Fixing a vacuum - new batteries

We had an old hand-vac that had developed a problem -- the NiCd batteries had become a bit long in tooth. Of course this is expected with that battery chemistry.The standard method to fixing this is to throw it away and buy a new one.This is something that I didn't want to do.So I tore into it to check what type of battery was used in this thing. The thing to understand about most consumer electronics is that most electronics use standard battery sizes. Of course there are tons of standard sizes.Upon opening this up and measuring I came up with eight sub-C batteries.No problem -- ebay  to the rescue! I ordered a set of eight from Hong Kong. After waiting for a few weeks they showed up last week.From here it was just going in and pulling the old batteries then soldering up a set from the new ones to make whole battery pack.The rest of the assembly is pretty easy.The new innards of the vacuumThe new batteries are rated at a higher capacity than the old ones. So, in effect, the vacuum is better than new!

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Testing Anti-pattern: Configuration-dependendent Unit Tests

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Computer Gymnastics - Part 2