TSD

Mostly it's just idiot proofing... - you cant drive off with the charger connected - if your battery is flat because you left the lights on, and you don't disconnect before charging, at best you'll charge more slowly with the additional load across the battery. Or it may not charge at all. Some loads aren't constant, and may some confuse the 'intelligent' multi stage battery chargers. e.g. those 12V coolers that shut off when your battery voltage drops below a certain level. You can get in a situation where as the battery voltage rises, the charger changes mode back and forth as the cooler repeatedly tries to start up and changes the load seen by the charger. The battery might still charge, but it's not good for it's long life. Potentially it might charge slowly, or it might get overcharged. Even a small constant load might be enough to stop the intelligent charger dropping back to 'trickle' charge at the end of the cycle. That said, I don't usually disconnect for charging either, though I have seen my "AccuMate Pro" get confused occasionally and cycle back and forth between modes.

It's worth reading the common sense bits though, for the occasional pearls of wisdom... Defender WSM says "Avoid contaminating clothes, particularly underpants, with oil" Just can't help thinking there must be a Lode Lane 'story' behind that particular caveat...

Who, me? Nah, I dont get to dissaprove of that... I put one in a standard 52mm (?) guage housing about 6 years ago, before I'd even installed my first megasquirt. I'm not bling enough to use vero though, real engineers cut the tracks directly into plain board with a scalpel It might still be around here someplace... will have a look.

Oh, well if you're doing TSD size, I'd better have a couple

I have a panasonix DMC-TZ3 bought for the work workshop (electronics) but most often found in the landy workshop. It was £200 about 6 months ago. Can't remember the resolution, but the 10x optical zoom is excellent, close focus is very good if you don't zoom too much, and the image stabiliser is excellent for making non-fuzzy detail shots. Less barrel distortion than others I've tried when shooting technical detail. Don't bother trying to shoot fast action shots with it though! A brief search shows £170 in Dixons so a bit over budget :-(

Anixter Components, under cable management > liquid tight fittings. (oh, and they are good with free samples as well)

Not quite true, as efficiency depends on load current, and will vary from one design to another. Typically efficency peaks around 80% load. However, a larger unit may run a little cooler, as while it is slightly less efficient at around 40% load tahn the smaller unit at 80%, it often has a larger heatsink so dissipates the heat energy more effectively. Have had good results with Waeco units in the past.

Got curious so had a squint at the circuit diagram (300 Disco - first one that came to hand). The only resistor I found is the one labelled 'Phase Tap Resistor' which is used to drive a rev counter, not the warning lamp. Worth checking, your small wire should come from the D+ terminal, not the W terminal.

One side of the bulb goes to the alternator wire, and the other side to ignition switched 12V. There's two places a resistor might be used, not sure which one was done :- Either in parallel with the bulb to provide additional current to the alternator if the bulb wattage is too low, or from the alternator wire to ground to provide a fail-safe warning (warning light if the wiring is boken or the regulator fails). Most likely it's the first one, but you can try without either. If the light doesn't go out until you rev the engine a bit, you need the resistor in parallel with the bulb.

The reason for using one pole from each battery is to equalise the load seen by each battery. It's most important under high current discharge (like using a leccy winch) to equalise the discharge from the two batteries, and maximise available capacity. Under high current, the voltage drop of even a short cable (and often more importantly, the terminal joints on it) become easily measurable. Now if you simply strap battery 2 to battery 1, and draw power from the terminals of battery 1, then the load seen by #2 is the load across #1 plus the resistance of two short cables and four extra terminations. Consequently, #2 will supply less than half the total current, and #1 a bit more than half. If you use the +ve of #1 and the -ve of #2, then each battery sees the same load - #1 sees the load plus one extra cable (the -ve side one) and #2 sees the load plus one extra cable (the +ve one). Current delivered from each battery should be approximately equal. The effect on total battery capacity delivered under high current is higher than might be expected because effective battery capacity is reduced under high load current. If this adds up to a significant 'real world' difference I don't know. You could calculate it fairly easily - google for 'Peukert constant' and grab a calculator. You need only an estimate for the resistance of a typical cable join. Of course, the same is true (to a much smaller extent) when charging. ...TSD returns to lurking

I saw you reversing, heard the sound of something breaking, but couldn't see what you hit - so it would be unfair to mention it. .... oh, bu66er!

Just wanted to add my thanks to all those who turned up and made the day a great success, and not to forget those who donated even though they couldn't make it on the day. I had a bloody brilliant day, and I think everyone else did too Special thanks to the Shires committee and marshalls for taking my idea and running with it, leaving me with nothing to do but pay the bill and play in the mud Enough of the Oscars speech - who's got more photos? (Not so secret anymore) Dave

Strangely I've been having similar thoughts, after spotting a couple of 4.0s in the autotrader. The best bit has to be that the electronics scares off everyone else The bobtail seen on the web is probably the one built by Maddison 4x4, and on their website in the gallery section.

Plenty of satnav units can be unlocked so you can run OziExplorerCE (or MemoryMap if you must). They don't have a big enough screen to really use instead of a paper map, but very good to give instant position on the paper version, and to find the correct entrance to that next lane without stopping and checking the paper map. I've done a few different units, but my current fav is the HP Ipaq314, with a fantastic 800x480 screen Head over to the forum at GPSPassion.com and see what can be done. Dave

Don't worry Ryan, you've a long way to go to beat me. I once recovered jules out of a small but deep hole, then reversed back and punted him straight back in Curse those extended military bumpers!

I 'spose the time has come to delurk and say Hello For those who don't know me, I'm easy to spot once you know what to look for (Fat bloke driving a yellow Ibex). Most of the Shires member know me already, hope to meet some more of you on the 9th. Look at it this way, if you don't come, we'll have Brick Kiln all to ourselves Odds on, DiscoRyan and I reverse into each other at some point during the day!