My caliper takes a 357 battery. When the battery starts to get low, the readout starts flashing… It still reads out an accurate measurement though. When the battery gets real low.. it starts going bonkers as far as it’s zeroing. So you can zero it out and move the slide, and boom, it’s reading like half a meter or something.
So in the past I’d buy 357 batteries online. I won’t name names. And they’re fine but you have to buy 5 or 10 of them at a time. By the time one battery gets low, all the rest are getting old.. by the time you use 5 of them, they’re not lasting long.
So.. the alternative to buying 5 for like $4.99 and waiting a day or two, is to buy just one locally.
Ok, so there must be some kind of rush on these batteries, because all the local drug stores show them out of stock.. but anyway they’re charging like $7.49 if you buy one, and like $11 if you buy three. I found a drug store that claimed to have them in stock, at $14 for 3. Being desperate, I did an online order to pick it up. Got a text 10 minutes later.. sorry, order canceled we don’t have them.
When I check my favorite grocery store’s app they don’t even know what a 357 battery is.. but as we had to go to the store anyways, I stopped by their battery display… OK.. so there’s this A76 battery that looks just like a 357… I look it up online and yes, that’s a substitution for a 357. AND.. they sell them for $3.49! And they have a plentiful stock of them.
So it looks like, yes, I will definitely pay $3.49 for a single battery if I can have it right now, and don’t have to worry about buying so many of them they go stale.
So what’s the game with 357 batteries? If they had them in stock, I’m paying like twice as much, as if I call it an A76?
Stefanos's Blog 