It snowed in Boston last weekend.  Luckily for us, the snow tires were already on the Boxster last Tuesday.  The RainyDayGarage guys had the foresight to anticipate the early storm!  It would not have been a fun drive on Route 6 with Summer tires.  Today, the temperature is in the 70ºs, and we don't have to worry about the Boxster we thought we had better start thinking about the Winter preparations/maintenance for the Vespa. 

Last year, we left the Vespa outside all Winter.  We didn't ride it at all, but the scooter started up with no problems in the Spring.  This practice was probably not the best for the battery, especially since it has been acting up lately.  This year, we thought we would try trickle-charging the battery to keep it "fresh" and ready for use over the Winter.

We checked out a few battery chargers and settled on the one from SOLAR.  The SOLAR Pro-Logix battery maintainer, like other Pro-Logix gear we have used, is ruggedly designed, easy to setup, and runs automatically. 

When we picked up the Pro-Logix battery maintainer, we also got two other pieces of SOLAR gear: 150W Power Inverter, Battery & System Tester.  Both are useful to have on hand.  An inverter is useful to have in a car for charging a laptop, camera batteries, or anything requiring an AC outlet.  Care should be taken not to draw too much current, as in the end, one is tapping into the electrical system of a car!

Problems in the electrical system of a car CAN be tricky to diagnose.  The SOLAR BA7 Tester was designed to help the user track down battery and charger-related issues quickly.

We currently don't have any problems with the electrical systems of the car or the scooter, but we are now ready if any problems should arise!  Still, we will use the BA7 to test some of the working batteries to get a baseline and to familiarize ourself with this tool.  Look for the FirstUse write-up after we have completed the Winter prep.  [Permalink] - Clore SOLAR gear