What did you do today?

[JPfloor]

Speaking of batteries...
usually needs (6) 6v batteries every 1-2 years.

That’s sounds like a pretty short life for deep cycles? Should be getting at the very least 3 years with heavy use. With light use closer to 4 or 6 years? Something doesn’t sound right. The right charger is important. That smart charger might help. Always store them fully charged. If you were over charging them that could lead to an early death too. So could not maintaining the water level (distilled water).

I guess time will tell but I’m not sure you’re doing yourself any favors by knocking off 300 lbs. of battery with the same deep cycle lead acid batteries… I think it’s as true with batteries as it is with most things…You get what you pay for.

 

[havasu]

What kills them is 4 things.
1) lack of use.
2) weather ranging from 15 degrees to 130 degrees.
3) low humidity, drying out the cells.
4) only having the old style super charger, which has no maintain mode.

 

[JPfloor]

Yup yup….That’ll do it.

The new maintainer should fix the lack of use…. Now all ya gotta do is change the weather…

 

[Floorist]

Forecast, 70-80 mph winds tonight.

 

[highup]

Speaking of batteries...

Last Tuesday, I picked up (3) 12v maintenance free 850 CCA's from Walmart. They were about $110 a piece. They are part of my experiment on my 36v golf cart in Havasu, which usually needs (6) 6v batteries every 1-2 years. These 6v golf cart batteries are about $200 a piece, which equates to $1200 every 1-2 years. This way, I only spend $340 every 1-2 years. They were shorter, but pretty much the same dimensions. I needed to also buy a new 54" black ground cable, since running the batteries in series, left the last battery on the other side of the cart. We (my son) also bought a 36v trickle charger and maintainer, so hopefully we won't cook or dry out these sealed batteries. Everything worked great, the cart is now 300 pounds lighter, and although I probably can't drive 10 miles on a charge, I'm certain that I can go 5 miles, which is perfect for my needs. My only issue was my headlights don't work. My taillights work, the horn works, but my headlights don't. I checked all the fuses, and they are fine, So I either smoked the bulbs, have a broken wire in my wiring harness, of have a buried, blown inline fuse that has blown. Working in 50-70 MPH winds were not optimum conditions, with sporadic rains as well, so I left it until my next trip. With my OCD, I hate leaving half completed jobs, but needed to get back home before the major storm hit.
Anyone have any ideas?

Get yourself one of these. You wire it directly to your battery so it's on all the time. It pulses high voltage spikes in the correct frequency to break the little sulfates off the battery plates. Sulfate buildup on the lead plates is what kills batteries, this little Gizmo continuously keeps them in solution instead of letting them coat the plates until the battery stops working.
The battery in my S10 was dying about 6 months prematurely, so I bought a new battery.
Afterwards after doing a lot of Internet research, I decided to do some experimenting.
First, I fully charged my old battery with my electronic charger.
I bought this 800 MA Battery Tender and the device in the video and connected them both to my old battery for a month or so.
I took the new battery out of my truck and replaced it with the old one.
The old battery is working fantastic even in the cold weather we've been having. Instead of dying 6 months early like it was doing, this battery is now four months past its three year life span with no signs of aging or dying anytime soon.
They sell these things to the government for military vehicles, it's not sleight of hand or a dog and pony show. If my battery keeps working till October, that will be one year past its original three year lifespan. Right now I think it's going to do that.
If you leave a trickle charger plugged in all the time you want something with a really low output like this one.
The video looks a little bit like a sales pitch at carnival but this is the unit that I bought. I'm convinced these things work.

 

[highup]

Forecast, 70-80 mph winds tonight.

We only got wind to 21 today. It's only one mile per hour now but I hope that little breeze blew the cold weather away. Forecast has low to mid 30s for the next week or more but I don't believe weather forecast for more than 24 hours.
We had hail a number of times today but it was too warm to stick.
There's a lightning bolt showing on my weather station but I doubt if that means anything.
Here's what's happening right now north of you, Rusty.

 

[Floorist]

Has not hit us...yet

 

[highup]

Looks pretty quiet except east of you.
Lightningmaps.org

 

[havasu]

Get yourself one of these. You wire it directly to your battery so it's on all the time. It pulses high voltage spikes in the correct frequency to break the little sulfates off the battery plates. Sulfate buildup on the lead plates is what kills batteries, this little Gizmo continuously keeps them in solution instead of letting them coat the plates until the battery stops working.
The battery in my S10 was dying about 6 months prematurely, so I bought a new battery.
Afterwards after doing a lot of Internet research, I decided to do some experimenting.
First, I fully charged my old battery with my electronic charger.
I bought this 800 MA Battery Tender and the device in the video and connected them both to my old battery for a month or so.
I took the new battery out of my truck and replaced it with the old one.
The old battery is working fantastic even in the cold weather we've been having. Instead of dying 6 months early like it was doing, this battery is now four months past its three year life span with no signs of aging or dying anytime soon.
They sell these things to the government for military vehicles, it's not sleight of hand or a dog and pony show. If my battery keeps working till October, that will be one year past its original three year lifespan. Right now I think it's going to do that.
If you leave a trickle charger plugged in all the time you want something with a really low output like this one.
The video looks a little bit like a sales pitch at carnival but this is the unit that I bought. I'm convinced these things work.

This battery maintainer also has a built in pulse doohicky. It was almost $200 and does everything needed to extend the life of the battery. We will find out...

 

[highup]

I think I paid $50 for mine.
Anyone want to buy a brand new, 14 month old battery? Original owner, and has neen on trickle since born.
The tender and desulphators were about $50 each.

 

[JPfloor]

This battery maintainer also has a built in pulse doohicky. It was almost $200 and does everything needed to extend the life of the battery. We will find out...

Yes yes. Those smart chargers are the bees knees! They know when the batteries need a charge and switch to trickle charge when they don’t. I have no experience with golf carts or 6 volt batteries but use the same 12 volt deep cycle batteries for my trolling motor. The charger I used had 3 separate banks, one for each 12V battery so they each charged individually. Worked great and let you know the status of each battery. I’m guessing your new charger should give you at least a couple mores years out of your batteries.

 

[zannej]

I need to learn more about batteries-- after I get the house fixed up more. Need to prioritize getting repairs done. I'm exhausted from yesterday. Didn't help that Mom fell last night and wasn't letting me help her-- refused every suggestion I made on trying to help her up. I tried to pick her up once but it pulled on her arms too much-- I couldn't get the right angle to get my arms around her middle and she couldn't get up on her knees bc she has knee problems. Eventually my brother managed to get her up. She spends so much time sitting that her legs aren't very strong and her arms are weak because she is so sedentary. She has never been one for exercise. She's been overweight since she was 22 years old. I need to find some way to get her to exercise.

I also need to exercise more. At least we made progress on the bathroom, but not as much as I'd hoped. Removing the old boards was necessary but it was harder than it looked and I didn't feel like such a wuss when I saw how hard my friend struggled to remove them too.

I'm trying to wake myself up enough to go to the post office to get mail, although, they are closed for lunch now. Won't open back up for almost another hour. I might nap a little until then.

 

[havasu]

I’m guessing your new charger should give you at least a couple mores years out of your batteries.

I can only hope. At this Lake Havasu house, at one time I had 22 batteries that needed tending.

2- Warlock Powerboat
2- Pontoon
12- for 2 golf carts
1- Gas golf cart
1- Boat launch GMC Jimmy
1- for VW dune buggy
2- for 2 sea doos
1- my Polaris 330 quad

I've learned now that less is best! I'm now down to 7 batteries

 

[JPfloor]

I can only hope. At this Lake Havasu house, at one time I had 22 batteries that needed tending.

2- Warlock Powerboat
2- Pontoon
12- for 2 golf carts
1- Gas golf cart
1- Boat launch GMC Jimmy
1- for VW dune buggy
2- for 2 sea doos
1- my Polaris 330 quad

I've learned now that less is best! I'm now down to 7 batteries

Oh my…That’s a shockingly large amount of batteries!

 

[JPfloor]

Didn't help that Mom fell last night and wasn't letting me help her-- refused every suggestion I made on trying to help her up. I tried to pick her up once but it pulled on her arms too much--

Been there…Best way to do that is get a blanket or comforter underneath her. Then with two strong people on either side SLOWLY lift her using the blanket as a stretcher. Be ready to catch her if she falls again.

 

[Tile Tom]

One of the Girl Scouts was my granddaughter.

Sooooo, you’re saying you have the cookie connection?

I would need to be rolled out of the house if I was in your situation.

 

[zannej]

I'll have to remember the blanket/comforter idea. They also sell waist belt thingies with handles, but I don't know if any of the ones I saw are big enough to go around her. Saw a tub lift that lowers to 3" from the floor. It is rechargeable battery powered. You get someone sitting on it and then press the control button to lift. She complains that she can't get her feet under herself. If I can get her high enough to get her feet on the floor she can usually stand back up. My brother was able to get his arms around her midsection and lift her up and then fell back on her bed with her landing on him. She then rolled off onto the bed and was able to get up.

Today I took my brother with me to get mail. He went in to pay a speeding ticket he got (he hadn't fully slowed down by the time he passed the speed limit sign & the cops had a quota). He also went in to the foot doctor's office to make an appointment. Went to Walmart to get gas at the gas station there and my brother went in to get some groceries. I was too tired to go in. Popped in to visit our fiend and I helped him a little bit with hanging drywall.

Got home and ate a salad. Now I'm ready for a nap.

 

[C.J.]

Today I took my brother with me to get mail. He went in to pay a speeding ticket he got (he hadn't fully slowed down by the time he passed the speed limit sign & the cops had a quota).

They have photo radar and red light cameras here. Funny thing is they always have two different signs up ahead of the cameras telling you that there’s a camera ahead. Even the photo radar vans, they have two different signs they put out telling you there’s a damn photo radar van ahead. The speeding camera boxes move around to different locations but the signs move with them as well. So, if you’re paying attention, you’ll see the signs and won’t get a ticket. Easy peasy.

Then we have the DOT workers that like to put up funny messages on the overhead reader boards. One day one of them said ‘Speeding tickets available ahead’. I slowed down because if I were to have gotten a ticket up ahead, how stupid would I have felt especially since I just read on a reader board that they were giving out tickets ahead. It would be my luck that the cop would grind that fact in as well.

 

[zannej]

Around here the police vehicles have the livery on them so pale that you can't see they are police vehicles and they hide behind bushes. No red light cameras. No warning signs. They have ticket quotas and you know when it is quota time because they will pull people over for no valid reason and lie about how fast they were going.
My brother was tired driving home from work after working night shift and there was no warning about the speed limit going down from 65 to 50. When he saw the 50 sign he slowed down but was still going over 50 when he passed the sign. The cop started following him immediately after he passed the sign and the speed he claimed he was going would have been the speed he was going before he passed the sign.

Got a mutual friend who got ticketed like that but he had a dashcam that recorded his speed and showed he was going speed limit before he passed the sign. They also claimed he didn't have insurance (he had a digital insurance card on his phone & they claimed it wasn't valid). Said he didn't have registration but he showed them the registration & they didn't look at it. His mother called the DA's office and DMV to ask if the digital card was considered valid & the said yes. She then went to the DA's office with the dashcam footage, the digital card, a recording of the office telling her the digital was valid, and the registration paperwork. Got all of the charges dropped. Only way to get it handled because they won't let you bring video footage or cellphones in to the courthouse even if its for your defense. Only option otherwise is to pay the ticket or plea it down to a lower fine. Judge has 100% conviction rate bc he gets paid extra for convictions.

 

[C.J.]

In NC they have a racket going on but I’m halfway ok with it, mostly because I don’t get tickets anymore (knock on wood). It’s the van, doesn’t go fast enough to get a ticket

Anyway, if you get a simple ticket you hire a lawyer for a couple hundred and they get the ticket reduced to some sort of non moving violation. You’ll pay for the lawyer and you’ll pay for the ticket but it doesn’t hit your insurance.