What a day!

Today, after work, I stopped off in Walmart where I bought 4 more of the 3V fans. The next stop was Radio Shack for some battery holders and connectors. Then the final stop was Lowes (hiss, spit) where I spent a miserly $10 on a Honda lawnmower engine filter. The reason for this seemingly bizarre purchase is that I can use it to filter air that is then injected into the body of the bus. There is already a hole in the floor where the hillbillies had a bath drain pipe.

The basic plan is to stand the filter off the underside of the floor an inch or so and to have a mosquito mesh screen over it just to protect it a little. Above the floor will be a layer of mosquito mesh then a ring on which will be mounted a fan. The fan will be mounted in a protective box with mosquito mesh on the vents.

In Radio Shack I saw a very interesting thing. For $25 there was a battery the size of a D cell that was 3.7v and claimed 19ah. Now that is truly incredible! For my needs though - particularly for ventilation, NiMh cells will be adequate. I have been thinking in terms of NiMh D cells but the reality is that NiMh AA cells will probably suffice.

Lowes (hiss, spit) was a real parody today. I drove in and bought my engine filter. Bizarrely and completely unlike my usual experience, I had a very helpful assistant who took me right to the engine filters. After paying and leaving the building, I found white paint all over my running board. It seemed there was a puddle of white paint I'd driven through. Looking around, they had put cones around the wet paint (establishing liability).

Locating a manager, I found they had been expecting me to contact them. They were amazed at my good humor. I was more interested in what the stuff was and how to remove it but they had me park by the garden center where they jet washed it off for me. I could have been grouchy but you get much more help and cooperation from people with a smile than a scowl. I have to admit I was very impressed at how they took ownership of the problem and came forth with a solution. They removed the paint from the running board and some off the wheel arch but I really wasn't too bothered about the wheel arch nor the tyres.

This weekend I want to work towards building a ventilation inlet. I'm probably not going to install the under bus portion until fall though due to a hornets nest underneath the bus. There have been hornets busily flying in and out of the fuel hatch. I'm not bothered at the moment as I have sufficient fuel for all I'm likely to do this summer. In all conscience, I can't really take it for maintenance with a hornets nest underneath.

I've got on order two 10w solar panels plus a Nema 6-30 connector. I can make a short connection cable to take a standard household cable. That way I can make use of lighter cables as needed. Thinking about it, I'd have been better getting a 30A cable rather than the 20A cable I did get. Having said that, at the moment I can't see much need for even 10A.

I set both my extraction fans going at 5pm. It'll be interesting to see how much longer the one set of batteries lasts. So far it shows no signs of slowing down. I have 4 CPU fans on order. I'll try one to see how it compares for airflow. I'm pretty sure they'll work out being about the same.

This is the second fan. As I wrote, they were both set going at 5pm. At 8:30pm I turned both off. There is noticeable evidence of heat being drawn backwards by the fans as the galley was 97F, the bedroom was a little over 99F.  The cockpit was around 100F. Earlier it had been over 110F. What's really impressive is that the one fan has so far run for 20 hours on one set of batteries. I think I'm more impressed by that than Eric is with his galvanized trash can!