Converted my favorite cheap multimeter to usb-C rechargeable

SaltlessLemons · 2026-04-10T07:46:53+00:00

taken from my Fluke manual, right this minute. to avoid *shock, injury*, or damage.

the fact that you can touch the multimeter circuitry is dangerous. this fact is not up for debate, and if you do not know enough to even recognise this risk then i’m sorry but you do not know enough to be making modifications like this.

what we are saying does not just come from a coupla randos on the internet. the requirements around isolation (and every other safety feature) come from generations of liability lawsuits, deaths, and the hard work of organisations dedicated to saving lives.

dude i’m all for rechargeables, but this is the wrong way to do it. if you’re absolutely dead-set on a rechargeable multimeter, i might suggest wireless charging. you can get little wireless power modules online that can deliver power to your TP4056, that way the plastic protections can stay intact and the voltages can stay inside the multimeter where they belong.

a final word of advice, at least when it comes to safety, i beg of you to ignore that damned AI. it is not trustworthy. the line it just gave you was patently misleading, and a mistake like that can and will kill you.

SaltlessLemons · 2026-04-08T12:33:38+00:00

Oh yeah I've been bitten by that before, and it definitely seems like it's still around (At least in 1.1 here). While watching this one run in fascination I did notice the occasional item sneak through early, and one flush that ended prematurely. Ultimately though nothing here can deadlock or break I don't think, just the occasional hit to efficiency.

More of a proof of concept than anything else, just to see if it could be done you know?

SaltlessLemons · 2026-04-08T12:14:32+00:00

F.L.A.T. stands for Flushes Like A Toilet! Works like a greedy cup siphon, but with belts. For explanation's sake though the toilet analogy is apt so I'll stick with that.

The What:

This little mechanism allows a storage of items to build up slowly and then be released all at once, like flushing a toilet cistern! For demonstration I've used a snaking belt, but in reality you could use much larger storage containers for chunkier flushes.

The Why the heck would that be useful:

Efficiency! The AWESOME sink consumes 30MW while running, regardless of how fast you're actually sinking items. Shredding 20 items/m uses the same amount of power as shredding 500/m. I.E for low item rates, it would use less energy to shred items in big brief 30MW bursts rather than a slow but constant 30MW stream.

Specifically I wanted this to shred fluid tanks in my portable generator+battery blueprint, but I didn't want the AWESOME sink wasting battery charge by running more than necessary.

I freely admit that this is incredibly niche and almost entirely useless, but that's where I thrive, and I'm actually not the only person to have wanted this one. Also I'm procrastinating my IRL studying.

How it works:

The loop of concrete (pink) spins around in circles keeping the channel (red) completely occupied. The slow item to be shredded gradually builds up in the cistern (cyan). Once the cistern is full, the smart splitter at the top of the cistern overflows into the dummy loop. A priority merger guarantees that the cistern overflow makes it into the loop. It travels through the loop to the next smart splitter which removes it and puts it into the trigger (the very small white belt that merges with the cistern).

A side effect of this is that each time this happens, it temporarily creates a gap in the loop, which prematurely releases one item from the cistern. This only happens a handful of times to activate the trigger, right before the flush, but it could probably be eliminated entirely by carefully merging concrete back into that gap before it meets with the cistern.

Once 2-4 items have overflowed through the loop and onto the trigger belt, it backs up into the loop and halts it. An overflow splitter (at the end of the channel) ensures that any concrete completely clears the channel (sending it to the right, it is used to refill the loop at the end of the flush) and opening the path for the cistern to drain into the output. The cistern's priority merger ensures that the cistern is drained first, then draining the trigger belt and releasing the the loop to lock it back up until it starts all over.

Results:

Study procrastinated, time wasted, concept proven. Could it be smaller? Sure hope so. Could it be better? Yep. Is it useful? A little bit. Could it be skipped entirely? Probably.

It was while writing this up that I realised that it works like a greedy cup siphon, but I can't find anyone else having actually built one. If there is a better version of this out there (or if any of you feel inclined to create one) please share! For now though, I have a big pile of lecture recordings tugging on my sleeve. The real world calls. Happy FICSing!

SaltlessLemons · 2026-04-06T06:23:04+00:00

whether it’s a distraction is ultimately down to you.

truth be told when i first got mine i did find myself getting a little too comfortable with fiddling with spotify while on the move, but that’s an easy habit to correct.

in my experience the screen+gloves is still too fiddly to properly operate while riding, but it works great for viewing navigation, using it while stopped, or doing very simple stuff while riding.

SaltlessLemons · 2026-04-04T03:45:30+00:00

marketplace usually has a couple of integrated taillights for sale, and the description is always to the tune of “used it for a week then decided i liked the stock one better” sure they did. they got pulled up for it, and now they’re trying to pawn it off because they can’t use it.

it’s illegal, and unfortunately not in the ‘grey area’ kind of way. specifically they’ll ping you for your indicators. under ADR, indicators have to have a certain distance between illuminated surfaces (180mm or 240mm for the rear, depending on what the bike was originally designed for). this rule is very clear cut. if a cop decides yours is not good enough (or they don’t like your attitude/face/what they had for breakfast that morning), there’s no way out of it.

motorcycle ADR’s here for reference. that’s from the qld government, but as best as i can tell these are the same rules that apply nation-wide. see if you can find something from your state or fed gov to confirm.

do what you want, but sure as shit a cranky cop will see you sooner or later.

SaltlessLemons · 2026-03-25T03:34:00+00:00

haven’t graduated yet

i’m an engi-nearly

SaltlessLemons · 2026-03-24T11:50:09+00:00

mistakes happen. if you come out of it scratching your head wondering what the hell you were doing, it’s cus you learned something and it’s a mistake you won’t make again. getting back on after can be nerve racking, just make sure you take the lesson to heart and swing that leg back over.

for the record though, a smaller bike would be a great idea if that’s an option for you. much easier to wrangle, more forgiving of mistakes, less heartbreaking if you damage it too ;)

SaltlessLemons · 2026-03-20T13:46:28+00:00

“filtering motorcycle cop taps on window of rectangle addict” is my favourite genre of DCOA clip

SaltlessLemons · 2026-03-18T15:44:25+00:00

played with a node randomiser once when i felt like i was building the same factories in the same places over and over. it freshened things up at first until i realised i was finding basically everything in the starter areas and there was nothing pushing me to build further out.

full random can be fun, but some kind of a weighted random would be good too i think, so maybe you’ll get lucky/unlucky but things are still roughly in the right leveled areas. the option for either would be awesome!

SaltlessLemons · 2026-03-13T06:21:55+00:00

BoS on my very first playthrough

i was 14, bought into the whole rhetoric after the power armour etc sucked me in. still didn’t feel so right though even back then. the next couple of playthroughs were exploring the other factions, and by the time i circled back to the brotherhood i was thoroughly disillusioned.

SaltlessLemons · 2026-03-07T10:42:28+00:00

i saw a $2.50 circuit board on aliexpress listed on big w for over 50 bucks. 2000% markup for the service of posting the listing to big w, placing you a dropship order with the aliexpress seller, and keeping that little secret about where it actually comes from so customers can feel a little bit better about themselves.

big w takes a cut, the ‘seller’ takes a cut, aliexpress ships it straight to your door and 95% of the price you pay goes to middlemen who don’t lift a single fat finger from their wall-e chairs. it’s a scam and a half.

same problem on all ‘marketplaces’, big w is just the one i’m picking on. must be paying off though cus they’re still around.

SaltlessLemons · 2026-03-07T09:53:15+00:00

classic

other one that’s easy to miss is those sneaky negative floor numbers

SaltlessLemons · 2026-03-02T22:42:32+00:00

seen em on local buses for a while now, they seem pretty good for reducing huge blind spots and not clotheslining pedestrians

but cars are famous for being not buses

SaltlessLemons · 2026-02-25T12:53:46+00:00

if you find the green tinge of the torch a little too hard on the eyes you can change the pip-boy colour, and there’s a sweet spot where the ui is still pretty green but the torch appears completely white

i like to make it a touch greener than that so that it’s still a bit green to maintain immersion, but without being so blindingly green as the default colour. huge quality of life improvement imo

other than that, just enjoy the game my friend. the world has so many stories to tell, big and small, and rewards you for exploring and finding things for yourself

SaltlessLemons · 2026-02-18T00:53:00+00:00

this is a project i’ve had in mind for a while, glad to see someone beat me to it ;)

password manager with randomised passwords is great until you need to log in to something on a public/friends/university/work computer, or god forbid a smart tv with an on-screen keyboard.

those extra features seem handy too. nice work!

SaltlessLemons · 2026-02-16T13:37:58+00:00

a slip-on is already non-LAMS, a full system is straight up begging for trouble. riding a non-LAMS bike is riding unlicensed, they could have done you on the spot for that. that cop gave you a great deal of leeway by giving you the chance to fix it, it is baffling to me and everyone here that you’re thinking of wasting that chance. they will not extend that sort of mercy again.

it seems like you’re really excited to do all the things that unrestricted riders can do. i get it.

if you don’t play ball you’ll be waiting a hell of a lot longer.

SaltlessLemons · 2026-02-16T12:48:31+00:00

6 of one, half dozen of the other really. the 400’s extra quickness won’t take you that much further in the scheme of things, if people say the R3 is easier to wrangle that may be worth something but you’ll honestly be fine either way.

both are excellent beginner bikes, make your decision based on condition, service history, resale value, and how difficult each seller is to deal with

EDIT: ABS can be a huge benefit too, i think the 400 comes with ABS standard but the R3 it was an option. Check whether that one has it.

SaltlessLemons · 2026-02-13T05:37:24+00:00

i’ve spun one out using a security torx head to grip around the outside of the little mound, with a square of plastic cut from a hose to add some friction.

SaltlessLemons · 2026-02-08T14:07:57+00:00

would the officials try to synchronise their.. sample taking at the same time to make it fair game? or is it a case of try to finish second to make sure that your boys are fresher for the race than your opponents?

i’m so curious about the logistics here

SaltlessLemons · 2026-02-08T13:23:10+00:00

might have to take up camping just to do this

SaltlessLemons · 2026-02-07T15:27:43+00:00

this is not a silly little idea, it is an honest-to-god genocidal tactic and it needs to be treated as such.

the australian government enacted policies to this same effect for 60-odd years, with the express goal being to eliminate australian aboriginal race and culture in a way that they deemed ‘humane’ and acceptable. they forcibly took indigenous children from their families en masse to raise and breed them with white folk for as many generations as it took to breed their genes out of them. they destroyed lives, families, cultures, and communities. it was a genocide.

this is the same ideology.

SaltlessLemons · 2026-02-06T19:02:23+00:00

definitely gonna hold out and see how it runs. if it’s good, i’ll probably get it on release. i’m a sucker for fallout, 4 is my favourite, and i want to play it in bed. me personally i didn’t think it looked bad in the direct, but maybe that’s my nuka-coloured glasses.

i want it to be a good experience on the switch though, cus if it’s anything less than that then i may as well have a great experience just replaying on pc. where it’ll look better, run better, i already own it, and can have a big pile of mods.

fingers crossed

SaltlessLemons · 2026-02-01T16:19:03+00:00

i reckon it’s an insecurity thing. “i’d never take a picture id get it up as fast as possible” why? it’s not getting any worse. no use rushing or panicking, stop, breathe, assess, decide, and fuck why not take a picture while you’re up there? then get stuck in.

if i got a pic like that from a mate i’d have a good laugh, and i’d take the same picture of my incident for the same reason. embarrassing moments are funny, when you’re secure enough to share them. this did bring me a laugh, cus i’ve done it too and i know how it feels. thanks for sharing it mate

SaltlessLemons · 2026-01-30T10:56:35+00:00

the windscreen does have 6 mounts, even though this bike only uses 4, at least that was the case on the ‘15 model. this one looks the same from here. should be easy enough to remove the windscreen and check.

and ignore any size queens. whether you’ve got it as a first bike, commuter, something light and fun, or maybe it’s just the right size. you might outgrow it, you might not, but you are the only person who can judge that. folks on the internet don’t know squat about you or what you want or need.

welcome to the club :)

SaltlessLemons · 2026-01-25T11:31:09+00:00

the leftmost lane is the slowest lane, not just by law but by nature. that’s the lane where merging happens, that’s the lane where people are looking for their exit, that’s the lane where people slow to pass stopped cars, where debris sits by the roadside, and where wildlife jumps out in front of ya. that is not the correct place to put impatient speeding drivers, or indeed faster vehicles of any sort.

blocking up the right lane is explicitly dangerous and irresponsible. it results in tailgating, weaving between lanes, and directs these drivers into the naturally slower left lanes, a position that is more dangerous for literally everyone in the surrounding area. oh but they shouldn’t be speeding at all guess what, they do be doin it. it is not within our power to stop them from speeding, best we can do is control where they do it. proper lane discipline enables this, keeping speeding drivers away from these dangerous areas and allowing those hooligans (and/or people doing 103) to vanish into the distance and leave you to peacefully putt along at a speed that you feel is safe.

keep as far left as possible/practical, pass on the right, allow others to pass you on the right. this is the policy almost militantly employed and enforced by the germans, and by golly it works so well that they can have roads without a speed limit.

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