The trouble with batteries is the times I have gone to replace a battery and struggled to find one with enough charge! I am sure we have all done it.
The Trouble With Batteries
A Mix of Ordinary and Rechargeable Batteries
Rechargeables
We use a lot of rechargeable batteries at our house. Our battery charger is our friend! For example, as well as solar lights using them, my wildlife camera is also powered by them. The camera takes eight batteries and on a good night of wildlife activity it will use half the power in them. So having rechargeables makes good economic sense as well as being more environmentally friendly.
Ordinary
We have some ordinary batteries too. The rechargeables are great but not so great if you have no electricity. Which can happen here from time to time over winter. So as part of stocking up for winter we have a small stash of ordinary batteries for back up.
The Weather Station Situation
Today our weather station decided it didn’t want to work and needed new batteries. It must be two years since we put the original batteries in so that is not bad going.
I selected three batteries from our pile of ordinary ones as we had quite a few left. After popping them into the weather station I was stunned to find that it wasn’t working.
Barnet Boy To The Rescue
Barnet Boy pulled out his trustee ‘battery charge checker’ gizmo. And announced that all three of the batteries were dead. This seemed strange so he pulled out a torch he had been using. First he checked it was working then he took out one of the batteries. And his gizmo told him that battery was empty.
I casually suggested he should try changing the battery in the gizmo. Sure enough, that battery was flat and suddenly the battery from the torch now showed at full charge.
A Senior Moment or Two
We checked the three original batteries for the weather station and they were still flat. So clearly, one of us had suffered a senior moment and put three used batteries in with the new ones. That’s the trouble with batteries, having a system is only as efficient as the people involved, LOL.
Anyway, three new batteries and the weather station was working. The battery went back in the torch and … suddenly the torch no longer worked. Cue lots of giggles. Eventually we took the torch completely apart, reassembled it and it started working again.
You couldn’t make it up…
Before you go
My name is Dorothy Berry-Lound an artist and writer. You can find out more about my art and writing at https://dorothyberryloundart.com.
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Thank you for reading!
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