Progresso - not the soup but progressing in Italian!

So I don’t really speak Italian but I figured I’d put Progresso instead of Progress because it makes me sound fancier than I am *wipes snout on sleeve and belches*. Today was one of those days that sounded like an English cricket match (rain stops play).

The first thing I did was to get under the bus to install my code lock. That’s just about hanging in there now. It’s secure but not as secure as I would wish as it began to thunder and rain before I’d got the last bolt fully secured. Thus I finished up quickly and will have to return to the task tomorrow. No picture because that’s a security issue and I’d like to keep it where I’m the only one that knows where the lock is situated. I don’t think Uncle Sam would look too kindly upon me slaughtering people that found out the location!

My watt meter turned out to be something of a disappointment. It works but seems to burn quite a bit of power and does not like starting in the morning. I made it so I could plug it into and out of the circuit so it’s currently plugged out. What happens is in the morning it really doesn’t like the low light levels and never starts its computer so I have to switch the solar power off then on before the unit initializes and starts to function.

Just now I unplugged the unit and plugged the solar panel directly into the charge controller. Immediately the solar charging light lit up whereas it was dead when the meter was plugged in. The panels are currently producing 8v because it’s pretty gloomy outside.

Yesterday I had a look inside a storage box. I’m really going to have to get shifting on sorting the storage boxes out. They seem to have so much just sheer junk in them. I found a broken picture frame in one. I’ve assembled the glass so I can see how much is missing. There are a few slivers missing so I’m going to have to keep on being careful sorting that box. I have a feeling that most of the boxes are full of the same kind of trash, namely out of date papers and irrelevant baubles.

I took a photo of my two solar panels leaning against the side of the bus or at least my phone told me I’d taken a picture of them. In actual fact it had not done any such thing as there was no such thing stored in the phone’s memory. Technology - don’t you just love the stuff? Honestly, if I didn’t want ventilation and lighting I probably wouldn’t have bothered putting solar power into my bus.

So, I took another photo but not as nice because it’s now dark outside.

Those are my two solar panels. Both are light, small and cheap. I can put them inside the windscreen to collect extra power or I can put them on the ground, leaned against the bus to produce maximum power. I will probably rivet legs to them in order to help keep them out of long grass.

Really and truly not much got done today. Having said that, there’s not a whole lot left to do. I ordered some connectors to connect the solar panels to the bus both inside and outside. Other than that, there’s the microwave to secure, a few cables to secure and the unlocker to complete. I’m a little nervous that the unlocker will consume too much battery power so I’m considering putting some kind of power switch on it. The solar power monitor certainly consumed copious quantities of power.

On the way from China is a battery monitor/voltmeter. That will fit in place of one of my voltmeters. I am also considering an ammeter/voltmeter that will give me at the touch of a button, a current reading of the state of the solar input. As that does not need to be constantly on, it won’t burn precious solar power. As far as the existing watt meter - it was nice and might be nice to put together in a display module for presentations on solar power but for my purposes it’s junk. I glued it into place so ungluing it should be fun!