[Green] Update on Solar Bench

[Dawn Hewitt]

Friends,

Jay Warmke generously spent some time today checking out the solar charging bench. He swung by the FUUSM office to pick up and return the key, and gave me his assessment. What’s inside the “guts” below the display case isn’t mud, but a lot of RUST!!  The battery was dead, of course. He said it looks like the electrical shorted out soon after the first floodwaters encroached. So, he cut one wire, stripped it, and reattached it to some other wire, and he thinks the battery started charging!!  This is not a permanent fix, but if someone could go down there sometime after dark and see if the lights are on, that would be most helpful.

I am out of town until about 1:20 p.m., Sunday (back in time for Randi Pokladnik’s talk on carbon capture) or I’d run down there myself. Maybe take a USB cable and your phone and see if the ports work, too. It would be a miracle if the hardware—other than a short and rusty wires—is still working. As Jay said, this system was not intended for underwater use!  But keep your figners corssed that the damage is minor. 

Thanks to Jay for 1) taking the time to check it out, and 2) his expertise!!

—dawn at Hotel Millersburg



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