Two guilty parties?

No, I haven’t swept the sand off the step. Shocking, isn’t it? My old boss when I used to drive schoolbusses would have crucified me for having one grain of sand anywhere in the bus. Truth be told, I swept a goodly pile out yesterday and this is the result of just one or two entries and exits.

Today I put both my 30W solar panels on the hood and connected to my meter. That lot was all connected to the bus via the cigarette lighter port I’d installed. The amperage climbed to about 25W which was strange. I should have had 60W from those two panels. At one stage the meter reckoned I’d had 1.5AH of power which would have been consistent with about 40 minutes at 25 watts. 

As I held the meter to read it, the wattage dropped to zero. That was mighty strange. Well, the best I can figure having tested the whole system is that the SAE to cigarette lighter adaptorin the photo had died. Indeed I pulled the fuse out and replaced the spring too. Nothing. The fuse is good and the spring is new. It’ll read power one minute and not the next. It doesn’t surprise me. 

If you remember I had no end of trouble trying to solder wires onto a cigarette lighter plug and gave up on it as a waste of time. I’m pretty much there with the SAE to cigarette lighter plug adaptor that came with my Harbor Freight solar panel. The panel is good. The adaptor is just plain worthless.

Checking the website to see where my other SAE to cigarette adaptor is, it’s still swanning around in New York. I have grave doubts as to whether it’ll actually arrive since it has been there for over a week. For the moment my solar expansion plans are on temporary hold.

Clearly if SAE to cigarette lighter adaptors are as flakey as this and cigarette lighter plugs are as difficult to solder as they are, it’s time to pursue an easier path. Looking around there seems to be no panel that I can fasten to the side of the bus in the manner of my cigarette lighter socket that will allow me to plug in my MC4 connectors. There is, however, an SAE input panel. It fastens to the side of a vehicle and allows insertion of an SAE connector. I found the SAE connectors tough to pull apart but then so were the MC4 connectors. Thus, the SAE panel connector might well be the way to go. Since I already have plenty SAE connectors and can get them from the auto parts store fairly cheaply, that could be the way to go.

Meanwhile I ordered some more MC4 connectors. That’s so that I can make the two leads into one long lead with a double MC4 connector on the very end. Discussing the problems of soldering connections, somebody mentioned the availability of something called solder sleeves. Now I’ve not yet ordered any nor have I ordered any SAE panel connectors yet. I want to check my bank balance first.

Tomorrow being the 4th of July and Independence Day in the USA, Harbor Freight has a sale on (when have they not got a sale on). I might manage to get their $75 solar charge controller for $55. This doesn’t please Eric because he thinks I should get the ultra-expensive charge controller. Maybe he’s right but as I said - I’m a bit tired of buying stuff online that can’t be returned. None of this stuff from China is worth returning because the return postage costs more than I would lose just by taking the loss. Never pay more on ebay than you can afford to write off!

So the plan is to get SAE panel connectors - probably two of them. I have to wait 3 weeks for my MC4 plugs to arrive. I also have to get the Harbor Freight charge controller. Again, the write-ups are pretty contradictory and of low quality so it’s pretty much of a guess as to whether it’s good or not. If not then I know where to go to return it!

Some intreaguing thoughts came to mind. I looked at somebody installing solar panels on their bus roof. Now I am not super keen on that idea but if I must then... I figure I can probably do it and keep them down the centre line of the bus. If they’re all 30W panels which measure 26” x 14” (not the 18”x13” as claimed on Walmart’s website) then I can probably fit another 7 if I want, straight down the centre line of the roof, neatly behind the sole roof protrusion - the vent. That would give me 9 x 30W or 270w for a grand total of 305W. Of course, 7 more panels would cost another $220. I’m into minimalism though. I want to get what I have working before considering super duper expansions. Put straight down the centerline it would look a bit like a clerestory roof which would be fine. As long as it does not look like a camper!

So, it looks like I’m on the way toward nailing two of the problems. The charge controller and the connections. The old charge controllers I’m not sure quite what I’m going to do with them. Apparently it’s now a faux pas to shoot things in the back yard. I can’t very well shoot in the front yard because of traffic and other residences. I guess I’d best take up skeet shooting using crappy charge controllers as targets.

And now some intrigue. I wanted to harang Harbor Freight about their poorly made SAE to cigarette lighter adaptor. The best way to do this apparently is via Twitter. Thus, despite my sheer hate of Twitter, I set up an account. I put a name, gave an email address and put a profile photo of an orange. When that was all done I sent the normal Hello World message. That’s all I did. I put it to one side and came back an hour or so later to find a message stating that my account had been suspended. So I went through a silly little game they had me do - identifying the pictures in a grid with cars. Well, I did that and then it told me to go back and do it again. I did and got through that. The nonsense there was mindblowing! Then it told me to had to give it a phone number. That was when I realised that Twitter was probaby just collecting phone numbers to sell. I get enough spam so I deleted the app and went back to having nothing to do with Twitter. I’m really not surprised that Twitter is failing to attract users if it makes new users jump through hoops.. I don’t regard myself as unusual in that I won’t give out phone number. There’s also a limit to the amount of faffing about I’m prepared to do online. I’ve been asked to do numerous surveys etc and after the 3rd page if it’s not all done and dusted, I just quit out of them as it’s not worth more of my time. Twitter isn’t worth my time.