Sunday, March 13, 2016

Depressingly little achieved

Today was pretty much of a washout in terms of achievement on the bus. The blinds didn't get put up. The main breaker didn't get installed. Nothing really was achieved. I have no real excuse for that. I guess I really wasn't feeling too great what with the sudden hot day, the time change and general depression.

Despite all that, I did wipe down the power socket cover with paint thinner. Then it was sprayed with grey paint. If the paint sticks then the thinner trick works. As a control sample, another area where the paint was peeling was wiped down with thinner and sprayed. It'll be interesting to see if the thinner trick actually works. I have my doubts.

The old main breaker box, I cleaned up and removed the cables, rescuing the TT30 plug that was attached to it. The next stage was to bore a hole in one side that would accommodate my 3/4" cable sleeves. That was a challenge that took literally hours. The main cause of the slowness was that the tool was entirely inappropriate. Now the reason I used an inappropriate tool is that I make so few holes of that diameter that rather than spend $25 on the proper hole saw, I spent $7 on a cheap hole saw designed for wood. I simply use it for metal and regard it as disposable. So, the hole was bored upon which the rainspots that had been hitting me off and on for the past few minutes turned into a torrential downpour.

Retreating inside the bus, I pulled out a file and filed the hole to make it really work with the inlet. After the rain had drenched the outside world, I worked on the hole a little more with the hole saw. Then the inlet was inserted followed by the end of the 3 foot section of 8-3 cable that raised so many eyebrows in Lowes (hiss, spit). The other end will go into my sub panel. 

I never got as far as installing the panel. It was rather warm in the bus, hence my thoughts about a solar-powered extraction fan. I did have a go at installng a roller blind to replace the fallen stick-up blinds. Thus, I pulled out the battery drill and started drilling and drilled and drilled and drilled and made a small hole but not deep enough to achieve anything. At that point the light went so for possibly the very first time I put power through the inlet socket I installed and had light inside the bus powered by 120v mains power. That worked quite well.

I had a look for the vehicle registration documents but didn't find them in the obvious place. Clearly they much be somewhere less obvious. I need them to be able to send off to apply to have the bus retitled as a motorhome. To be absolutely honest, I think the insurance companies are being ridiculous on insisting on retitling as a motorhome just to insure everything. 

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