Poppy Can "Tix" It!

Oh, yes.  Poppy is grand according to his grands...  Here's the timeline:

June 2012 | Colorado thrift store:  Monty buys a few old plug-in “chargers” for 25¢ apiece.

Two weeks ago | Pat buys a battery-powered, kid-size Hot Wheels Jeep for the grandchildren at the Goodwill store for only $35.  Yay for those senior citizen discounts! 

Last week | Monty informs Pat that without a charger, the little Jeep battery will soon be dead. The battery is an odd voltage and he does not have a charger that will fit it. 

Five days ago | Sad look on Shepherd’s face.  Can Poppy “tix” it?  [In 2-yr-old lingo, tix = fix]

Four days ago | Monty takes his meter and begins a project.

Today | The Hot Wheel Jeep is zipping through the house with a battery on full charge, with Poppy at the wheel (so-to-speak).

Click on photo to see larger.
The left inset photo shows the
homemade charger under the hood.

All it took was one sad little two-year-old face and a McGyver of a man with lots of common sense, farmer ingenuity, and a pocket knife.  Monty used one of those thrift store plug-in chargers (probably from an old cordless phone), a junked red computer “plug”,  three diodes to change the voltage, scrap wire, shrink tubing, and electrical tape.  

A homemade charger for a kid-size Jeep battery = two happy grands!