I have several Noco battery chargers, mostly bought because they seem to work very well and they are made in USA. Problem is: I use these things in cold weather - sometimes to charge, but usually to maintain charge for cold starts. Now, by cold around here I mean COLD - it was -40 (CorF, same thing) last week so I put some heat on the engine of wife's car and to maintain charge (battery in interior - Q7 TDI) connected a Noco Genius G1100. EVERY battery charger seems to have wires too stiff at those temps, but I find that my Noco stuff (usually hard mounted and permanently wired in) was cracking the insulation on portable use chargers at a mere -25C. Brushed against the power cord in the morning and all I heard was a quick, loud crack and there it was, laying on the ground blown right off. Just started to think what would have happened if that was under a car cover when insulation failed and burned the car - parked right against the house. I called Noco to order a new power cable, expecting that after several years they would have spec'd out a far better quality AC cable - only to have the snot-nosed idiot on the "customer support" line tell me I should only use the charger indoors or I should provide heat to the charger, since it was only rated down to -4F (= -20C). I guess it will be back to Schumacher...IF they are any better.
So, the far more interesting development was I decided to just buy a two conductor 14Ga extension cord meant for outdoor (Christmas) lighting, often rated down to -50. All I had to do was open the case and find out how the power cable was terminated and my problems would be over. Yeah....IF I had a triangular tipped screw driver. No, not three wings, a solid triangle. Daughter tells me that most of her kids' toys use this fastener head but I have never noticed one before. Tried to buy one locally, but of the dozens of stores I called, only two people had ever heard of this configuration and one had a personal set but nothing available through them. Ordered a set of 1/4" hex bits (5 sizes) from an Amazon seller, so won't fix the charger for a week or so.
There are a lot of genuine tool and fastener fanatics here (uh....guilty as charged) so thought I would share this link to a wide range of screw head configurations. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_screw_drives
I did not realize, for instance, there are actually a mess of "torx" like configurations. Plus a few other surprises. Enjoy the read.
I think this is the set I ordered: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_screw_drives
Oh: to add to the Noco stuff: I stuck a temporary plug on the end of the broken cord, then tried to hook the DC clamps onto the boosting terminals under the hood, and the positive clamp just fell off. The ring terminal on the end of the wire was screwed into a nut soldered or brazed onto the clamp, and that weld joint had failed. Great QA/QC Noco. No wonder China has taken all of our markets and jobs.
So, the far more interesting development was I decided to just buy a two conductor 14Ga extension cord meant for outdoor (Christmas) lighting, often rated down to -50. All I had to do was open the case and find out how the power cable was terminated and my problems would be over. Yeah....IF I had a triangular tipped screw driver. No, not three wings, a solid triangle. Daughter tells me that most of her kids' toys use this fastener head but I have never noticed one before. Tried to buy one locally, but of the dozens of stores I called, only two people had ever heard of this configuration and one had a personal set but nothing available through them. Ordered a set of 1/4" hex bits (5 sizes) from an Amazon seller, so won't fix the charger for a week or so.
There are a lot of genuine tool and fastener fanatics here (uh....guilty as charged) so thought I would share this link to a wide range of screw head configurations. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_screw_drives
I did not realize, for instance, there are actually a mess of "torx" like configurations. Plus a few other surprises. Enjoy the read.
I think this is the set I ordered: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_screw_drives
Oh: to add to the Noco stuff: I stuck a temporary plug on the end of the broken cord, then tried to hook the DC clamps onto the boosting terminals under the hood, and the positive clamp just fell off. The ring terminal on the end of the wire was screwed into a nut soldered or brazed onto the clamp, and that weld joint had failed. Great QA/QC Noco. No wonder China has taken all of our markets and jobs.
