Geoffers
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Posts posted by Geoffers
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I wasn't there but apparently he didn't feel much pain. He did go into shock though but not immediately.
It was the days and weeks after that the pain was bad I believe.
Health and safety were all over it. Rightly so, this really was a silly thing to do.
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A guy in our place lost his hand doing EXACTLY that. The anchor which had rusted broke and as he dived out of the way didn't get quite make it and it took his hand clean off just past his wrist.
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Yes it would but it's unlikely because as soon as it touches this the wrong way round the spark and crack is quite frightening. I mean really bad as anyone who's done it would testify! It's hard to get past that and connect up as something clearly isn't right. That doesn't mean it didn't happen though so very possible.
More likely the battery has had a plate buckled or something (maybe why it needed a jump start in the first place) and the output current from the good one has put so much charge into it it's caused it to heat up rapidly and it's gone on fire and then ignition stuff around it, then the runaway effect and you end up with this.
Or it, possible they left one charging the other. You know how hot and smelly a battery can get just on a 8-10amp home charger - imagine 60amps being pumped into it for even a short time.
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I know that any extension lead needs to by fully unwound or it becomes a electrical coil where resistance makes it get hot.
Yep you're right and there's a little more to it.
When the wire is coiled you are indeed creating an induction loop which in itself will create heat but it's also the power factor. With AC, the current and voltage can be offset in time due to reactance within the coil you've created. (this is how the old electric meters used to measure your power usage and why they were easy to fiddle). This inductance increases the resistance. If something is resisting the current flow it will convert to heat. This builds up in the wires and the ones in the middle will be hotter as the concentration is greater so you don;t notice it happening.
Powering low power everyday stuff really won't matter and even higher powered stuff for short times but using higher current equipment for any length of time that is still within the trip rating can do a lot of damage before any of the wires short out and trip the circuit.
Of course it could just have been a cheap power cord that had a less of a current rating than it's fuse - especially if it was home made. I stopped my neighbour wiring up extra sockets with 0.75mm flex.
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Continental are working on this. HERE
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That is such a simple idea it's great. Yes it would work at treat.
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You must be very proud. Rightly so - even for the knitting let alone her occupational/academic achievements.
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Very strange. Almost as if it has been fused in there purposefully. Unless someone is taking the pith
Will be interesting to see what it's like peeled.
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Stunning. Very impressed with that.
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I would be surprised if the legal cover would cover a different car, even though it is you that bought it. Your other insurance may cover you to drive any other car, this one also has separate insurance bought by you, it is therefore covering you for claims - I doubt you could mix that element. I may have mis-interpreted what you're saying though.
May not affect you but a word of warning if you pay for the hire car cover. Just renewed mine and a big one for me is the included hire car in the event. Couldn't find it anywhere in the terms but it seems with Admiral the hire car is only given when it is deemed by an engineer that the car will not be written off (no matter how obvious), which could take days for an assessment. It also doesn't cover you if your car is stolen. I only found out because their sales team rang me a few days later asking if I wanted that level of cover for an extra £65! I contested for my money back or for them to point out in the full terms. I can't see them in the publicly available one.
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I can't remember if there is power on the ODB tbh.
Yes wiring in that way will be fine providing you have an inline fuse as well.
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Sorry about the late reply, been away the last 2 weeks. I didn't actually install my mirror closure unit so need to stick my head in there and see what's about - I should be able to just identify the positive and negative cables on the solar panel and scotchlock them in to these cables?
Yep. Don't forget a fuse and switch though if you are cutting off the cig lighter plug just in case something goes wrong with it or you need to switch off quickly.
This is the Costco one I saw.
Bargain
Ahh cool that looks quite similar to mine, I'll grab that if I can't get mine working properly.
I've noticed that most panels have cig lighter connections - isn't the cig lighter switched in most cars? In which case this wouldn't work? Only thing that got me thinking is that Porsche official trickle chargers plug into the cig socket, and I'm pretty sure that the sockets in Porsches are switched too so do these chargers somehow still work?
I know, it's crazy to me too. At best I'd put a cig lighter socket connected to my positive lines so I could remove the panel or disconnect quickly if necessary.
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Yep - that was the one I was having an issue with.
Version 51.0.2704.84 m (64-bit)I got frustrated so now use the dev version.
Version 53.0.2767.0 canary (64-bit)
Google Chrome is up to date.I'm sure they'll sort the Release version out I'm just too impatient. Had to go and get my extensions again but no biggie, I only use a couple.
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Not noticed it on this forum but had a few issues this past few days. Mine seems to be an issue with the latest Chrome update. I'm using Chrome Canary now which is the latest version but pre release and designed for devs. It's very fast and stable though. It lives alongside Chrome fine so you won;t lose anything. You can get it HERE
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knocked Uri Geller off his bike
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Depends were the short was. Some of these things are 35000-132000 volts with massive amounts of current. If it was a transformer shorted was across a winding, it would have to burn out completely, effectively cutting itself off.
Here's a very simple single phase transformer:
If one coil is getting a feed, within the other coil the current will flow still even with it completely shorted out due to the magnetic field generated by the other (which is how transformers work). The current will be greater than the coils can stand so will burn up.
In theory shutting off the other winding would have sorted it but the feed probably would have affected other things so sometimes letting it burn out is the easiest. The whole thing was over really quite quickly but if it started to affect more then they would have to cut the feeds.
So, here is a simple drawing of how it is distributed from the grid. Although drawn as single line these are actually multi line with different taps off the windings, you can see at point F and the winding, there are no breakers. If it was short circuited here, then you get into trouble. These points are as close and small as they can be to reduce to likelihood of it happening.
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I saw a solar charger in Costco the other day, not sure if you're a member but if you had any issues with it you can return it easily
Very off topic sorry but love their cooked barbeque ribs. We eat a few in the car park and I only live 5 miles away!
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In the footwell you connected the closure unit to a thick white lead using a scotchlok, or directly. This is a permanent live feed to the battery.
You can connect the negative to the wh/blk stripe that is on the footwell side of the closure. (If you remember, this was cut into and one part goes to the closure, the other to the footwell.)
Not sure you can put a cigarette lighter socket on them if your panel comes with a ciggy plug.
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What would be ideal is if you had a mirror closure unit....
you could connect to the input of that if the solar panel is less than about 3A (which I'm pretty certain it will be unless you are paying a small fortune).To calculate what you'd need, take standby current which on the IS200 if I remember correctly is about 110mA, plus the natural discharge the battery at anything between 1%-15% per month (or even higher if it's freezing or more economical battery type), so add another couple of hundred mA, Also, it won't be charging of a night and solar output will be lower during the winter so increase that as well to cover the time when it is more likely to discharge.
So to be truly effective you'd one with an output of at least 5w+ for longer term. Now obviously there are other factors such as the natural discharge rate might be lower, you only need to keep the battery above about 11.5v not at 13.8-14.4v etc. but generally, this is why people are disappointed with the solar chargers in reality if the car isn't used longer term. For short term, say weeks or so a smaller 2.4w may well suffice.
The problem is there is a lot of rubbish being sold and some only give out half the current after 2 years so you would need to check warranty. A decent one will only half it's output current after 5 years. Expensive only half after 10 years.
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I don't recall a permanent live into the boot you could tap into (assuming you wanted the solar panel on the rear shelf). I'll look through my wiring diagrams.
Where are you planning on putting it?
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If you don't use a car for 2 months the battery will go flat, and if it sits flat for a while that kills a battery. I wonder how difficult it would be to fit battery kill switch. That might make more sense for me to switch the car off when I don't use it for long periods. I don't really care about the alarm being off and otherwise all I lose is the radio presets and the trip mileage which again doesn't matter.
Yes it would be better but don't forget the siren at the back has a small battery too. PM me if you're unsure and I'll let you know how to disconnect the siren.
Lol, rather appallingly this is now I think my 4th battery in 4 years, this one should still be under warranty so if it has died I'll have to go and try and get a replacement.
I use the car so infrequently now that I just keep eating through batteries, I need to think about getting another solar charger if I can and this time hardwiring it in, not sure what happened with the last one but I think the OBD port connection must not work all the time or potentially goes to sleep if not used for a while.
I must have missed where you'd bought new batteries - I was thinking you were still fiddling with that one from years ago all these times!
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Thanks Geoff I'll try that. Is there any danger of me getting a shock or shortening the electrics if I do something wrong?
You won't get a shock and very doubtful you'll cause any harm unless you actually short out the charger leads but most have cutouts even if you did anyway.
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A lot have hidden vent holes for when the pressure builds up. It just looks like a mark in the battery plastic in some cases.
Yes you can test your charger. Do you have a multimeter? Or any meters that will measure current and voltage?
First of all measure the output from the charger. Connect the leads to a 21w lamp (indicator bulb ideal) to put it under a little load. Check the voltage is less than 15.4v
If it is, remove the bulb and put the charger onto a battery. A small amount of time won't do the battery any harm at all even if the charger is faulty. Measure the voltage is below 15.4v. If that's ok too, disconnect everything and move the meter across to A/current setting. Put the meter on it's highest current setting (usually 10A) and set your charger to trickle charge. Connect the negative from the charger to the battery. Take the + from the charger and connect one of the meter terminals to it. Put the other meter lead onto the battery terminal. Take the measurement and see if it is inline with what your trickle charger says it's trickle charge current is rated at. e.g. if the trickle charge is rated 1A check it is around that mark. Do the same with the fast charge. Don't leave the meter connected for long because most leads actually can't carry the current the meter needs to read!
Once you are confident with that, you can charge another battery normally with it but periodically test it to double check it's not failing when it's warm and that sort of thing. Should be fine if all the measurements stay stable.
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Don't tell nickT......
in Car Related Photos/Videos
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On the plus side, great if you're late for work...