Ridiculous weather

Today was as hot and humid as yesterday. Yesterday ended with a thunderstorm and 100% humidity. Today inside the bus it’s 88F with 58% humidity.

Yesterday I shall combine with today as I was working on the same task. It’s challenging when I have to work with the bus door shut and it’s both hot and humid. The amount of work done in those conditions is truly pathetic.

So, yesterday I ran a cable from one side of the bus to the other. I’d investigated and found that my ideal spot for installing my emergency door lock control which was under the hood was a no go. That led me to the other side of the bus and another location. I suppose it would be possible to do away with the body-mounted turn signals. The’re repeated above the bumper. Hinging one, I could hide the keypad inside a now fake turn signal. Anyway - that was just a thought.

The big problem yesterday was that my drill ran out of power. There’s not an awful lot I can do with a dead drill so I put it to one side and used a screwdriver. Oh boy, was that time consuming and hard work! I’d put the cables into cable sleeving and it must have taken me most of the day to screw the sleeving into place. I was exhausted by the end of the day.

Today I worked more on the system. That included working on two relays, wiring them so that when one is operated the door lock opens and when the other, the door lock closes. Included in that is a button to press when one has gained entry that closes the door lock since the keypad serves solely to open it.

At the end of work today I’d got all the wiring done bar actually installing the code lock. At the moment that would involve either two people or a considerable amount of work. Thus I left it until another day.

I could wish I could get my wiring to look pretty but on the other hand I like my wiring to be accessible and visible. That was I can maintain it and trace it if needed. Above the two relays (the left relay closes the door lock, the right relay opens it) is the button to press to close the door lock. This is all almost completely concealed by the medical box so it’s not too ugly. Just have to remember to move the box to press the button to lock the door.

The original door unlock circuit with the key that runs off ten AA batteries remains untouched. The emergency lock that runs off the solar-charged battery is the new thing. All I need do is to install the keypad and the whole thing is done. I’m ready for an emergency such as locking my keys in the bus. Believe me, it has happened several times!

One other thing that will be added is an alarm. That will sound when the door lock is opened using the keypad. It gives me time to grab my gun. As sure as eggs are eggs if that door lock opens when I’m inside there’s villainy afoot. As I’ve said before, I’d rather the police carried the bad guy away in a body bag than they had to find the bad guy after carrying me away in a body bag!