After getting the new fridge I was hoping my electricity bills would go down noticeably. But I wasn’t sure how much. Fortunately winter is a good time to see because electricity use is fairly consistent (in the summer it just depends on how hot it is). In November my average energy consumption has been 395 kilowatt-hours. But this past November, with the new fridge only installed for a couple of weeks, energy use was 312. It was my lowest November total ever (though the billing period was only 28 days). I got my December bill this week and it was my lowest number ever: 281 kwh (in 31 days), well below the December average of 400. That comes out to a savings of about $13 per month. I don’t know that the refrigerator is entirely to blame: the weather has been fairly warm so the fans for the heating system haven’t been running much. Also there is a writer’s strike and I’m not doing Netflix, so my TV watching has been down. I’m always putting in more compact fluorescent lights (I’m up to at least 15), so maybe there is some savings there as well. But it’s looking like I will be able to save $10 a month with the new fridge.
Building the MintyBoost
Although my own homemade Band Aids Battery Pack still works fine with newer iPods (and just about anything else that charges via a car adapter), I still wanted to try to build the very popular and ingenious MintyBoost charger, which was invented and thoroughly documented by Limor Fried (aka ladyada) on Instructables and then later updated on her own website. I had written about it when it first came out but couldn’t use it at the time since my 3G iPod would only charge via firewire. The advantage of the MintyBoost is that it only uses 2 AA batteries and charges via the iPod’s USB cable. Due to Apple’s varying implementation of USB requirements over time, no USB charger seems to work with every iPod let alone every USB device out there.
Now that I have an 8 GB 3G nano with video that charges via a USB cable, I thought I would try my hand at putting together a do-it-yourself electronics kit.
Versapak Rejuvenated!
Before you go further, I have to say that while I was able to get some capacity from the batteries this way, it did not make the dead Versapak batteries usable for any real work and I wound up finding some NiMH replacements.
When I first got my house ten years ago, I started buying some Black and Decker Versapak tools because I was needing several cordless tools and it seemed smart to have them all use the same battery. I wound up with a dustbuster, screwdriver, drill, and snakelight. Eventually the NiCad batteries stopped taking a charge and, although B&D had stopped selling Versapak tools, I was able to get two more batteries from Target. That was 2004, but one of the batteries went kaput pretty quickly and had stopped taking a charge at all. Since the dustbuster and drill both need two batteries, I needed something better than these memory-prone NiCad batteries. B&D makes “gold” versions of the batteries that are really NiMH batteries, so I ordered two of those last night. NiMH batteries don’t have memory effect, but I worry that my charger won’t work properly with NiMH (my conclusion was that it would work, but it might take twice as long to charge the batteries) (eventually I started using a hobby charger to charge the NiMH replacements).
Today I searched eBay for “Versapak” and found a guy who was selling information for $12.95 on how to rejuvenate Versapak batteries. I’m no dummy, if there is that kind of knowledge available, it is free somewhere on the internet. I did find a site where you would get a transformer and a big resistor and could zap a battery back to life. That seemed complicated.
Then I searched more and learned about chemical “whiskers” that develop in NiCad batteries and cause them to stop charging (or, really, to stop giving off a charge). Searching further about whiskers, I found this page on Instructables. Though the guy uses a welder, basically he is just applying a large DC current to the battery which burns the whiskers out and restores the battery to normal. All he did was touch the ends to the battery. It gives off sparks and the battery is revived.
I don’t have a welder, but I do have a car battery which has a lot of amperage. I put on some gloves and got my jumper cables. The + end of the Versapak battery is inside a hole on one end of the battery and the outside of the battery is negative. I found a bolt that would fit in the + hole and held the bolt in the jaws of the jumper cables. Then I put the – jumper clamp around the battery itself. Wearing gloves to keep myself from getting shocked, I stuck the bolt in the hole and got a few small sparks. I did it again for just a second or so. Is that all there was to it?
Yes. I took the battery back inside and hooked it up to my volt meter. Before the battery was giving off 0.01 mV. Now it was up to 4 V, just like the fully charged good one. I stuck it in my screwdriver. Power!
Amazing. However, the power didn’t really last long. I am recharging the battery in its charger to see if I can get something closer to a full charge.
Family Portrait
I am the keeper of the address list for my Peace Corps group. So a few weeks before Christmas I send out an e-mail and ask for updated information. Last year I also asked people to submit a paragraph about what they have been up to if they wanted and put it together (like FOPAB). A couple of people sent pictures, which I hadn’t really thought of, but since they did it I asked Susan to take a picture of me and the dogs for the newsletter. It isn’t easy to get the dogs to stand still, let alone look in a certain direction. Austin was fairly easy because he would just lean on me, but Katie was always on the lookout for anything interesting (like a cute photographer).
Sell It on eBay
After realizing that I couldn’t use the 4 GB memory card I had bought for my Palm and figuring nobody else would need it either, I decided to try selling it on eBay. I have shopped for electronics on eBay before and have generally been disappointed that the winning bids are usually higher than what you can get the same item for by shopping around. Plus most eBay sellers have ridiculous shipping rates that inflate the price further. Well, when you have something to sell, that all works to your advantage.