Burnt Finger and a New Method

Whilst visiting my brother earlier this week he gave me a failed battery pack.  This type of event isn’t unusual as we’ve always given each other junk.  After examining the pack, I identified it as being a Lithium battery pack from some type of Dyson appliance.   Quite often it’s only one or two cells that have failed in a Lithium battery pack and the others can still be used.  I started dismantling the pack suffering a battery burn to my index finger in the process.

This isn’t a cut.  The power from a single Lithium cell was able to break my skin.  I smelt burning flesh before I realised what had happened.

With all the cells removed I started testing them using my battery conditioner/tester/charger powered by an old computer power supply.

Why am I doing this?  You have to go back to 1980 when we were living in Singapore with three young children.  I was determined they would be treated equally and when we decided to buy toys they each get the same.  For some strange reason our daughter wasn’t interested in this particular toy and wanted Barbie Dolls instead.

 

Long ago the two boys destroyed they aluminium die cast remote control trucks, however the third truck has been kept in its original box and packaging for 40 years.

It’s probably worth a few bob?

The truck is powered by six D sized batteries and if my memory is accurate the vehicle would consume them quite quickly.

You will have realised my plan is to make a rechargeable Lithium battery to power the truck.

Change of subject

I’ve been rethinking how to fit the rooftop tent to the camper trailer.  The process needs to be simplified and some of the heavy manual labour removed.  My new method only requires the tent to be placed once on the trailer.  Moreover, instead of having to lift the tent above my head I’ve decided on a cantilever method and have made two temporary props.

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The idea is the tent will be laid across the props  and then the lower ends raised into the air allowing the tent to be pushed onto the roof rack.  It remains to be seen if this method works.