A couple of years ago, I wrote a short article about Litespan called "Things we Love to Hate in a Series of 1000". I rather hoped that your pet hates would pour into Trevor's email in-box, but no bites so far, except for the Chairman who hates free plans, but hasn't said so in print. So here I go again. This time, let me tell you how much I hate ELECTRICITY.
I know, of course, that it is making it possible for me to type these words on a Wednesday evening in my shirtsleeves, but why does it have to make such a song and dance about it? I'll admit straight away that I do not know either the fundamental (what actually goes on inside the wires) or the elementary (what the terms Amps, Watts etc. really mean to my batteries). I have no idea how it works. I was baffled at school when it was explained, and have never really caught up.
This lack of understanding is not just mine. It must also be true of all manufacturers of equipment that is designed to get the electricity out from the wall and into the product I am using. Because if they did understand it, at both the fundamental and the elementary level, I would only need one battery charger for all the applications that I have managed to accumulate over the years, instead of the 17 that can never be thrown away just in case they might come in useful. Chargers for shavers, drills, cameras, toys, Nicads, Nimhs, lead-acid, forgive me if I go on. And now, the latest must-have battery for indoor flight, the little li-ion that lets you hog the same frequency all evening, that too needs a new charger.
The new charger I really need would be able to take on all the various batteries that a household needs, from the ones in cameras through the variety of types we use in aeroplanes and equipment through to the one in the car. It would use a standard connector with a step-down facility, it would sense the size and type of battery it was connected to and it would discharge then recharge it at the appropriate rate until it was full, then it would keep it full until it was disconnected. Is this too much to ask? Or, like Hewlett Packard, a company really in the ink business with a sideline in printers, are we battery users merely part of the charger makers' profit centre?
Answers on a postcard, please.