Half a job done.

It was cold this morning and it snowed last night. Overnight it dropped to 29F and was still only a degree above freezing by sundown today. It was warmer in the sun but only because there was no wind. Not a day to go under the bus!

Today I didn't complete the task I wanted to complete. I did get the new D cell battery holder into place. That is a huge step forward. I also installed a fuse box at the end of the battery holder. I had wanted to put crimp spade connectors to connect to the fuse box but I couldn't get the first one to grip even with my extra powerful crimper. In the end I simply soldered to the fuse box. The other side can be spade connectors. 

The messy bundle of wires will be tidied up later. I ordered a relay but it has not yet arrived. When that arrives, it will be screwed to the bulkhead on the right and wires of appropriate length installed. What's there now is just a jerry-rigged affair that had worked for the past 5 years. The bigger batteries and the fuses are a great step forward. 

The experimental set up with the time-delay relay probed the time delay was in the wrong direction. It would delay before it activated rather than delaying after activating. That made it a bit nonsensical. I had to get a second relay to put with it in order that I could have it latched on then the other relay could activate a minute later, breaking the connection. It's fiddly wiring but it'll work.

This is the relay. I bought this from Autozone on Thursday. What a nightmare that was. I walked in and browsed the entire store looking for relays and could not find any. Eventually I approached a disinterested sales clerk. He asked what I was looking for and I said "relays". He pointed to the electrical section so I told him I'd looked. He went and looked then to prove me wrong. Seeing that there were no relays, he asked the usual nonsensical question: "What car is it for", I told him I wanted their cheapest relay. He said he had to look it up by car. That was pure nonsense! Clearly the fellow did not know anything about what he was doing. Having said that, the staff in the store was totally different from the last time I was in there.

While the moron was playing with his computer searching through Ford Explorer parts - he'd decided to look up Ford Explorer relays for some unknown reason - I looked up the Autozone website. Up came relays and I sorted them, cheapest first. The fellow as on about a relay for that Ford Explorer that was $20. That was nuts! I showed him the one I had found on the website. Nope - didn't have it in stock. I showed him the next one which was about $6. Yes. That was listed so he trotted off to get it. Then having found it, I bought it. 

Where does Autozone get its staff? The bargain bin at the lunatic asylum?

So, the door lock works though I do need to replace the relay with one that has a base. That relay arrives likely on Monday. To get to South Carolina from New York it seems to have had to wander off into Georgia. That's not a straight line! Having been out in the cold for an hour or so working on installing and wiring the new battery pack, it was time to head back inside. I was frozen. Tomorrow I'll have a go at wiring the time delay relay pair for the stairwell light.