What’s been happening?

I (finally) managed to fit the battery under the trailer.  As they say…. a picture is worth a thousand words.
The front end of the plank was packed up with two tiers of clay tiles.  Then I jacked up the rear end with the trolley jack.  The battery was two thirds the way along the plank.  Once the jack had reached it’s full extension I packed underneath the battery to make a fulcrum point.  The process was then repeated until the battery was correctly positioned under the trailer.

Front of the plank.

Rear
Of course nothing is easy and I discovered in making the steel “saddle” for the aluminium battery shield the bolt holes had moved slightly.  Eventually this was resolved by enlarging the holes from the original 10mm to 13mm.  Then I couldn’t tighten the bolts.  They had a 16mm hex head and I only had a 17mm socket.  The area was too confined to use an adjustable spanner which meant a trip to the hardware store for a 16mm socket.  Eventually the battery box was “in”.  I now need to install the wiring conduit.

Finished
Jan and I spent several hours completing the shade cloth screen to the side of the pergola.  More timber was required which necessitated yet another trip to the local timber merchants.  It was ripped down on the small DeWalt bench saw and then painted (have I mentioned I hate painting?)

I then decided to return to the project of replacing the unserviceable NiMh batteries for the old Panasonic drill with lithium.  I was unsuccessful with my first attempt and this time tried a different method.  The NiMh cells had been removed and I replaced them with three Li-ion cells from an old laptop battery.  Lithium cells need to be ‘balance’ charged and I’d bought a balance lead from eBay ($1).  My new battery has two external leads and is designed to be recharged by my iMax B6 charger.   One lead is the main 12V charging lead and the other is the balance lead.  Both plug into the iMax to recharge the battery.

The battery was plugged into the drill after being on charge and the drill DIDN’T work!!!!  Eventually I decided to dismantle the drill.  That’s when I discovered the battery terminals inside the drill were corroded.  After fixing the problem the drill worked <success> and the old drill now has a new lease on life.  Total cost of the conversion was $1 for the balance lead.  Now I know the problem was the battery terminals inside the drill I’m going to try out the earlier method using the balance circuit board on a second battery.