What a headache!

This week I've worked 4 ten hour days. It's not my usual line of work but what's new for my life in South Carolina. This week has been largely indoors but in a non air conditioned building. By the middle of the week I developed a headache - probably due to the heat. Today, it got worse.

I struggled up in the morning, battling my headache and fatigue then went after breakfast to the bus. When I went in, it was 77F but the temperature quickly rose to 88. I'd put white reflectors inside the windscreen and my extraction fan is definitely switched on. As the solar panel powering it is at the back and the sun was at the front, it wasn't running which makes a good case for pooling the output of my panels. As that would involve installing a new cable underneath, that will have to wait til the winter.

This weeks weather is going to be fairly brutal. I'm anticipating at least 100F temperatures in August. That's the kind of temperature when people start to drop dead walking across the road. I'm already feeling dehydrated with negative effects from the heat.

When my extraction fan cut in, it shifted air. The bus door was open and had been for a while. I felt that probably the barrier between warm and cooler air had shifted down the bus by about 15 feet. That was very welcome.

I grabbed a couple of diodes and some wire joiners to build a protection unit for my newest solar panel. The diodes will protect my investment from the ravages of reverse connections. That was about all I managed to do on the first trip into the bus. I did check my 120v sockets with a socket tester and they all came up as they should. I solved my earlier problem, it seems.

I headed into the house walking very unsteadily with a raging headache. There, I napped for a couple of hours. Feeling brighter after my nap I headed to the bus by which time the internal temperature had reached a ludicrous 104F. Clearly I'm going to have to make that extraction fan work longer and more often.

The new plan for the fan is to increase the battery size from 10AH to 14AH (Twin 7ah batteries) and put the output if the front panel into the fan battery using a second charge controller. Meanwhile, I'll wire the 5AH battery so that it operates my door lock. The 10AH battery will be reused as a fan battery. I'll bring two of my smaller CPU fans back into play to blow air about the cabin of the bus, from front to back. The first will be on the first partition and the second on the bedroom partition, each with individual controls.

The sum total of today's work was nothing much. After I put my two latest charge controllers in place and my diode protector, I'd got overwhelmed by the heat again. I had to retire indoors to cool down. I'd wanted to at least connect my charge controllers to the power.

My next task will be to ready the ammunition box containing my two 7AH batteries for use as a battery housing. I can buy a 22ah battery that would fit my 50 cal ammunition box but I have these batteries and will try to use them rather than forking out yet more money with no guarantees attached. Then it'll be a case of wiring the charge controllers.

I still have components on the way from China such as fuses and cable connectors. Sadly on eBay they sell trifling little quantities and send it on a pack mule that walks backwards. It can take weeks for stuff to arrive! Some things though are cheaper locally.

My priority is getting the ventilation sorted out. After that everything else can be done in its own sweet time. I might end up having to get a battery powered drill and taking the bus into the mountains to finish all the little projects.