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Everything with a battery should have an off switch

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Re: Everything with a battery should have an off switch

#531

Post by dpark »

thaumasiotes wrote: post #473
dpark wrote: post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The dial thing is... infuriating. It never once found a situation where it made using the device better, and in most situations it made it worse. Digital dials can be nice in some cases. My parents had an oven with a dial for the temperature. Spin it either way to increase or decrease the temperature by extra 5 degrees. I loved it. It was so much better than the touchpad design. The range of actual temperatures in…

> The range of actual temperatures in an oven is pretty small The range of temperatures you use is about 200 degrees?

Maybe 250. 300-550. I rarely go up to 550 and never below 300 that I can recall. With 5 degree increments, that’s only 50 clicks, fewer if the system is speed sensitive.

Re: Everything with a battery should have an off switch

#532

Post by ClumsyPilot »

zimpenfish wrote: post #201
ilammy wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You cooking meth there or something? It's a kitchen scale, I doubt you'd need that much of precision from it.

I use the kitchen scales (and a smaller set of digital scales) for measuring out things like resin where you do need a reasonable degree of precision, especially when you're measuring out small amounts e.g. 5g of A and 6g of B.

yep, also been doing that, mixing epoxy requires good accuracy.

that being said, UK police considers kitchen scales as evidence that you were dealing drugs

Re: Everything with a battery should have an off switch

#533

Post by ClumsyPilot »

brewdad wrote: post #369
swader999 wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Think bigger. Do the whole house. There's paint you can get for this.

It rains 9 months a year here. Much of the US gets quite cold or hot for a significant part of the year. I really don't want to step outside to use my phone. WFH means I need to leave it on my porch in order to receive work calls, I guess.

Go old school - get a landline and one of those analogue rotary dial phones. The most secure phone there is.

Re: Everything with a battery should have an off switch

#534

Post by caf »

folmar wrote: post #501
caf wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If "the operating noise" is the cooling fan for the magnetron, it keeps going when the time is up to cool it down. Mine does the same, but actually says "COOL" on the screen when it does so.

My old microwave oven has a fan that is on only when the microwaves are on. If that was possible in 1985 it can be made the same way now.

No doubt it was some combination of lower power, physically larger or simply more prone to failure. Do you suppose the designers go to the trouble of a cool-down timer just for the hell of it?

Re: Everything with a battery should have an off switch

#535

Post by caf »

thaumasiotes wrote: post #475
caf wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If "the operating noise" is the cooling fan for the magnetron, it keeps going when the time is up to cool it down. Mine does the same, but actually says "COOL" on the screen when it does so.

The problem with this is that it prevents you from knowing when the microwave has finished.

The cooling fan isn't supposed to be an audible "microwave is on" alert. That's not its design function.

Perhaps the actual audible alert on yours should be louder.

Re: Everything with a battery should have an off switch

#536

Post by blacksmythe »

benhurmarcel wrote: post #163
lapsis_beeftech wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Get Vernier calipers! The scale is easy to learn and use and measurements will be at least as precise as electronic calipers. With no batteries required the tool has much less of an environmental impact and you never need to worry about whether the calipers will work or not.

There are also calipers with a dial. https://www.otelo.fr/waroot/images/products/600/40130350_A.g...

I have a very cheap plastic one with a dial, which works amazing well for the cost (https://www.summitracing.com/parts/sum-900003

Re: Everything with a battery should have an off switch

#537

Post by WalterBright »

tempestn wrote: post #463
WalterBright wrote: post #450

I installed a battery cutoff switch on my car. One of the best investments in upgrading a car. My Kindles all die fairly quickly even when off. A lot of my electronics is plugged in via bus strips with off switches.

Don't you find it annoying losing all the settings in your car? Radio stations, etc.? If you're leaving your car for a long time without driving it, I would suggest adding a pigtail to make it easy to plug in a battery tender instead.

Not really. I lose the presets, but I play music from a USB stick anyway. It's far, far less trouble than coming back from a trip and finding your car dead in the airport parking lot. Many times I've also discovered a dead battery in the morning because the door wasn't closed all the way and the interior light was on. Ugh.

Having a separate "tender battery" for car-is-off power needs is a fine idea. Another idea is for a battery voltage monitor that will cut off the battery if the voltage starts to drop.

Re: Everything with a battery should have an off switch

#538

Post by WalterBright »

YeGoblynQueenne wrote: post #485
WalterBright wrote: post #454

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I could make and receive iphone calls, I could hear the other party, but nobody could hear me. This went on for a couple days, I was ready to go get a new phone. Then, silly me, I remembered the good old DOS days. I did a cold reboot of the phone, and voila! people could hear me.

What I don't get is that my phone doesn't have a windows OS. It has an Android OS. Like yours, it should not need a reset. Let alone three. So what's up with all those resets?

What's up? Software bugs.

Re: Everything with a battery should have an off switch

#539

Post by mardifoufs »

forgotmypw17 wrote: post #80
Buttons840 wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Both bathroom and kitchens scales are large enough they can run on AA / AAA batteries and casually go a decade (or more) without replacement. Tangentially: I used to have a 3 button timer, it was a little LCD countdown display and 3 buttons. One button set hours, one minutes, and one starts / stops the countdown timer. I found this timer when I was a kid, used, and the 1 AAA battery it had lasted into adulthood, lite…

i have read that the build quality of batteries has dropped.

IIRC it's not really the build quality, it's the new limitations around chemical composition inside the battery. I'm not sure about non rechargeable lithium batteries, but I think alkaline leak more and last less due to mercury getting phased out. Some newer Li-ion cells might also suffer from having less and less cobalt inside, due to high cost and supply related issues. Both are good trade offs, especially since alkalines are probably on the way out and manufacturers are getting better at making lithium batteries without cobalt

Re: Everything with a battery should have an off switch

#540

Post by RHSeeger »

dpark wrote: post #235
RHSeeger wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> by spinning a dial When we moved into our current house, it had a microwave like that. When we replaced it, my primary requirements were 1. multiple fan speeds, and 2. a nice, simple touch pad for entering the time; preferably one where you didn't need to press a button before starting to enter the cooking time. The dial thing is... infuriating. It never once found a situation where it made using the device better,…

> The dial thing is... infuriating. It never once found a situation where it made using the device better, and in most situations it made it worse. Digital dials can be nice in some cases. My parents had an oven with a dial for the temperature. Spin it either way to increase or decrease the temperature by extra 5 degrees. I loved it. It was so much better than the touchpad design. The range of actual temperatures in…

For temperature, I can see it working... though I don't see how it would actually be _better_ than tapping in the number.

For the microwave time, it was a horrible experience pretty much every time I interacted with the device. A keypad is simple, intuitive, and easy to use.

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