The Battery Minder

I mentioned the "Battery Minder" previously that helped my 2005 Toyota start in its last years.  Well it may not have been the Toyota's fault.  I just don't drive far or often.  I know most people enjoy driving; I don't.  But it did make up for my lack of driving.

I discovered my new Subaru Forester was starting "slightly" slower than before I fell off the ladder and was taking some steps to attach the battery-minder to it the day I fell off the ladder.  But the Subaru battery is farther back under the hood than most batteries are.  The wire wouldn't reach!  I had 2 wires with the Minder and I spliced them together.  Used some brush-on rubber insulation to help prevent a short.  And there it say for 7 weeks!

Well I got back to hooking it up to the Subaru battery a few days ago.  I wrapped electrical tape around the new rubber insulation on each wire and them wrapped both together.  And set about attaching the spliced wire to the battery with the hood open.  The wire worked; the Minder came on flashing the appropriate lights. But you can't just leave the wire there, the hood will crush it when closed...

So I set about feeding the wire through the grill to the battery.  What a PAIN!  It didn't want to go from the battery out through the grill and it didn't want to go in through the grill to the battery!  It is REALLY cluttered in there.  No room for human hands...

I tried a bunch of different ways to feed it through and/or grab it with something.  It was getting REAL uncomfortable bending down into the engine compartment.  I FINALLY found a space I could get a hand into, but it wasn't enough.

Well, when several approaches don't work, try something else, right?  

I pushed a stiff wire in through the grill, and with one hand, guided it into view.  I made a loop on one end and tied some string to it and tied the wire to the string.  Perfect.  No.   The outside plug wouldn't pass through a narrow spot.

So I had to reverse the pulling wire.  The battery connection has 2 flat washers that slip over the battery posts.  I got the stiff wire through the grill from inside and attached the washers to the wire.  THAT didn't work; too stiff to get around a sharp corner.

So I pulled in partially back out, tied the string to the pulling wire (crushing the loop tightly) and pulled/twisted the pulling wire carefully.  

SUCCESS!!!

The Minder wires were through the grill and reached the battery.  I attached the washers over the battery posts and tightened them.  

Attached the Minder plug to the grill (so it wouldn't get pulled in).  Plugged the Battery Minder to an extension cord, the Minder plugs together, and the Minder showed normal charging signals.

And the car needed it!  It stayed on trickle-charging (solid red light) for hours before it turned green (charged).  HURRAY!

I just don't drive enough to keep a battery charged without help.  Seriously, my new-bought 2005 Toyota only had 30,000 miles on it when I donated it to Vehicles For Change in 2020!  My new Subaru has only 500 miles after 7 months.  

But I got that battery-discharging problem fixed, and that is the important thing.  When I want to do a short errand, the car has to work.  So I make sure it does.

It's the story of my life; I am just not "standard".  The world just isn't built for my habits.  I always have to struggle...

I usually win eventually, but it sure is never easy.  ;)

Some Random Thoughts...

As I review my posts, I noticed something I have failed to mention.  I have been oddly temperature-sensitive since the accident.  I have normally kept the house at 72F daytime and drop it to 68 at night (having a heated waterbed has some benefits).  And in daytime at 72, in Winter just I usually wear light slacks and flannel shirts (cuffs rolled up).

Since the accident, I've felt cold.  I expect that is because I haven't been as active but it may be some reaction to healing as well.  I had to bump the temperature up to 74F night and day and even then, sometimes wear a sweater in daytime.  I should have remembered to ask my Dr about that.

Also, I notice that, even drinking about a gallon of water per day (yes, I fill an actual gallon jug), I often feel dehydrated.  I initially blamed the meds, but I'm not on any anymore.  What's causing that?  It's not like I spend the day eating bread or crackers...

It's funny how the accident stopped all my projects in mid-work.  I was in the basement and noticed one that I started THAT DAY!  Because I seldom drive far or often, my old Toyota car battery tended to get discharged.  So a few years ago, I bought a "battery-minder".  It is a smart version of a trickle-charger.  Starts and stops when needed and you can leave it plugged in.  

It kept the old 2005 Toyota running and I noticed the new Subaru was slower to start too.  My fault for not driving much (joke - I couldn't drive at ALL for almost a month).  The Toyota dealer said "well drive 15 minutes every couple of days".  But I don't.  So I have the battery-minder.  But you can't just slam the hood on the wires.  It has to come through the grill.

Guess what?  The cable doesn't reach the battery in the Subaru.  But it came with 2 different cables.  SO, I cut them to splice them together for enough length.  Now, you have to understand that, as willing (and usually successful) as I am at SIMPLE repairs, electrical tape is the bane of my existence (next to 2-stroke gasoline engines like on chain saws).  The stuff sticks to ME like flypaper and I can't get it wrapped neatly around wire splices.

But I had a bottle of "liquid rubber" and was applying it THAT DAY before I heard Laz yelling for help.  It is still there today.  I suspect it is "well-set" by now, LOL!  I feel up to completing that repair now and feeding the cable back through the grill to the battery.

NOW, I'll attack it with electric tape.  It is probably safe from shorts now with all that stuff on it. LOL!

And I won't have to worry about draining the battery again on lots of short errands...

Plus, maybe my best chess game ever against a computer!  If you follow this sort of thing:  I'm White.

A double-rook sacrifice...  I NEEDED a game like that!  LOL...

I continue to feel and walk better.  I'm still stiff when I first get up in the morning or have been sitting too long, but that goes away more quickly lately.  The stairs are easier and I can now carry things AND go up and down almost normally.  

I took the last of the prescription-strength 600mg Ibuprophen today, which is OK.  I think I can get along with an over-the-counter 200mg one 2x  a day.  I dislike taking meds; there is always SOME level of side-effects or consequences if you take them too long.

Batteries

I practically live on batteries here.  Everthing has a battery.  Sure, the oven and refrigerator and TV are AC powered but most things need a battery.  I have recharageable batteries for almost every minor thing in the house though.

I have flashlights, wall clocks, kitchen timers, weather stations, a cordless vacuum, a laptop, a cordless leaf-blower, a cordless hedge-trimmer, cordless tools, and portable stereo radios all over.  So I have rechargeable batteries for almost everything.  I am building a shelf in the basement dedicated to recharging things.

But there are some annoying devices that use those little round batteries.  Kitchen timers mostly, but even a caliper needs one.  I hate that there are not rechargeable versions for them. 

Two kitchen timers and the calipers all went dead last week.  So I set out to get new batteries.  First, I discovered that the 3 stores I went to do not stock the kitchen timer batteries, but they could be ordered at 2.  The batteries cost more than the timers.  I can buy new timers cheaper than the batteries.  That makes no sense. 

So I will buy slightly more expensive timers that have batteries of a type that I can replace with rechargeables. 

The kind that fits my caliper comes only in packs of 3.  The battery lasted 10 years; the shelf life of the replacement battery is 3 years.  I will never need the other 2 batteries!  But the joke is on them.  One of the batteries in the 3-pack wasn't even the right kind.  Same size wrong voltage. 

Yeah, OK, the joke isn't really on them, but the error costs me nothing as the last battery of the 3 would be long-depleted natuarally before I needed it so I could just throw it away and no loss. 

We need rechargeable small round batteries!

Successes and Failures

Failures first, to get them out of the way! 

My car battery gives me trouble.  The dealership swears it is perfectly OK; that I just dont't drive enough these days.  But I've had times in other cars (and other batteries of course) when I didn't drive much and they stayed charged.  In fact, one time I was away from home for 6 weeks and when I returned, my car started right up.  (I had a roommate who took care of the cat while I was gone)

So when I don't drive for 5 days and the battery is dead, I get pretty PO!  I bought a "battery minder" (a super slow trickle charger that activates only when the charge drops), but hadn't hooked it up (uncertainties about safety of use in an enclosed space). 

But I noticed that the battery was 4 years old AND had a bad rating from Consumer Reports.  So, I decided to replace it even if the dealership wouldn't.  Amazingly, the 2nd rated battery (by a squeek) was from Walmart, of all places.  So I bought one.  Today I set about replacing it. 

Now, replacing a battery is probably one of the easiest things to do in a car.  It's right THERE in easy reach.  You just loosen the terminal clamps, pull them off, lift old the old battery, set in the new, and replace the terminals tightly.

I have no luck sometimes.  There was a hold-down bracket I had to remove.  Removing that was easy.  Retreiving the hooked rod that it was attached to it and dropped down when loosened was annoying.  But I got it.  The other end of the hold-down bracket was just a large metal screw (meaning a screw designed go into metal rather than wood), and I carefully set it aside. 

So, of course, as soon as I removed the battery hold-down bracket, my sleeve brushed the screw and it fell into the bowels of the engine compartment.  15 minutes of searching around with a magnet on a flexible metal rod found nothing.   GRRR!

I went ahead and removed the terminals and pulled the old battery out.  Set in the new one.  That was harder than I thought.  The positive and negative cable insisted on getting under the new battery because they manufacturer doesn't leave 1/4" of extra length AND they have the cables joined with user-unfriendly clamps in several places.  It would have been easy if I had 3 hands...

OK, I got the battery in and the cables unencumbered.  But the cables won't reach the correct + and - terminals.  They are on OPPOSITE sides from the original battery!!!  And yes, it is the correct battery; I double and triple checked! 

Unless I cut off all the cable attachments (and there is some metal involved) I can't use the new battery.  So I undid all my work and put the old battery back in.  At least I can jump the old one when required (not usually needed in warm weather).

However, I DID attach the "battery minder" to the terminals before I reattached them.  That thing is a little weird.  There are cables that you stick out through the front grill so that you don't have to open the hood to attach it.

Here is the surprise:  Before I closed the hood, having spent over an hour to no useful gain, I popped open the tops of the old battery (the one back in the car) where you can see the electrolyt level inside the battery cells.  They were WAY low!

That might be the whole problem!  Sure, I should have checked that first.  But the dealership said the battery was fine just 2 months ago and I assumed they checked that.  But I had just gone through checking my boat batteries and refilling them, and JUST thought I should look in the car battery.

I won't know for a couple days.  I have the battery minder attached and will see what is says about the charge then.

Now, I had intended to write about other things also, but this has gotten long, so I think I will leave the other matters til tomorrow.

In fact, if you read THIS far, I am impressed!  Thank you.  I can get boring sometimes...

The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly

The Good:  I had planned to go to the post office to mail the Cat's cards and my own on Wednesday.  But I got up too late.  Don't laugh, I keep REALLY weird hours sometimes.  But then I realized it was going to rain all day Thursday and I figured that would keep the customer line short in the morning.  I was right, "maybe".

I walked in and there was NO line.  But before I got my turn at the counter, there there 10 people behind me!  So it was just REALLY lucky timing.  It took me less time to BUY the 52 domestic mail stamps and arrange for the 9 international envelopes than it took to APPLY the 52 stamps to the domestic mail envelopes than it did to arrange for the 9 international.

But thank you USPS for inventing peel&stick stamps!

More Good:  With the time I saved not standing in line at the Post Office, I was able to get to the meat&liquor store (a really neat place) before the lunch crowd rolled in to crowd up the deli counter.  I was in and out in 15 minutes.  If I get there with the lunch crowd or when the high school next door lets out at 2:30 it can take an hour!

The Bad:  I've been going a little nuts trying to mow the lawn.  Yeah, so that doesn't seem a big deal...  But I haven't since early September when I had the soil level raised and sowed new grass there.  The grass was too new and the soil was too soft until November.  I wanted the new grass to develop deep roots and deep roots come from high grass (they each power the other).  And then it has rained just some every few days since.  You don't want to cut wet grass (fungal diseases).  So I finally got 3 dry days and went to mow.

More Bad:  Dead riding mower battery since it hadn't been used for 3 full months!  Even the boat battery I keep in the toolshed was dead.  Fortunately, I had just bought and charged a portable power pack and jump-started it.  Started right up, so it wasn't old gas, fouled spark plugs etc.  Mowed the lawn and mowed it double.  Thats because I don't rake leaves, I shred them in place.  It's good for the grass and the trees to keep the nutrients in place.  The leave shreds disappear into the ground after enough cuts.  But the next day, the mower battery was just as dead as before.

I have to keep the power pack on the mower between my legs as I mow now.  &*@#  Everytime I stop the mower, I have to jump-start it again.  When batteries get too low, the charger won't detect the "too low" battery.   A glimmer of hope though:  I've just read that if you put a charger on a good battery and connect THAT one to a "too low" battery, the charger detects the good battery and the good battery transfers the charge to the Too Low battery.  I haven't tried that yet.

The Ugly:  The planting of tulip and hyacinth bulbs in vole&squirrel proof cages is WAY behind schedule.  The soil is what was below the ridge I had removed in September, and it is a lot harder to dig in than I expected.  My cages are 12'x14'x4".  They have to be buried  at least 8" deep.  It is taking 30 minutes per hole.  I acted like a crazed lunatic on one just to see how fast I could possible dig one.  and plant the cages with the bulbs and compost/topsoil mix and 2-6-3 fertilizer AND put a labeled styrofoam plate pinned with a metal tent peg.

20 minutes, and I was exhausted...  Best I could do all out fanatic crazy was 3 cages in 75 minutes!

Its the stones, tree roots, and clay.  And all the other details (sprinkling fertilizer, scooping the compost/topsoil mix into a bucket to pour over it all, and then covering it with existing soil takes a lot more time than I realized.  10 days of that (in non-rain days) and I have 11 of 20 cages planted.  And I have 150 daffodils to plant (which at least don't need cages, being toxic to mammals, and I can use an small auger for those.

But the worrisome thing is that tulips, etc, need chilling time, and the ground here is usually frozen by December 1st.  So it is possible that none of all these bulbs I am killing myself planting will bloom at all next year (they would grow foliage and bloom next year if there is enough chill-time), but climate-warming may make all my work futile!

More Ugly:  Winter is coming, and even though my 11 year Toyota Highlander is kept in a built-in garage, the battery routinely dies.  The experts say I just don't drive enough.  So I might be looking at 3 months of having to jump-start the car in the garage everytime I want to go anywhere (everything I need is within a mile usually and once every couple weeks I drive 10 miles to the meat/wine store).  I have to keep a fully charged boat battery in the car for jump starts.  It isn't the battery, new ones die too.

Hey, some people love to drive, I don't.

It begins with the first hard freeze and ends with the last hard freeze.  Yet the garage temperature never falls below 45F.  Drives me nuts.  I KNOW there has to be some car component that is drawing on the battery in cold weather, but I can't image what.  One of the many things Dad didn't teach me about was cars.  The experts at dealership and online just say drive it 30 minutes every few days.  ARGH!