There’s no doubt that cheap digital calipers are useful, especially when designing 3D-printed parts. Unfortunately, cheap digital calipers are also cheap, and tend to burn through batteries quickly. Sure, you can remove the battery when you’re done using them, but that’s for suckers — winners turn to solar power to keep their calipers always at the ready.
This is a companion discussion topic for the original entry at https://hackaday.com/2024/04/20/solar-panel-keeps-cheap-digital-calipers-powered-up/