I’m sure the DSM has some listing for people like me, those who feel personally slighted by inanimate objects.  But I don’t care what the shrinks say — my solar fence charger deserves all the animus I heap on it.

It is, by definition, a portable charger that you carry out to the pasture wherever your sheep and fence are going to be.  But it weighs something like 80 pounds with the marine battery in it, and the placement of the handle can be charitably described as a sadistic joke.

And if you do find a way to pick it up, the battery immediately slides out the side, tearing off the delicate wires connecting it to the electronics of the fence energizer.  When I’m not too distracted cursing the industrial designer who created it, I’ve been imagining how to build a device that would allow me to move the energizer over rough ground without danger to my back or my sanity.  Procrastination and frustration reached an inflection point the other day, and I took a crack at it, with help from Patrick Daniels, welder extraordinaire.

We started with a 2-wheeled dolly, shortening the handle and elongating the base.

The energizer fit nicely in its new cradle,

but as soon as I tried to move it up a steep, rough hillside, I discovered the flaw in my design.

The wheels are so far behind the load that the balance point puts the handle more or less parallel with the ground.  My back is still aching from the first outing.  So while I’d like to imagine that I’d never mount the handle under the solar panel, it seems that this industrial design thing may be harder than it first seems.