Yay solar panels

Today my solar panels finally arrived at Walmart. I’d ordered them for pickup as it was $2.05 cheaper than having them sent to the house. Given that I was likely going to have to go to Walmart anyway, it made sense. Mind today I had to go even further. It was time to pick up chicken feed. So off I went to Tractor Supply and picked up 100lbs of chicken feed.

While I was there, I looked at stuff to bolt the microwave down. It seems #6 self-piercing screws are what I need and I probably need 4 of them and probably need them with about 1/2 inch of thread. I looked at what Tractor supply had, thinking some 1/4 by 20 bolts would fasten some brackets down to the bench. They had every 1/4 by 20 bolt that I didn’t want and none that I did. I left the hardware there! I shall try Lowes (hiss, spit) another day. To be honest I have three projects on the go right now anyway.

The first project I started a few days ago. That was the emergency unlocker. I still have not yet completed that. I need to brush soil from the underside of the place where it’s going to be mounted and lots of other fun stuff like that. As I wasn’t feeling the urge to lie on my back under the bus I started by gluing the power monitor in place yesterday.

The first thing I did today was to wire-in my power meter. As it’s late afternoon it’s only reading 0.1 amp but it was reading 0.72 at the highest point when I’d just installed it. That’s not too bad given that it was after 5pm. The theoretical maximum from my installed panels is going to be something like 2.9A

The panels that arrived today are 30W and there are two of them. In keeping with every panel I buy seeming to have a connector different from the panel that I had the previous time, these have MC4 connectors. Looking at the price of MC4 connectors, they’re just going to get cut off and replaced with two pin Hopkins connectors. In fact the cables might well be changed too. There seems little purpose in having 2 foot long separate cables. I’d rather have a 5 or 6 foot cable with a Hopkins connector.

Placed on the ground these two panels combined should produce 60W or 12V at 5A. That’s sufficient on their own to power my ventilation fans most of the day. That’s the intent too. They can also be placed inside the windscreen to produce less power but to double or triple what I get from my existing panels. What with the overcast weather this week my batterry went right down. It took two days of overcast weather to charge it up again. There’s no point in a bigger battery as that would drain too. Better to add more solar capacity.

Reading the reviews of the solar panels on the Walmart website was pretty fearsome. They had a two star rating. The reviews appeared to have been written by people that just didn’t have a clue. One review said “no blocking diode” so I popped the cover off the connector box to reveal a blocking diode. Another review said there were no wires and they had to go and buy wires. Funny - those look like wires to me. Maybe I need a second opinion on that?

Honestly, these online reviews are such utter bunk. I’m amazed that real adults actually write rubbish like that! A long time ago, somebody gave me a Canon S1 IS camera. It’s still lying around here somewhere. It’s probably so old nobody would want to buy it - especially since the cheapest of the cheap phones has more megapixels and probably takes a better picture. The point is though that this camera had professional reviews written about it that bemoaned the clack of a built-in intervalometer. Oddly enough, that was my favorite feature of that camera! Thus I take online reviews with a huge pinch of salt. It’s usually possible to work out that the person writing them is some form of imbecile from what they write.

I went to ebay again and ordered some connectors. Heaven knows when they will arrive. I ordered some MC4 connectors because I had an afterthought that I could use those panels for other projects, not just the bus if the connectors were standard. As my inlet power port is a cigarette lighter socket I ordered two cigarette lighter plugs and a splitter. That means I can wire up a length of cable for each panael and have them both entering at the same time. I can similarly put the same kind of input connector on the inside of the bus so that I can simply place the panels on the dashboard to produce power.

I discovered State Farm tends to be better for school bus conversion insurance. That sounds very promising. I’ll have to look into that. I really need to bolt the microwave down, install the unlocker and remove the tools and construction supply surplus from the bus, give things a good clean and get it picture ready for State Farm. I can honestly say I’m looking forward to taking the bus on its first trip. I probably won’t go anywhere that exciting for the first trip. Probably only Cherokee or somewhere close by.

One of the things I might want to do before I take it anywhere is get the oil pan gasket changed and get it an oil change. The oil has been in the system since 2014. It should be changed every 3 months or every 10,000 miles - whichever is the sooner. It’s way over 3 months - more like 43 months at the moment. While they’re doing that I’ll get it steamed and greased and get the brake lines fitted with new clips. I noticed the clips were very elderly last time I was near the brakes. As for the tires - that’s a future project. KumHo tires seem (despite the name) to be good value. If I can get them with a good speed rating then I might also adjust the governor so that I can get at least 70mph out of the bus rather than the current 55. The brake pedal needs adjusting too but that (if it unscrews the way I think it does) should be something I can do.