On Mon, 26 Mar 2007 21:02:55 -0500, Jeff Wisnia
wrote:
mm wrote:
On 26 Mar 2007 15:05:36 -0700, "
wrote:
wrong polarity most chargers shut down to protect things
I didn't know about that. Of course mine are both about 40 years old.
Hell, my Eico 6/12 volter is older than that and uses a selenium rectifier.
I know you've got me on age, and I'm sorry my chargers are younger
than yours, but hey, they both had selenium rectifiers when they
started. And they are both 6/12.
The small 1 amp one is a Goodyear charger, that my cousin Morris must
have bought at a Goodyear store. He was about 82 when I was 18, in
1965, my grandfather's cousin, and he said he wasn't going to be
driving his "machine" anymore, and my mother said she would like to
buy it, a '50 Olds, but he gave it to her, to me actually. It had the
charger in the trunk, so I guess it is at least 42 years old plus
however long he had it. It has the same shape and layout of other
1-amp metal-box chargers of a 20 or 30 year period back then.
The rectifier failed, and the only one I found was much bigger, too
big to go inside, and now sits on top of the little box, sort of like
the first refrigerators with coils on top.
The second one I found on a street corner in an industrial area of
Brooklyn, around 1974, but I'm figuring it was at least 7 years old at
the time. It's 5 or 10 amps, it's downstairs and I don't recall the
brand (It's red and white) and has a meter.
I think it was broken when I found it, and I decided the selenium
rectifier was bad. I was sure I could buy one somewhere in the 5
boros, but couldn't find it in Brooklyn or Queens. And Allied Radio
was gone by then, so I didn't know of a catalog source. So the thing
sat for 5 or more years, and then I decided to fix it for sure, but it
worked by then and worked for another 10 years. (I don't use these
things that often.) Finally the rectifier did go, and I replaced it
with 4 or 8 tophat diodes. Also in the middle I replaced the cloth
insulated leads with heavy, even longer wire ones.
Used it just last week when youngest son's 95 Honda's battery got
discharged because water got into the underhood relay for the AC clutch
and created a path between its hot contact and the end of its coil which
backfed juice to the coil of the heater fan relay which kept that fan
running until the battery died. Took us nearly three hours to figure
that one out.
I"m not surprised. Congrats.
He can live without an AC clutch relay until the weather
warms up. G
I used to have a charger with a tungar tube rectifier in it, but someone
swiped it....
I hate that. I've had a few tools stolen but so far, not many.
BAck to the first small charger. I had the 6-volt '50 olds in Chicago
during the winter of '67 - '68 and it was cold, so I ran a long, heavy
duty, "cloth and wax"? insulated extension cord I had made up from the
pantry of the frat house to the no parking sign, and I put the charger
under the hood and plugged the car in whenever I was there which was
all but 3 to 8 hours a week. The 6-volt setting didn't seem to be
enough, so I put it on the 12-volt setting, and the clear glass, xmas-
tree-light-like circuit breaker would trip after about 8 seconds, and
reset after about 3, and it did that for at least 4 months, day and
night. 6000 times a day, 120 days, 720,000 times. And it worked find
and the battery stayed charged fine, except for one night it was down
to zero when the tow truck couldn't start me either.
Once I caught the ac cord in the car's fan and ripped it and its
grommet out, and distorted the hole, but that was repairable. The
hole is still open and distorted.
It still works today too.
Jeff