I guess it was bound to happen, but after only 4 days? This might not bode well for my project.

While out making this test video…

I lost the electrical system out in the boondocs of Hwy1, with not a 2×4 of civilization in sight.

By the time rescue (wife) arrived, it was dark. Having lost my jumper cables during the last move (how do such things disappear, my battery charger went MIA as well) we had a quick scramble to acquire another set! Lucky for me, Ace hardware was still open at 5:30PM on Sunday and they had a bad-ass set of 4ga 20′ “Mechanics Grade” jumper cables. 🙂

Back up Hwy1 we went for what turned out to be a rather hair raising series of events to get it back into town. Long and short of it.. here are the highlights:

• required three road-side jumpstarts
• van lost all lighting, and got stuck in 2nd gear on a 2-lane section of Hwy1, in the dark (max speed 30 MPH)
• there are NO lights on Hwy1, so if you have no headlights are 7:00 PM, it’s pretty freaking dark out there
• Sprinters do all sorts of weird things when the voldage drops below 10v, including many warning lights, things turning themselves on and off on whim, and locking the shifter into park, just to name a few
• pushing a 5000 lb Sprinter is mostly a no-op

Back at the shop, some diagnostics were attempted, but without a way to charge the battery, it too was a rather hopeless affair. I’d need to get a proper battery charger and work on this again another day.