Sonic-Tronics.....Kudos

[peabody]

I had a couple of my metered glow drivers fail (four and five years old as best I recall).
I contacted Sonic-Tronics (they bought the McDaniels company) and was told to box them up, and mail them to the factory.
The good people there simply replace the units with new and mail them back! I included a check.....
The charge for metered units is $15.00 each.....plus $5.80 return postage (USPS rates went up).
The turnaround was a lttle more than a week.
I am happy as if I had sense!
http://www.sonictronics.com/xcart/home.php

[Brett Buck]

I had a couple of my metered glow drivers fail (four and five years old as best I recall).
I contacted Sonic-Tronics (they bought the McDaniels company) and was told to box them up, and mail them to the factory.
The good people there simply replace the units with new and mail them back! I included a check.....
The charge for metered units is $15.00 each.....plus $5.80 return postage (USPS rates went up).
The turnaround was a lttle more than a week.
I am happy as if I had sense!
http://www.sonictronics.com/xcart/home.php

   I have always had excellent service from them, although I have never sent anything back for repair. Order something and no fiddling, it's there in a few days and correct.

   By the way, the failure mode of *all* of my drivers has had nothing to do with inability to charge, or excess charge cycles. Every single one of them has failed by excessive self-discharge. Brand new, you can charge them in the spring, once, and you can pick it up in the fall, and it will still have a good charge and work well. I have literally gone a year using the same two batteries without charging them, at times. They are really quite remarkable.

    But at some point about 3-4 years in, with <10 charge cycles, they will simply discharge themselves in a few days or hours with no use at all. It will charge OK, it will light a plug when you test it when you take it off the charger, but let it sit even a day or two and it will be dead. It rapidly degenerates until it will only be good for a few hours. Reconditioning (running it all the way down and charging it back up again a few times) doesn't help, zapping it with a 12V battery charger doesn't help (or hurt, I might add).

   I think this has to do with the battery degenerating from heat-cycling.

    Brett

[Dave_Trible]

I use the Hot Shot batteries and get about a season and a half before they won't hold charge.  My favorite glow plugs are from Sonic Tronics-Glow Devils.  It's my best pipe glow plug but also work great in most engines.  They are pretty hot and hold up for a long while.  I usually use the idle bar version.  The batteries?  I just buy two new ones each year and pass the old ones on down the family tree.

Dave