Workday improvements.

Today is a workday but as I had to go to Walmart to get a prepaid card for my smartphone, I did a little extra shopping. First off was the Post Office where I had to wait for them to open. I’d arrived at 08:50, neglecting to remember that as my day starts at 05:40 that everybody else lags behind a little. Needless to say I sent my dad his Christmas card. A little late but as I had the flu last week, I didn’t want to risk sending flu virus to him.

Next stop was Lowes (hiss, spit) where I got some frosting spray. That was intended for use with one of my lanterns and possibly all of my lanterns if it works well enough. I sprayed one as a test subject. If that works then I have three others that also need frosting spray. Then those nasty bare LED lantern things might be usable.

As you can see, the frosting spray has had a definite effect. It’s meant for glass but it should work on plastic. I’ll just have to see how effective it is later today or perhaps tomorrow.

Meanwhile, while I was in Lowes (hiss, spit) I found a flapper draft stopper for a 4 inch pipe. My exhaust vents are 4 inch pipe. Well, they had one and I found it in the plumbing section. I needed two but there was only one. Spotting a stray shop worker, I pounced on him before anybody else did and he led me straight to the only other one in the store. Now I have two. I’ll likely have to do quite a bit of work both on them and to my ducting in order to get it all to work but that’ll be well worthwhile if it works as intended. Not only should it work as a draft blocker but it should also stop critters quite successfully.

It was pricy for something that I’ll need to modify but at $7 it is probably worth its weight in gold. I’ll have to trim the flat plate from around the edges in order to insert it into my ducting but that’s not a major problem. I’ll probably have to cut the inserts out of my tubing if I glued them in last time. I might not have glued them but that’s not a problem. I’ve cut stuff out before and sanded the inside of tubing. Worst case scenario, I have to redo my vent ducting totally. Not a major problem!

I forgot and left my 12v battery charging on my solar panel all day yesterday and left it out all night too. I remembered when I was in the shower last night (I shower at night because out here in the countryside, freezing temperatures can mean no water in the morning). Taking it off charge after I returned home from my morning schoolbus run, the battery voltage was 12.9v so I set it to use charging my tablet.

The voltage keeps flickering 11.8, 11.7, 12.1, 12.2 but it’s charging my tablet. I get better out of charging my tablet in the bus because the solar array is connected to the battery. So, having removed this battery from the 5W solar panel, I put my other identical battery to charge from the solar panel. This time I’ll probably leave it a couple of day since the initial voltage was 11v.

I really need to get cracking on doing more welding, wiring and plumbing but don’t want to get involved in dirty stuff before work. That’s a job for the weekend! Incidentally the high this weekend is 51F (11C). That’s pretty chilly for any underbus work.

While I was out, I had a look at some plumbing stuff. I decided I’ll probably use Pex piping for all my fresh water but secured with jubilee clips as opposed to Pex clamps. Various people full of horseshit have told me jubilee clips won’t work but there’s no reason given that stands up to scrutiny. I suspect most that say that are embarrassed because they bought the expensive Pex tool and don’t like others to be getting one over on them by doing things just as well but more cheaply. I am in no way ready to do any plumbing yet.

And Walmart - I totally forgot to go there! My Straight Talk phone was at the end of its month and needed more credit. I’d tried logging on last night to do it online and been through “your password is wrong, reset your password” which I duly did, followed by “password reset. Enter password. Password is wrong. Reset password”. It was a vicious cycle! Anyway since I totally forgot to buy a phone card I had a last ditch attempt this morning after work. After having reset my password at least three times, an old password found in my inbox from January actually worked! So, my phone got paid. I don’t think 2GB of data plus unlimited talk/text is bad value at $39 after tax.

This evening I might test my newly frosted lantern. Even if it doesn’t turn out to be as good for illumination (which it wasn’t anyway) I might just spray the others purely in order to get rid of the glare of those nasty bare LEDs (which was the whole point of the spray anyway). In general I’m not greatly impressed by the vast majority of this artificial lighting stuff. Out of curiosity I measured outside (nice bright cloudless day with a hazy sun) at 50,000 lux. Indoors I measured 58 lux. I have no ideal how accurate my phone’s lux meter is but I’ll hazard a guess that it’s not very. Mind, light measurement is a tricky thing anyway - where do you measure from? That’s a perennial issue for photographers.