Tuesday, September 29, 2009

CHARGE, PLEASE

I have two light weight electric scooters, one of which I keep in the van, and one in the driveway for local use. When fully charged, these vehicles will go about 12 miles, and there is an indicator showing how much battery power is left.

The other day I headed out to a local pharmacy, a distance of about a mile and a half, which, if my math is correct, is 3 miles round trip. On what appeared to be a fully charged scooter. Well, I barely made it back home. If this operated on gasoline, I’d say I got into the driveway on the fumes, but I don’t know what the appropriate simile would be for electricity.

At any rate, I plugged it in for recharging, and yesterday went out again for a shorter trip. And I watched the battery indicator drop precipitously! I checked my records to see when those batteries had last been replaced, and of course they are j u u s t beyond the warranty period. So this morning I phoned the repair shop to see if they could check the batteries to determine if they need to be changed. Seems the repair department is too busy to pick up the phone, and someone is supposed to call me back. I’m waiting.

Ah, just had a call back. They have the batteries in stock. Come in any time.

Some hours later: We dropped the scooter off with instructions to see if the problem is REALLY the batteries (there are two “half” batteries, as they put it), or something else. When we returned about 2 hours later, we were informed that the batteries tested good. Must be something else. They are keeping it for a day or two, and will call when ready. Thank you, gentlemen.

Fun:

Watch out for this scam.

Police say that the gang usually comprises four members, one adult and three younger ones.

While the three younger ones, all appearing sweet and innocent, divert their 'mark' (or intended target) with a show of friendliness, the fourth -- the eldest -- sneaks in from behind the person's back to expertly rifle through his or her pockets and purses or bags for any valuables being carried.

The picture below was taken from CCTV shows the gang in operation.





2 comments:

  1. Bet the alternator is draining battery. I'm having some mechanical problems here, too. My washing machine wouldn't spin yesterday. I'm hoping it was just an unbalanced load because if it's the control panel I'm looking at a long wait for the repair man, and then either parts or new machine. Hope you get the scooter back soon.

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  2. I had mine do that once at Stitches, a huge knitting convention that takes over the whole Santa Clara Convention Center. My chair was gasping down the hallway and wasn't going to make it. (In my case it turned out I didn't use it often enough for the batteries to stay charged, and they actually failed and would no longer hold a full charge.)

    There was a line of people in the hallway, knitters all, and one called out that, hey, there was an outlet over here. I got it to there, plugged it in, plunked down and chatted, and about five minutes later decided it probably had enough in it to do the last little distance I needed out of it for the day. I unplugged it, started to zoom away--and was surprised to hear this whole big crowd of people in that line cheering me!

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