Solar Powered Caliper (Adapter - Battery to Solar)

thingiverse

This is a small adapter which plugs into an "iGaging EZCal" digital caliper and turns it from CR-2032 battery power to be solar powered. As these calipers are pretty generic calipers of Chinese manufacture, it's likely that this will work with other similar CR-2032 powered calipers. Besides the print and the calipers, you'll need the solar cell. I used a Sanyo AM-1417 scrapped out of an old calculator. You'll also need two thin pieces of solid strand wire - I used some out of a cheap CAT-5 cable. The solar cell's output is a bit underpowered for the application, as in my shop's floursecent lighting I get a consistent "low battery" flashing on the screen (but I'm used to the battery doing this essentially always anyway). Outside it works fantastic and indoors directly/nearly indirectly under work lights I had no issue either. There are channels in the print to run your wires. The positive wire loops around the far edge and slots back into a hole to keep it in a rough U shape. The negative wire comes out the underside and goes back into the adapter, then makes a sharp 90 degree turn to prevent the wire from pulling out when the adapter is pushed into place. It still could stand a little bit of work to make this a bit more durable (mainly the power contact portions could stand for some design improvement) so I may make revisions in the future, hence this being marked as a "work in progress." That said, it does work right now.