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Critters in the Battery Maintainer

Rudyjo

Dale Rudolph
Earlier today I was cleaning the area around where I keep the battery maintainer.
It is kept on a counter top about three feet from the bike, always plugged in except
for riding.

I noticed a couple of ants on it and watched as a good number of them were going in
and out. I picked up the maintaner and there were hundreds of them under it.

Between the ant spray and the compressor, I think I got most of them out, I also painted a coating of vaseline around the perimeter of the maintainer so they won't be able to get to it again.

I don't know if it's the hum, or the heat, but it's something to keep an eye on.
 
Some electronic devices can be "buggy" but this is ridiculous! I'm no expert on bugs (electronic or otherwise) but I can't imagine ants would damage a battery charger. Probably they just found the space under it to be nice and cozy. Boric acid powder can be used as a safe bug killer when sprinkled thinly around the perimeter. Vaseline sounds kinda messy. Large, black ants (about 3/8") could be carpenter ants; they are destructive to wood and need chemical treatment to kill the colony. I battle them every year, and they have me outnumbered.

pete
 
I have had make two airconditioning units not work right. Since then I spray around these units all the time.
 
details

Gonna need to know what kind of ants to make accurate investigation (just like a tech question :D)

Small red ants are looking for grease from living things (plants, animals) Larger black will usually be looking for sugars. Very large black ants are eating wood.

Why any of them are in your tender is odd unless you left a Snickers bar on it and they're performing hazardous waste remediation. Either way, they're not after your tender, just food.

Vaseline won't do much. +1 on boric acid, but those little, flat bait stations work well for many types of ant colonies.

Experience from several ant infestations over the years.
 
Lots of theories out there, but ants are somehow attracted to electric fields particularly AC current. It's one the the main reasons for air conditioning failures here in the southwest.

They'll accumulate in circuit breaker boxes outside the home and I've had them in the pool pump timer box by the thousands. Being outside, I've used insect spray to get rid of them in the timer box and I believe the residual of the spry has kept them away.
 
There is no activity around the maintaner so far. There are a couple in the vaseline.

Using vaseline to keep ants away from something is a trick I learned many years ago when we did a lot of trailer camping.
Boric acid was put around the tires but they still found their way in crawling up the electrical cord and water hose.
One of people camped next to us recommended putting a coat of vaseline on the
cord and water hose a few inches below where they connect to the trailer.
Crawling insects cannot get past the vaseline without getting stuck in it.

They were very small black ants, I don't think it would be the heat they were looking for, as the shop stays fairly warm this time of year.
 
I don't think it would be the heat they were looking for ...

Maybe they're looking for something. ... else?
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