TV.

jsw

HAH! I'd like to see you even attempt to modify the output of "your" fusion reactor, sir. Please don't try, but -do- tell me how you'd go about it.

-- However beautiful the strategy, you should occasionally look at the results. -- Sir Winston Churchill

(...)

Short answer:

The low-hanging fruit in solar energy are hot water and space heating. Those are the best kept secrets.

Tedious stuff you already know:

Photovoltaics aren't ready for prime time for

*most* uses. Even at $3.00 / Pk watt they are about 10 x too expensive. With the system you mention at ~$9.00 per year of production, pay-back takes *forever*. For offgrid, they are hard to beat as a small part of a multi-sourced alternative energy approach.

Having said that, I have three PV - powered attic ventilators running right now that were easy to install and didn't require any electrical work by yours truly (and no 'electricians' mucking up other parts of the house). These vents were stunningly expensive as I've mentioned before, but they have been a blessing because they dropped the temperature and humidity in both the attic and garage, greatly increasing my quality of life and the lifetime of my new (incredibly expensive) roof.

--Winston

It's like jumping into a running jet engine. It ain't necessary or even a good idea. :)

You want more hot air or water? Use more collectors.

--Winston

My solar water heater is waiting for a free replacement tank to appear. It was saving about $0.07 in warm water per laundry load, so the priority is low. The solar clothes dryer still works fine, all year round in NH.

jsw

(...)

Excellent!

--Winston

I'm working on a lunar collector. Only silver will work for the mirror so I need help from investors.

jsw