Rant of the Day v2.

[Pontius Navigator]

And of course it is always the last thing you check.

Last home we needed an electric safety inspection. I had done lots of the electrical work myself. He found an earth fault in a ring I had created. He went round checking socket after socket, all OK. Just about stumped he checked the circuit board that I had not touched. Found the fault.

Present home, one circuit would trip randomly. Sometimes fine for months then trip several times over a few days. One cause might have been lightning strikes on the grid somewhere. Finally it was really jiggered. We could have the circuit live and no cooker or cooker and the rest off.
He checked everywhere and finally pronounced the cooker (not covered by insurance) was to blame. However he did one last check. Found the main MCB in the circuit box was physically broken and probably from new.

Personally, that is where I would have started

[llondel]

We discovered many years ago that my wife's kiln would trip the RCD as it went over 1000C. I set it up as an experiment with a meter in series with the earth wire (probably in violation of a bunch of rules) and sure enough, as it got hotter, the leakage current would start to rise and then it would trip the main house breaker.

[ExSp33db1rd]

Earth ? Thanks, maybe. Unfortunately had identified the wrong fuse - Manual ! - so flat battery next morning. Correct fuse pulled now has disabled the whole interior light system, but major detective work needed now to find source of the "leak". Some gizmo that dims the lights for 5 minutes before finally switching them off when departing for the night has been suggested, Man Wot Does said a common problem on Mercedes, but first one he has heard of for Honda, but never say never.

Off to buy a torch.

[John Hill]

The interior light circuit may also be connected to the security system, keyless lock etc and a non-functioning interior light may lead to being locked out of the vehicle.

[ian16th]

Earth ? Thanks, maybe. Unfortunately had identified the wrong fuse - Manual ! - so flat battery next morning. Correct fuse pulled now has disabled the whole interior light system, but major detective work needed now to find source of the "leak". Some gizmo that dims the lights for 5 minutes before finally switching them off when departing for the night has been suggested, Man Wot Does said a common problem on Mercedes, but first one he has heard of for Honda, but never say never.

Off to buy a torch.

At one point Honda and Mercedes were built in the same plant in SA.

There may have been some cross pollination.

[Pontius Navigator]

Oh Joy. What John says is very true. I thought I had left a light on in my Toyota. By the third time I suspected the battery.

On a forum we discussed what was a common problem. Basically a modern car does not switch off. Its alarm is armed if the car is locked. Its keylock receiver is armed waiting to respond to the key. The telematic send trip data to mother, and no doubt there are other juice thieves too.

[ExSp33db1rd]

The interior light circuit may also be connected to the security system, keyless lock etc and a non-functioning interior light may lead to being locked out of the vehicle.

On a forum we discussed what was a common problem. Basically a modern car does not switch off. Its alarm is armed if the car is locked. Its keylock receiver is armed waiting to respond to the key. The telematic send trip data to mother, and no doubt there are other juice thieves too.

Should Life be this difficult ? Had my car had a starting handle, like the first car I ever drove, I could have got sufficient power for ignition from my motor bike battery, but whilst I had 12 v there weren't enough Cranking Amps. Thank goodness for the A.A. only took 30 mins. to provide a Home Start.

No second car, all nearby neighbours away from home. stood in the road ready to wave jump leads, but not a single car passed. ( this is rural New Zealand )

Mrs. ExS had to re-book her hair dresser appt. Not happy, all my fault of course, for "fiddling" with the lights in the first place ( actually not true )

( What would you have done ? )

[Pontius Navigator]

Apologise profusely and buy her some flowers

We live adjacent to a busy arterial road. If we have a time critical appointment to the north we use back roads. To the south it is not as easy as the back road journey can add at least 30 minutes.

To the north there is no escape once the wall of death grinds to a halt. To the south there are escapes but none that would get her to the hair dresser on time.

[ExSp33db1rd]

I can often travel the 12km into town without passing a single car in either direction. The only problem in our town is during school ending time, when the one road is clogged with Mums carrying one child passenger in huge gas guzzling SUV's. Also puzzling is the number of such vehicles parked and clogging the road by the school all day, far more than the number of staff and teachers, where do all the kids, and / or parents get all the money from these days?

Admittedly we live in a Rural area, but even those living close by seem to demand Mum to chauffeur them to school. Whatever happened to children walking, or even cycling to school, 5 miles each way daily, wet or fine, didn't do me any harm ?

[tango15]

I can often travel the 12km into town without passing a single car in either direction. The only problem in our town is during school ending time, when the one road is clogged with Mums carrying one child passenger in huge gas guzzling SUV's. Also puzzling is the number of such vehicles parked and clogging the road by the school all day, far more than the number of staff and teachers, where do all the kids, and / or parents get all the money from these days?

Admittedly we live in a Rural area, but even those living close by seem to demand Mum to chauffeur them to school. Whatever happened to children walking, or even cycling to school, 5 miles each way daily, wet or fine, didn't do me any harm ?

I think it would probably be classed as child cruelty today to expect the little darlings to actually have to walk to school. As you say, ExS, it didn't do us any harm. My first local school was considered unsuitable by my mother, partly because it was opposite the local gasworks , so I went to another school which was further away, but on the edge of a park. No car, and the bus service was sporadic, so I often walked the mile and a half to school, in all weathers of course.

My grandson lives about half a mile from his school. but his mum, to her total credit, would never think of driving him there - nor would a lot of other mums who live close by. Very few of the kids in his school are overweight, whereas, those that live around me, who are chauffeured to school every day would not suffer from missing a meal or two. Now feeding your kids pizza every day is child abuse...

[OFSO]

I had to walk every day to Ravenhurst Rd primary school every morning and was so frightened I would vomit up my breakfast every morning on the way there, carrying a half hundredweight sack of coal to heat the classroom. . And sometimes I threw up twice on the way back after having to eat frogspawn for lunch. Beatings were common, sometimes whippings, and now and then we were savaged by the Headmaster's Yorkshire Terrier which was named Fang. I was regularly tortured by a boy named James Edgar Leslie Williams and suffer the psychological scars from that to this day.

[TheGreenGoblin]

I had to walk every day to Ravenhurst Rd primary school every morning and was so frightened I would vomit up my breakfast every morning on the way there, carrying a half hundredweight sack of coal to heat the classroom. . And sometimes I threw up twice on the way back after having to eat frogspawn for lunch. Beatings were common, sometimes whippings, and now and then we were savaged by the Headmaster's Yorkshire Terrier which was named Fang. I was regularly tortured by a boy named James Edgar Leslie Williams and suffer the psychological scars from that to this day.

Seriously though bullying is a terrible thing and does have life long consequences both for the bully and the bullied (mostly for the bullied of course)!

[ian16th]

I had a bike!

[G-CPTN]

As a diminutive child I steered clear of the rougher games of the bigger boys at infants school, however I recall one of the roughest pugilists taking me under his wing after I had suffered an accident (I don't recall the details of the accident, just the unexpected humanitarian action).

[OFSO]

I will never forget the pain of being told that the reason I was never buggered by one of the older boys was that I was not considered attractive enough. Oh, the humiliation. No wonder that in adult life I became a raging heterosexual.

[Boac]

Life's a bitch, innit - but at least you 'came good in the end'

[Pontius Navigator]

Call from Private Number to my mobile "and for data protection purposes just....."

NO - you called me. You say you have my email, you rang my mobile number so I am or I'm not.

[llondel]

The interior light circuit may also be connected to the security system, keyless lock etc and a non-functioning interior light may lead to being locked out of the vehicle.

That is a very poor design if so.

[llondel]

The interior light circuit may also be connected to the security system, keyless lock etc and a non-functioning interior light may lead to being locked out of the vehicle.

On a forum we discussed what was a common problem. Basically a modern car does not switch off. Its alarm is armed if the car is locked. Its keylock receiver is armed waiting to respond to the key. The telematic send trip data to mother, and no doubt there are other juice thieves too.

Should Life be this difficult ? Had my car had a starting handle, like the first car I ever drove, I could have got sufficient power for ignition from my motor bike battery, but whilst I had 12 v there weren't enough Cranking Amps. Thank goodness for the A.A. only took 30 mins. to provide a Home Start.

No second car, all nearby neighbours away from home. stood in the road ready to wave jump leads, but not a single car passed. ( this is rural New Zealand )

Mrs. ExS had to re-book her hair dresser appt. Not happy, all my fault of course, for "fiddling" with the lights in the first place ( actually not true )

( What would you have done ? )

You can buy helpful little packs that can be used to jump start. The common ones have a 17AH sealed lead-acid battery in them which will provide enough juice to start a car. We have a couple, one for each car. Keep them charged, they also have a small compressor so you can inflate tyres, a 12V adapter socket and some lights, and newer ones have a couple of USB charger ports too.

[PHXPhlyer]

Bought one of those from Harbor Freight.
I charged it up but never had a need to use it.
It sat around for a while before I checked the charge again. Wouldn't charge as it had a loose connection in the charging port.
Past 90 day warranty.
Unit is sealed so I would have to partially destroy the case to open it up.

PP