Big battery theft
 

First Ben loses his radio, now this! I went out today, and to my horror 10 of my batteries have been stolen! The most painful ones were 2 semi truck batteries that I was going to use in the 86 Corolla, and the last spare I had left for the Geo. This is a big setback since the boat place went out of business.

That is horrible.

Rig up some batteries (preferably big, dead ones) with a hidden neon sign transformer. Chances are, the gloves the thief has are not going to stop 30kV.

hmm...sorry to hear that...how the f. did they manage to lift those huge batteries, they must be weighing 100's of lbs.

Yes, these were some gutsy thieves! They were in the back of my carport, so they had to squeeze between cars to get them. It must have taken them a few minutes. In a way, I was kind of lucky they left ANY batteries behind, and especially that they left the chargers and a voltmeter behind. It almost seems like more of a very cruel prank than a theft, because there are much easier ways of stealing. I'm out a lot more time than just the $77 in core value. (I realized it was actually 11 batteries they stole, not 10). On the other hand, it is pretty anonymous and hard to trace way of stealing. The recycler isn't going to ask questions or get ID for the batteries. It's hard to figure out what thieves think. As dirt poor as I am, it never occurs to me to take advantage of someone like that. Why couldn't they just steal my air compressor?? They could have gotten as much money, easier to steal, and it wouldn't have been as big of a loss for me......
At least I still have my health:p

You wouldn't be poor if you were pillaging ships like you should be doing.

You know, I was just wondering why I had this strange urge to become a citizen of Somalia.....

East africa is just beautiful. And by beautiful, I mean horrible. If you do go, make sure you skip Kenya, and especially Nairobbery, err, Nairobi... Unless you want to develop the black lung disease in under a month.

If it makes you feel any better, the thieves probably just wanted to build an electric car, since they were so inspired by your thread!

LOL! You have an amazing way of making someone feel better! Yes, the thought that they are building an electric car with my batteries is awesome.....

Watch out on the introductions section, first person who comes here saying they're building a new EV , we'll storm him !!
http://www.freesmileys.org/smileys/smiley-angry013.gif.......http://www.freesmileys.org/smileys/smiley-angry027.gif.......http://www.freesmileys.org/smileys/smiley-angry026.gif.......http://www.freesmileys.org/smileys/smiley-angry009.gif

So I moved the few remaining batteries from outside to my front hallway. I didn't think that it was such a good place, but better than outside. Tonight I put them in my back room. In the middle of doing that, I got this weird tinge in my back......
What was I saying about my health?

"Hi, I recently acquired a few batteries and thought I'd use them for an EV conversion..."

Due to theft scrap yards around here at least require ID before they give you any money so it would be worth calling around to ask them if they could keep an eye out for what you had stolen.

Well it seems that there are only two places in Oklahoma that will recycle batteries: Interstate in Tulsa and Exide in Oklahoma City. They both have my number and somewhat of a breakdown of battery types. But there are a ton of people that go around and give a few bucks to people for their batteries and make large recycling trips, so they will undoubtably get lost in the shuffle. I need to put RFID tags on my batteries...:p

instead of RFID just tag the bottom with some paint or better yet UV reactive paint like the dye for A/C systems.

OMG!

After my radio got ripped off, I sort of thought "At least they didn't take the controller!"

I didn't even think anyone would be interested in batteries.

You must have very strong thieves, who are interested in heavy, energy non-dense items.



PS: To all thieves: Gasoline is lighter AND more valuable than batteries!

PSS: Hey Thieves! Take gasoline, and a lighter. haha.

They say everything happens for a reason.....
On the way back from dinner in Oklahoma City, my Geo busted a timing belt. Long story short, car was an hour and a half from home, so I had to rent a truck to get it back. It's now home safe, but the rental place has offered to sell me AS MANY BATTERIES AS I WANT for $2 each!! I got 4 today and I'll be going back for more shortly. Even though they are car batteries, I can trade for semi truck batteries or marine batteries at all the local parts stores whenever they get them in.....

Great find and good luck.

I'm glad I got to this thread well after you started it. So I went from WTF! to WOO! in a much shorter amount of time.

Still boggles the mind that someone would steal your scrounged batteries though.

I finally figured it out!! I live in Cushing, Oklahoma: the "Pipeline Crossroads of the World"! It's Big Oil!!! They're the ones behind this! Big Oil is trying to stop me from continuing my electric vehicle projects. Big Oil stole my batteries!!

On another note, I went to an all day teacher's meeting today, and one of the speakers was an investigator for a local PD. He showed a video of how easy it is to create methamphetamine. During one part, the lab person was opening a lithium battery and plopped the contents into the mix! Apparently they use lithium as part of the process. I never knew that.

Gives a new meaning to the phrase "computer junkie".

A few weeks later...
So I have a battery pack...
;)

Dude, not cool! :P Hey, I took pictures and you can see mine are different!

Who stole your battery? Isn't he captured yet?

Nope, the thief is still free....

My local Napa Auto Parts had a bunch of group 31's today in their core pile. I went over with my voltmeter and traded two of my dead ones for one that read 12.64v and one that read 12.59v! So I have a full 72v pack for the Corolla with one spare.....