After watching multiple videos on the subject, I decided it was time to give the idea a shot. I had a few old batteries that were perfect candidates for this process, which involves using epsom salt and distilled water in the rejuvenation process. I took three old batteries, one a marine battery, one a mid sized top post and the other a higher end side post battery, and popped the caps off to drain the old acid/water mixture from them. After draining the old acid, which included a lot of particulate matter, I mixed up some baking soda and tap water and poured this inside each of the six ports. The baking soda would help neutralize any remaining acid in the cells. Once this mixture was shaken up some, I drained this out then flushed the batteries several times with fresh water until no more heavy particulate matter came from the water. Once that was done I mixed up a mixture of epsom salt with distilled water. I mixed enough until it started getting more difficult to dissolve the salt. Once at that stage, I poured this mixture into the marine battery and the top post battery. The charger that would have to be used is a manual charger as the newer electronic chargers require the battery to have some voltage in it to activate the charger. The charger wouldn't turn on with a dead battery. I ended up using the large jump starter, which has a maintainer setting which should be around 1-2 amps, along with a 10 amp setting. I started the charge on the maintainer, but after about an hour I cranked it up to the 10 amp setting and left it there for the rest of the day afternoon/evening. While our battery was charging, I turned my attention to the next little project we had, which was installing a new keypad lock on the storage trailer door. The old lock had a mishap where I bent the key some, and since this was the only key, getting a replacement wasn't going to be possible. Besides, I was already wanting to replace this lock with a smart lock or keypad lock so that plan was pushed forward some with the key episode. We picked up a keypad lock from Walmart. The first thing I had to do was remove the old lock. This thing was rusty inside and gave me instant trouble. One of the screws stripped and required me to pry the inside portion of the lock loose enough to get the metal cutting blade of the reciprocating saw behind the lock body to cut through the screw. Once the inner and outer sides of the lock were out, I had to hammer and pry on the tongue portion to manage to get it out, all while not damaging the door. I got it out though. I laid out the components of the new lock in order to see how to piece all this shit together. The first thing to do was install the tongue section. I had to adjust this piece to the longer length for our door. Later on I would have to remove a spring inside the tongue that puts some kind of pressure on the rotating piece that pushes the tongue in and out. Once that piece was in I was able to mount the keypad/outside body of the lock. With the keypad body in place, I still had to install the metal plate on the inside that would hold the keypad body in place as well as provide an anchor point for the inner body of the lock, which holds the batteries and the electronics, along with the mechanical locking mechanism. I had to secure the plate with screws to the door body, then use three screws to secure the inner lock body to the plate. With the body on, I was able to install the batteries and move forward to the testing and the code programming. The whole saga didn't end here. I had to do some other things first. Well to rewind, I did have to straighten out the door as it was partially falling apart again due to screws loosening up that I had installed a while back to hold the door together. I also had to drill out the door jamb where the tongue would extend into it due to the fact that the tongue was pretty long compared to the depth of the hole. I also had to widen the hole some, along with beating on the aluminum of the door jamb in order to eliminate points where the door was scraping against the door frame. Once all the tweaks were made I was able to open and close the door without binding and the lock itself was able to open and close all the way as intended. One more thing I had to do was remove the storm door. The inner body of the lock hit against the storm door body so the only option was to remove it. Besides, the storm door was useless on a storage trailer. It's not like we're using the trailer as a mini house or anything. So with the lock ready to rock and roll, I tested out the lock by hitting the button to engage the lock. Once finding that to work, out came the instructions to get the codes programmed. The first thing I did was go thru the process to delete any user codes that may have been in the device, even though this thing was new. Once that was done I programmed a new admin code, which was a six digit code. With that done, I went through the procedure to set two separate user codes, both are four digit codes, to coincide with the four digit codes we typically use. After going through the processes and getting the quirks figured out, I was able to get everything programmed properly. After running the final tests to confirm the codes worked, I was able to relish in the victory of installing this cheap lock on this raggedy door and have everything work like its supposed to. On the next go around I want to get some regular smart locks, the ones that use RFID chips that can go on our keychains to activate the lock without having to even touch anything. I'll also want to add one of these locks to the garage lock as well, as it would be nice to be able to lock that place down, due to the fact that there's plenty of expensive tools held within, plus the Dodge. Once I do that, it'll be showcased here.
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