by Fogdude » Fri Jul 29, 2016 4:29 pm
Apparently, God doesn't want me to go to WalMart today.
I normally only go to replenish frozen/cold goods, as I order everything else online.
This morning, my wife & I composed a list of the things I needed to get & I put myself together right after breakfast to get in early, & hopefully, avoid the crowds.
We have a fullsize van with a raised roof & a hydraulic lift, so my wife can get in on her power chair. The lift has LEDs & electronic eye sensors to make sure the lift is in the proper position for mounting & dismounting, so these lights & sensors are a constant drain on the battery. Given that, I use an Optima yellow top battery, which is designed for deep discharge use. It has enough amps to start the engine, but needs to be charged fully at every opportunity. To this end, I also have a battery minder wired into the van for charging the Optima when the van's not running, as well as the 2nd power chair in the van, that I use when I have to walk a long distance, at the destination.
We don't go out that often. The van is a 1992 Ford E150 & has a total of 74,000 miles on it. Most people in Houston would put that many miles on a vehicle in one or two years.
So, the van has been sitting in the driveway, with the battery minder plugged it, charging the batteries.
I went out this morning, unplugged the power cord to the van, got in, put in the key & got nothing. The battery is dead. I got out & traced the power cord back to the socket & found it had become unplugged, somewhere along the line. The battery minder also has LED lights on it, showing status, power, charging, etc. So, for four days, the van has been draining its battery running all these stupid LEDs, rather than being charged.
So, I pulled out my trusty battery trickle charger, hooked it up the the Optima battery, plugged it in, making sure it was really plugged into the wall this time & went back inside to give it an hour or so to charge it up. I closed the garage door.
An hour later, I went out to check on the status of the battery & found that when I closed the garage door, it pulled the power cord & unplugged the trickle charger! So once again, the battery was sitting there with no charging.
I plugged in the power cord again, made sure there was plenty of slack in the cord this time. Closed the garage door & now I'm sitting here, telling you about it.
Wish me luck. Maybe I can get to WalMart early tomorrow?