I've been wanting to do this for a very long time. Glad to see what is involved. Thank you for doing the work!

Awesome video. I have a couple of calipers like these and I have been suffering the same problem. Great mods. Man, that first mod got complicated and seemed like it was a pain. But you're right, it looks really good.

I bought a cheap Parkside digital caliper from Lidl 3 years ago. Use it almost every day, never changed the battery. I am very positively surprised by that caliper. I think I paid $7-8 for it. Thx for the video.

I have a Fluke DVM that I used for work back when I was a computer technician. It was given to me as part of my tool kit. I stored it in my tool bag. That job ended in 1990. Last month, I found the toolbag after a move to a new home. I opened it up, and there was the Fluke. I turned the switch to AC volts, and it immediately powered on! 33 YEARS later! I was astounded, and wondered if it was nuclear powered. 😊. Nope, I had to unscrew the back, and found a simple 9V battery. I am still amazed.

That is some other level tinkering. Fantastic job!

If you have access to a 3D printer (personal, buddy, local library, etc) there are some designs on the various 3D model repositories that provide a mechanism to slide a thin bit of plastic between the negative battery terminal and the battery. These typically come in three pieces and require the caliper's board to not have any parts between the data connections and the battery terminal. One piece is the slide with a thin section on one end (typically 1-2 print layers thick for a 0.2mm layer height) and a handle at the other end. One piece is a guide for the slide that fits inside the caliper. And the last piece is a replacement door for the data port cover with a slot for the slide. In use, you pull the slide up and the battery contact can touch the battery. When done using the caliper, press the handle down to disconnect the battery. I use this on my El-cheapo brand, but as I recall I did have to trim the guide a little after printing to fit in my calipers.

What I did was harvest a 3.7V to 1.5V step down PCB from one of those USB-C rechargable AAA batteries. The PCB and a slider switch were JB Welded to the housing and a tiny 180 mAh lipo battery was attached using double-sided tape. I can recharge it via USB-C in 10 minutes. Ugly but functional. No more button cells for me :)

I hot glue a AAA battery on the back of the calipers, and run a pair of wires in through the battery compartment lid. Works for a few years, with no user input required. Not as neat, but less work.

Thanks for sharing! Might do this to mine!

I highly recommend those extended narrow tip's you can put on the superglue bottles. I have had great success with the superglue (especially the thin) going where I want it vs all over...and instead of the bottle being a pain to open the lid on, it stays almost totally clean after even using half a bottle. I will have to keep this fix in mind if I have more issues with my digital caliper.

My 30 year old Mitutoyo caliper goes years on a battery, and I often forget to turn it off.

The Calipers supplied under Insize brand and Moore & Wright brand use a larger diameter 2032 coin cell which is 3.6 volt and lithium chemistry. They seem to last a lot longer than these cheaper types that use a LR44 button cell. There is also something else you should read up on the recommendations to use a SR44 silver oxide cell rather than the LR44 type for digital micrometers and calipers. The SR 44 type retain their voltage much longer than the LR44 type.

The $9 cheap one from Walmart (Hyper Tough) does in fact drop the current from about 20 uA to about 1.5uA... and thus will not drain the battery much when off. My other 4 digital calipers only drop from about 20uA to about 15 uA when off. Maddening that the cheap one, with all cheap feeling parts and no lock nut, is the only one I keep handy since it does not eat batteries...

I hot glued a AAA battery holder with an on/off switch on the reverse side and ran the leads through the battery door. Button cell batteries are ridiculously overpriced.

I bought the same caliper from aldi, yep its a vampire lol. Not bad for the price though.

Oddly, I have the ostensibly same HF "Pittsburgh" calipers, and though I don't use it every day, I certainly do multiple times per week, and the batteries in mine last for years. I'd love to know what's different. Hmm, it's probably down to the fact that mine does not store and continue to track it position when off. Which is not a big deal, you just rezero.

Next time use a tiny toothpick or a needle for clothes, a tiny micro drop will be way more than enough. Instead of pouring it straight out of the bottle. And apply it with the toothpick or needle on the switch. To glue it in Place.

Someone just did a comparison of fake and real Mitotoyo calipers. The fake ones have the same issue.

it's by design. when it's off, simply sliding the caliper powers it on. It has to draw power to do that. Whether that's a flaw depends on your point of view - but it annoys the hell out of me :-)

What an absolute shit-show 🤣 Jokes aside, this was a lot more involved than I thought it would be. Thank you for showing a bunch of potential pitfalls. I'm sure I'll discover some new ones when I give this a shot. Well done figuring it out in the end 👍🏻 Subscribed.

Buy a set of Brown and Sharpe dial calipers. Problem solved.