It should not be overcharged too often; occasional overcharge is good, but not too often.
It should not be discharged at a very high rate.
Most self-starters are of the two-unit type; they have a generator for recharging the battery and a motor for cranking the engine. In other self-starters the two units are combined; the same instrument, when current is fed to it from the battery, kicks off the motor and when driven by the engine acts as a generator.
When self-starters were first introduced they had all sorts of devices to offset the high-current demand and regulators and cutouts to comply with the battery-makers’ directions in recharging. These devices were complicated and could not be depended upon, and consequently were discontinued, and it was put up to the battery to stand the abnormal conditions. The battery makers have been trying to offset this and to a certain extent have succeeded, but as it is directly against former practice—for every one of the “don’ts” is disregarded in self-starter systems—the makers have not been able to rectify conditions entirely.
On account of these conditions the life of a storage battery may be considered to be about one and a half years, and if it lasts as long as that it is considered to have done its work and to be entitled to be retired.
But if your battery seems to fail with the coming of short and cool days, do not discard it until you have tried having it recharged, for possibly you have simply been overworking it and not feeding it enough current to keep it in condition.
CHAPTER XXI
WHY GEARS STRIP
Some of the most unnecessary and expensive repairs to an automobile are those connected with its transmission. It is not only exasperating, but unnecessary to be told that the gears of your car are stripped, or that the teeth are broken so that smooth running is impossible, if indeed the car can be run at all.
It is not in the permanent mesh gears, where shaft motion is turned into axle motion, that the trouble comes. Properly set and packed the rear axle gears never should make trouble. But it is in the shifting gears of the transmission, where gears come to mesh at varying rates of speed, and with the number of revolutions, load, and several other things to complicate the situation, that there is wear and tear—largely tear.
If an automobile could run at an unvarying rate of speed, if there were no hills which require the translation of speed into power, or if the engine controls alone could give sufficient speed regulation to cover the emergencies constantly arising, the transmission might be simplified into a mere coupling and reverse. But simplify as you will, there must be provision for varying speeds and these must be attained while the car is in motion, and this means the meshing together of finely built gears revolving so fast the teeth cannot be seen.