On 2008-04-09, [email hidden] (aka Bruce)
was almost, but not quite, entirely unlike tea:
Quoted message said:The SLA battery it comes with will probably be heavy rubbish, but
replacement NiMh 12V cordless drill batteries and chargers are so
cheap I'm not really worried.
Er, cheap cordless drill rechargers are rubbish. I bought mine
(complete with drill, naturally, which I still use by plugging into a
12V supply) for $20, knowing it would be [censored], but I didn't even get
to see how [censored] the battery was, because the charger had destroyed it
within 3 months, as one day I missed the vital "disconnect after 3
hours. No, you can't have a light to say it is already charged" step
as I was busy at the time.
<insert standard rant about wishing there was a step somewhere between
$20 plastic rubbish and $600 good tools. In this case, $20.30 plastic
rubbish with an extra LED and mosfet in the charging circuit would
almost certainly be sufficient to render it worthwhile. <insert
another rant about a $300 set of halogen cycling lights, where the
idiot designer forgot to include a LED on the battery to say that 1)
it is connected, and 2) whether or not it is charged. I am also not
convinced that it is even a smart charger, which I didn't expect for
$300. And of course there's no LED on the torch head either, so I
don't know whether there is no light because the battery is flat, or
because the bulb is blown, or because it is still too light outside to
see the reflection off the road, and that yes indeed, the bulb is
still glowing>>
--
TimC
Failure is not an option. It comes bundled with your Microsoft product.
-- Ferenc Mantfeld
