AA-sized conductor (fake battery) wanted

Add another layer of aluminum foil wrap. It will take a while for the electrolyte to eat its way through two layers of aluminum foil.

Jeff Liebermann wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com:

Foil can have pinholes. plus,you add more thickness with each layer of foil.

Why take the risk? Use a dowel with a longitudinal slot cut for a wire. You can make them with just a hand saw. Simple,long lasting,safe.

Easy: "bird;in-hand.....".

I suppose.

I just use a dead AA cell with a jumper.. foil is a neat alternate.

Ange

Embalm the 2 layers of aluminum foil with some tape or shrink tubing. Maybe drill a hole in the negative end, heat the battery, and let any liquid drain. There's always a way to make it work.

Incidentally, I always embalm my flashlight batteries in household cellophane wrap because of the large number of leaky batteries that have made my life interesting.

Because I'm cheap and lazy. My suggestion was intended to be sufficiently outrageous to not warrant serious consideration. I was amused at the idea of someone asking how to create a dead short, which is literally one of the easiest electronic components to fabricate. Note that I also suggested core drilling a wooden dowel, shoving a brass rod down the center, and soldering a brass washer on the negative end. I have several like that, but with a different purpose. Inserted in a battery pack, they act as a voltage monitor and sometimes a battery eliminator connection point. I also have some inserts setup for battery or device current measurement.

Yeah, but that's too easy and no fun. I just hate it when someone takes me literally.

I once worked for a company that seemed to specialize in minimalist design. At the time (before robotic assembly), the incremental cost per component was a serious cost issue. Minimizing the component count was a major part of the production engineering process. The problem was that the dividing line between economical and outright crude was difficult to define. Your dowel would be considered a good economical solution, while my aluminum foil wrap would be considered a kludge. Some of the abominations the came the failure to recognize the distinction were scary. For example, when the device decided to draw more than the rating on the 3 terminal regulator, instead of a larger regulator, a resistor was simply added between the input and output terminals.