this post was submitted on 04 Nov 2024
283 points (89.6% liked)

Mildly Infuriating

35735 readers
1613 users here now

Home to all things "Mildly Infuriating" Not infuriating, not enraging. Mildly Infuriating. All posts should reflect that.

I want my day mildly ruined, not completely ruined. Please remember to refrain from reposting old content. If you post a post from reddit it is good practice to include a link and credit the OP. I'm not about stealing content!

It's just good to get something in this website for casual viewing whilst refreshing original content is added overtime.


Rules:

1. Be Respectful


Refrain from using harmful language pertaining to a protected characteristic: e.g. race, gender, sexuality, disability or religion.

Refrain from being argumentative when responding or commenting to posts/replies. Personal attacks are not welcome here.

...


2. No Illegal Content


Content that violates the law. Any post/comment found to be in breach of common law will be removed and given to the authorities if required.

That means: -No promoting violence/threats against any individuals

-No CSA content or Revenge Porn

-No sharing private/personal information (Doxxing)

...


3. No Spam


Posting the same post, no matter the intent is against the rules.

-If you have posted content, please refrain from re-posting said content within this community.

-Do not spam posts with intent to harass, annoy, bully, advertise, scam or harm this community.

-No posting Scams/Advertisements/Phishing Links/IP Grabbers

-No Bots, Bots will be banned from the community.

...


4. No Porn/ExplicitContent


-Do not post explicit content. Lemmy.World is not the instance for NSFW content.

-Do not post Gore or Shock Content.

...


5. No Enciting Harassment,Brigading, Doxxing or Witch Hunts


-Do not Brigade other Communities

-No calls to action against other communities/users within Lemmy or outside of Lemmy.

-No Witch Hunts against users/communities.

-No content that harasses members within or outside of the community.

...


6. NSFW should be behind NSFW tags.


-Content that is NSFW should be behind NSFW tags.

-Content that might be distressing should be kept behind NSFW tags.

...


7. Content should match the theme of this community.


-Content should be Mildly infuriating.

-At this time we permit content that is infuriating until an infuriating community is made available.

...


8. Reposting of Reddit content is permitted, try to credit the OC.


-Please consider crediting the OC when reposting content. A name of the user or a link to the original post is sufficient.

...

...


Also check out:

Partnered Communities:

1.Lemmy Review

2.Lemmy Be Wholesome

3.Lemmy Shitpost

4.No Stupid Questions

5.You Should Know

6.Credible Defense


Reach out to LillianVS for inclusion on the sidebar.

All communities included on the sidebar are to be made in compliance with the instance rules.

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
 

I hate this scale, it says low battery and shuts off after just 3 months of sitting in the drawer. It infuriates me that there's still a lot of energy in the battery, I can use that in remote controls with no issues

If there's enough battery to say "low battery", then there's enough battery to show the measurements!

top 50 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] Thorry84@feddit.nl 290 points 1 month ago (2 children)

That's because of the way these scales work. They use a material that deforms under stress and when it deforms the resistance changes. By putting current through this material and measuring the voltage drop, it can be mapped to how much stress the material is under and thus how much weight is on the scale.

This is a pretty roundabout way and has a lot of caveats, but it is very cheap. So cheap scales always work this way. That's why they aren't super accurate and have deviations depending on things like temperature. Another big downside is any permanent deformation ruins the calibration, giving incorrect results. That's why you never put more weight on kitchen scales than it says, it will break them.

The issue you are running into is the way it measures. It applies a very specific voltage and current in order to get the result. The lookup table it uses is only valid within a narrow range. When the battery voltage goes outside that range, it can no longer perform the measurement. Even though there's plenty of juice for things like the little processing chip and the LCD display. They don't need a lot of power and can do with low voltages. But it can no longer weigh anything so it just errors out with a low battery warning.

[–] thisguy1092@lemmy.world 43 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Mighty informative, thank you

[–] Wizard_Pope@lemmy.world 15 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Look up piezolectric materials if you wanna know more

[–] marcos@lemmy.world 5 points 1 month ago (1 children)

The GP is not describing a piezoelectric scale. And you won't be able to find any piezoelectric scale that is anything similar to "cheap".

[–] Wizard_Pope@lemmy.world 3 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Well which principle do the cheap ones operate on?

[–] Thorry84@feddit.nl 15 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)

It's actually a plastic ribbon with a metallic foil in a zigzag pattern on top of it. It's extremely cheap and does a pretty good job. It usually sits on top of a metal bar that can deflect a tiny little bit.

You can read all about it here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strain_gauge

The main effect is that the resistance depends on the geometry. So as that changes, the resistance changes as well.

[–] Wizard_Pope@lemmy.world 3 points 1 month ago
[–] SkybreakerEngineer@lemmy.world 29 points 1 month ago (5 children)

All of which is fixed by a voltage regulator

[–] magikmw@lemm.ee 28 points 1 month ago (2 children)

Except the cheap part. But likely not by much.

[–] chonglibloodsport@lemmy.world 8 points 1 month ago (3 children)

You can order 3000 3.3V low drop out (LDO) voltage regulators on LCSC for $25.50. That’s less than a penny each.

[–] Ghoelian@lemmy.dbzer0.com 8 points 1 month ago

Yeah, but it's more than 0 pennies each.

[–] B0rax@feddit.org 3 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Doesn’t help when you need 3.3V and the batteries are now down to 2.5V they are not putting a boost converter in there.

[–] chonglibloodsport@lemmy.world 2 points 1 month ago

Right. If your design requires 3.3V minimum then putting in a 3.3V battery and no boost converter is just dumb (or extremely user-hostile).

[–] itsmect@monero.town 2 points 1 month ago (6 children)

Batteries have one advantage over over supplies: extremely low noise. Even an good LDO will bump up the noise floor, and a cheap lcsc part will do so too. Plus you's want a reasonably low dropout and quiescent current, which also increases price. Maybe 10ct in volume is reasonable for such a part - and yes, that will absolutely eat the margin

load more comments (6 replies)
load more comments (1 replies)
[–] Buffalox@lemmy.world 9 points 1 month ago

Absolutely, My kitchen scale remains accurate and can use the same battery for years.

[–] XeroxCool@lemmy.world 7 points 1 month ago

Eventually, the battery drops lower than the device needs. So no, none of which is fixed by a voltage regulator.

load more comments (2 replies)
[–] forrgott@lemm.ee 54 points 1 month ago (2 children)

This is probably not what you wanna hear, but when the battery gets low, the current gets weaker. If the current gets too weak, the scale becomes more and more inaccurate. Like, wildly so. In other words, the alternative is to lie to you. Badly.

[–] jdnewmil@lemmy.ca 4 points 1 month ago

Agree. For clarity, the circuits that show the low-voltage status are much less hungry for current than the circuits that measure weight. So no, having enough battery to report low voltage does not imply that there is enough to make an accurate weight measurement.

[–] XeroxCool@lemmy.world 3 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

I'm bummed that when I had a Thinner bathroom scale, I could weigh myself before and after using the bathroom to see how much I expelled. It was consistent and really useful knowing its precision during keto months (lost up to 3lbs a week). Now I have a Taylor scale that will report the same weight over and over if it's relatively awake and you change less than 5lbs. So, no thanks to scales that lie.

[–] irotsoma@lemmy.world 33 points 1 month ago

That's not really how it works. The components of the scale require a certain amount of current especially if it's digital in nature. As a battery approaches being drained, it produces less current. Less current can often power an analog device to a lesser degree, like lighting up an indicator light or LCD or even the IR LED light on a remote, just very dimly. But the tolerance of the weighing components is probably much less than the tolerance of the LCD panel or LED bulb. So many devices use an LCD or indicator LED bulb to show that the device isn't necessarily broken, it just needs new batteries.

If it's sitting in a drawer and getting drained, then it's probably not turned off properly or it may be the type that turns on automatically when it gets pressed down and inside the drawer it's getting activated. Instead try taking the batteries out of any device that sits around for a long time without use. It will prevent accidental draining and also reduction the likelihood that the batteries will leak after a time. I usually pop the batteries part way out or put them in a small bag that I attach to the device with tape or a twist tie. Just make sure they aren't touching anything metal and that the poles aren't touching each other. Batteries will lose charge over time, but with alkaline batteries, that's usually years, not months. Rechargeables generally take much less time, though.

[–] needanke@feddit.org 23 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

I have the same scale and bought a few rechargable ithium-Ion AAAs and they work line a charm having a constant voltage until empty.

Only downside is that you don't get any warning when they are about to run.

(Something like that: https://www.mediamarkt.de/de/product/_verico-verico-li-ion-akku-loop-energy-aaa-mit-usb-c-buchse-2er-pack-lithium-ionen-akku-109861637.html )

Edit: nvm, just saw your comment about yours usung a coin cell it seems like there are some deviations between different models of the scale.

[–] Treczoks@lemmy.world 19 points 1 month ago (4 children)

Normal AA or AAA battery, or a CR button? If it is a button cell, try wiping it with alcohol before you insert it. Many modern button cells have a coating that tastes horrible to prevent people (children) from taking them into the mouth. I've noticed that on some brands, this coating measurably increases the resistance of the cell, not only reducing the the power it can deliver, but als making it appear "emptier" than they are ofor the measuring circuits. Wiping off the coating with alcohol (90% isopropanol) expanded the cells' life (in a kitchen scale to boot!) significantly.

[–] Moonrise2473@feddit.it 4 points 1 month ago

It's a cr2032 from Duracell with that coating, later I'm going to try that

[–] fahfahfahfah@lemmy.billiam.net 2 points 1 month ago (1 children)

I wonder if this is why my car’s key fob never works well even with fresh batteries

load more comments (1 replies)
load more comments (2 replies)
[–] bstix@feddit.dk 16 points 1 month ago (2 children)

CR2032 batteries are hit and miss in my experience. Sometimes my car FOB burns through one a month2 and other times they'll last years.

[–] isVeryLoud@lemmy.ca 4 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Get brand name CR2032, the cheap stuff doesn't supply enough voltage and electronics don't like em.

[–] vxx@lemmy.world 3 points 1 month ago (1 children)

In my experience you can feel how good they are by how heavy they weight in your hand.

[–] isVeryLoud@lemmy.ca 2 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (3 children)

I actually just bought some Panasonic CR2032 and opened the packaging yesterday and I did notice they were heavier 😁

load more comments (3 replies)
[–] NorthWestWind@lemmy.world 14 points 1 month ago

I know this isn't helping but your scale is saying "ok lol"

[–] woelkchen@lemmy.world 14 points 1 month ago (1 children)

For decades scales worked just fine without any electricity. Maybe get one of those.

[–] tiramichu@lemm.ee 6 points 1 month ago

There's also the option of electronic scales which are rechargeable via USB

[–] mayo@lemmy.world 10 points 1 month ago

I replaced mine with a usb cable. No batteries.

[–] Blackout@fedia.io 8 points 1 month ago

My scale looks similar to this. If I leave it on it goes into sleep mode which still drains power slowly but turn on instantly as soon as there is weight on it. If I hold the power button when I'm done it turns off and makes a beep and then I have no issues turning it back on months later. Still on original batteries after 2 years.

[–] crusty@lemmy.dbzer0.com 7 points 1 month ago (2 children)

I have a scale that charges with usb-c. It's also accurate to 0.1g

[–] dufkm@lemmy.world 2 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Nice, which brand/model? I have a scale for making pour-over coffee that has 0.1g precision, but I seriously doubt my scale is actually accurate to 0.1g.

[–] crusty@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 1 month ago

Chef Matteo Preciso, though you can only get one if you live in Scandinavia or Finland as it's a store brand.

[–] Valmond@lemmy.world 1 points 1 month ago

I have a 0.1 accuracy scale from aliexpress and it works everyday with its soon to be 10 year old coin battery.

I'll buy a rechargeable one if ever it goes to scale heaven.

[–] IsThisAnAI@lemmy.world 3 points 1 month ago (3 children)

Didn't think you were going to get a bunch of nerds telling you exactly why it works this way 🙄

[–] CmdrShepard42@lemm.ee 1 points 1 month ago

"Bruh just use the finger scale to weigh out your weed. 1 finger = 1.7g and 2 fingers = 3.5g"

load more comments (2 replies)
[–] Chee_Koala@lemmy.world 1 points 1 month ago

I have to charge the battery EVERY TIME! There is a wheel on the top I have to spin else it won't do ANYTHING.

Infuriating

[–] Flocklesscrow@lemm.ee 1 points 1 month ago

Buy an analog, non digital scale. That piece of junk is just e-waste.

load more comments
view more: next ›