<tech@yandina.com> At 03:13 PM 7/18/04 -0400, you wrote: >I've also experienced a somewhat similar experience using a large bank of >deep cycle house batteries on float service at the dock. With small >intermittent loads from flushing electric toilets that would trigger the >charger off "maintenance/float" back to stage 2 for a short time on >essentially fully charged batteries, I ruined a fairly new set in about a >year. > >I also came up with a neat solution to the problem. It is written up on our >website at http://www.yandina.com/hints.htm#BatterySaver > >Regards, > >Andina Marie Foster, >tech@yandina.com Andina, I went around and studied the page you mentioned above. Also, some of the other pages. Your solutions show cleverness and originality, good thinking "outside the box" so to speak. In the case of the battery saver solution I am suspicious that the added complexity that is introduced and the fact that it requires some manual operations and remembering on the part of the owner may negate most of it's advantages. It's a little like the where to house the anchor rode and chain problem, in the bow. I have thought about the problem over many years and have thought up at least a dozen clever ways to solve it, but each has some weakness which makes it impractical, not necessarily totally unusable. Really good solutions that will stand the test of time and practicality are one in a thousand if not one in a million. There is no point in giving up on problem solving as life is little more than a giant opportunity to solve problems. And when the game is over, maybe someone will remember that we, or I, or you had contributed at least one of the solutions that stood the test of time. And out of all that sometimes, someone is recognized for their contributions while they are still alive. In the meantime the game is worth playing for it's own sake simply because agile minds can not be stopped. A tantalizing problem to be solved is immensely more satisfying than any narcotic, and a hell of a lot cheaper. A talented computer programmer can get a lot higher, for a lot longer on a tangled mass of bug ridden code than an equal amount of heroin. For it is known in the trade that programmers would rather code than eat, sleep, bath or do much of anything else. And, there is a suspicion that if programmers were offered the choice of paying to code instead of the being paid, that some of them would die paying, regardless of the price. Sounds vaguely like some sailors, who would rather pay than stop. Now just where is that statute that equates boating with a habit forming drug. Regards, Mike Capt. Mike Maurice Wilsonville, Oregon (Portland).