livligkinkajou

Even badly expired milk, like when it starts to sour and get clumps, can still useful, as you can still use them in recipes, like baking cookies and cakes

As you mentioned, we can already see USB-C charged batteries for power tools out on the market without all the proprietary charging crap from other platforms. As an example, see Greenworks Pro 24v, 4 or 8 Ah and/or Hyper Tough brand

I also haven’t looked at all the specific bells and whistles, but Torque Test Channel on YT has a couple of videos opening them up and testing them, and they do have a circuit board inside the bidirectional charging batteries (either 21700 or 18650 cells), which charges at 65w, and the port also has a little silicone(?) flap to cover it when unused. Perhaps it might be useful as a reference for your trials

See below video “Even More Problems for Big Brands from Walmart”, around 30s mark as an example:
non YT link
YT link

For the adapter, perhaps you could use this open source terminal_v2 as a reference on the battery side? This one is for Ridgid batteries specifically, so you will need to fiddle with part A to adapt it to your brand battery connector. They used a Molex 44262 series connector on the contacts with the battery for reference.

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On the other end, it has anderson connectors, but you could adapt it to xt## depending on your preferences/availability

If you don’t want to open/cut the tool itself, perhaps a dummy + xt/anderson connector on the tool side to connect into terminal_v2 on the batteries side?

Ridgid dummy example from the same author.

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Disadvantage of dummies is that you would need one dummy for every brand you have to use

Above dummy also has a dangling cable. I’m not a designer, otherwise I would look into having the dummy with an xt## built into it, than have part B from terminal_v2 have the other xt## built into it, which slides/locks/connect into the dummy. I’m not sure if that was clear, sorry

The author also made a video showcasing the terminal_v2, dummies, and other features that might be useful, see “Build a battery adapter to power the whole Lab”, as it might help:
non YT link
YT link

If you want to go the OpenBox route shown in the video, this bushing might also be useful, discussed around 22m10s on the video above

It works quite well, but you might need to dig deeper than that depending on your soil conditions. If you have the time and room to dig, you should watch Tech Ingredients video on it:

“Turning a $150 AC Into a Super-Efficient Geothermal Unit!”

YT: www.youtube.com/watch?v=s-41UF02vrU
Non YT: inv.nadeko.net/watch?v=s-41UF02vrU

I wonder if a ratchet strap would be a way to apply a fair bit more force on the cheese press without having to spend much money on the setup.

You can use almost anything, just watch out for spillings and droplets, as it can quickly get things smelly. When you do high volumes, you want stuff that’s easy to clean, but as a casual dabbler, I just use whatever is easily available