Karl’s Asylum ... for the terminally deranged

I despair, I do.

I order a lot of stuff on the web. Generally it reaches me fine. Even my solar panels survived being FORCED through my letterbox by our postie, with prejudice. However…

I ordered 2 things off 7dayshop.com - a car 12v->USB converter, and a 12v/usb/mains smart battery charger, both to go into the solar setup. They tried to deliver on Wednesday, and left me a note to say “too big for letterbox”. Fair enough, yes. I rearranged delivery to Friday, at work as I’d be there to take delivery.

I’ve spent all day chasing this. Nothing. Called the sorting office at 1pmish. Rang, rang..5 minutes, no pickup. Tried again - engaged. Damn. Tried again..rang, 5 minutes, no pickup. 4th try - engaged again. 5th try, “ring ring, silence, noise of conversations on line, sound of someone typing in touchtone phone number..so I shouted down the line, and a shocked man answered…”is that Mrs..”..to which I replied “No, I’ve been calling you for about 20 minutes.”

“Oh. We’re closed. Erm. You shouldn’t have been able to do that..”. Oh, right..so when they close, they ignore the phone? Great service, I don’t think. I queried where my delivery was, given that I’d had the e-mail to say it had been rearranged for 05/09/08 at work…”erm..one sec..”

He comes back. “Posties still out on his rounds”. Right. He came by work pre 9am…it’s now post 1pm. Not happy. I explained this, and the mail etc. The response was:

“Leave it for the rest of the day, see what happens. Call Tomorrow mate”.

WHAT?!?! You can TOSS OFF, is what you can do there. Anyway, I get home through vertical rain and “road rivers”, and find a red card through my door..yes, even after getting redelivery confirmed to my workplace, they STILL delivered it to my house and found, once again it won’t fit through the letterbox.

WHAT AN UTTER BUNCH OF TOTAL INCOMPETENTS!!!!!!!

I’m going to the damn sorting office tomorrow morning, and I’ll collect by hand, and lodge a bastard complaint about it. Cretins.

Piss poor customer service, piss poor ability, all in all, PISS POOR. Whatever happened to the integrity of the post office?

Got 2 12v sockets out of corsas..what an arse of a job.

Anyway, yes..all linked up by a 3amp fuse to the 12v battery that’s charged by the sun. So far I used my in-car USB adapter on it and charged my phone - success. I ordered another 12v-> USB adapter for £2 as well, as I can’t lose the Astra’s USB power. I like it too much.

I also ordered an AA/AAA “Smart” charger that runs off 240vac/12vdc/USB, and that’ll be wired in to provide the 4-6 hour “mains free” battery charging station. Upon some playing with my old PC UPS, I’ve decided that in a month or so I’ll get a 75watt or 100-300 watt inverter as well for the setup, so it can then supply 12vdc, USB, and 240Vac if needed. They’re not much more than £20-30. If I need more capacity, a decent second hand car battery is £10, and the panels will charge that happily.

All that’s left after that is a battery condition indicator, and ideally a nice solid case with carry strap to complete the “portable power bank” aspect of it. Maybe add in an external 12v charge socket for the days when the panels don’t get much light. maybe a charge controller as well, but that I’m not sure on.

Quite happy with that. Bit odd maybe, but it’ll be “free” energy it supplies.

No luck with the lantern battery..but the even older 12v 0.8ah battery I had that was showing 0.03v has recovered to a useable state with the help of a screwdriver to lever the top off, and malt vinegar to refill the cells..yes, I know that’s not right, but it’s running a 12v fan, and has been for over an hour now..

The lantern itself got powered up for the first time in at LEAST 15 years using 5 AA NIMH batteries..the flourescent tubes run OK, but they’re dim and dying..and I replaced the main torch bulb (6v Krypton, yellowish beam) with one of my high power white LEDs, and SOD ME, it fairly kicks some serious “white floodlight” arse now, even when the batteries are virtually dead. That mod stays.

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