ECN Forum Forums General Topics of the Trade General Discussion Area Broken battery charger? Check for cobwebs!

My father-in-law sent me home with yet another car battery charger to fix. He buys them at the auction and if it doesn't work he asks if I can "take a look at it". Today I finally found time to take a look at his latest auction battery charger. The problem with this unit was that the analog meter's indicator needle wasn't sitting in the correct location - it was pointing midway on the dial. I assumed it was broken and that would be the end of the story. Nonetheless, I decided to take it apart to see if I could find out why it was broken. A couple minutes later I found out that I was wrong. The meter wasn't broken. The needle was in the incorrect position because a thick spider web was holding it there - from the back end of the needle to the meter housing. A quick dusting and the needle was back in the correct position. If this would have been a money job that would have been all gravy.

I bought a nice table saw from the outlet center at Sears for a song because it wouldn't run. I figured, at most, I would have to replace the motor and I would end up with a really sweet deal for just the cost of a 1 Hp motor.

Imagine my delight when I discovered that the only thing wrong with it was that the overload on the motor had tripped and nobody ever tried pushing the little red button to reset it.

Yes, I bought a tile cutter very cheaply from our local B&Q clearance sale. It was labelled as a return, "faulty- blade catches table". Clearly no-one had checked that the buyer had assembled it correctly, which of course they hadn't.

There is a guy up the street who gets a lot of "returned" stuff from Northern Tool that they just throw away. I get all sorts of things from him with nothing serious wrong with them other than orange spray paint on them but it is water based marker paint so it comes right off.