Rotten photos

Today I took some bloody awful photos to show you what I've been up to. The trouble was it was dark by the time I finished for the day, which of course, was when I took my photos.

I started the day not doing much but warmed up to working on the bus having done absolutely nothing for several months. I started by moving the reversing horn switch from one end of the console to the other and replaced the existing rather bland switch with a rather fancy illuminated red switch. I figured that since I often can't hear the reversing horn over the engine noise that an illuminated switch or something similar would help me to see that it's actually on.

Now this switch was one I got in Radio Shack's bankruptcy sale when they closed all their stores. If I could travel back in time, I'd slap myself until I cleared their shelves of spade connectors, switches, wire and blade fuse holders. I did not buy enough!

I installed a second illuminated switch. A week ago I looked into completing the installation of my C-DVR but found I could not add another wire to the switch I was using. It was festooned with wires. Thus I resolved to feed all the wires to the various cameras, recorder units and monitor from a combined distribution point. About that I thought long and hard before deciding the best solution would be a small fuse box. That has the advantage each individual item could be individually fused.

The plan is to run the 3 cameras and two C-DVR units directly from the fuse panel, operated by the single switch. The monitor will come from the fuse panel but will utilize a second switch as I don't want the monitor on continually. It does have its own little power button but I have to say I dislike these minuscule buttons as much as the way they fail when they're needed.

Inside the console is a breadboard backing. That was useful because I could just screw my fuse box into place. Making the connections was interesting. I found several of the places where one would normally make connections just didn't work. It is an old bus and I expect some things not to work as they should. I'll have to go through the connectors to see where they lead as there are wires connected to dead terminal connectors.

Another thing I did was to install the mount for my front facing video camera. That needed more 1/4 nuts than I had so I'll probably have to head to Tractor Supply at some point to get some more. The mount was advertised on eBay as a camera ball&socket tripod head. I pity any photographer that wanted to use that. It's too small to be anything more than a holder for a small security camera such as mine or a very lightweight camera flash.

I would have got more done today but I ended up chatting for way longer than I really needed. I've also taken it way slower than normal too.

A few days ago I bought some stuff to mount my spare battery under the bus. I've accidentally bought some things that probably won't help that much but I'll do my best - whenever I get back underneath the bus. That probably won't be this weekend. It was supposed to be 30% chance of rain but it rained most of the day and all the previous night. The ground under the bus is soaked.

I tried one of the stick-on convex mirrors on my West Coast mirror. I only bought a cheap stick-on because I wanted to see whether a West Coast combination mirror might be advantageous. It turned out that the stick-on was too small in all dimensions and that I need one on a separate mount. It needs to swivel further away from the bus in order not to show as much bus bodywork. I suspect the answer might be to replace my 16 inch West Coast mirror with a shorter flat mirror. Finding one is challenging - particularly since I'd like it to be heated. 

In other news, at work I was surprised to find I had a flat tyre on the work bus. While I was chatting to the mechanic I found that the rear wheels of most dual tyre vehicles are not actually composed to two separate wheels bolted together. It's actually a wider wheel with two tyres mounted as can be seen by examining the edge of the inside of my rear wheel.

There has been a move lately to use single tyres on the backs of trucks. Those are called "super" tyres as they're wider than standard tyres. The downside is that a puncture means you can't go anywhere. With the puncture I had on my work bus, I was able to continue driving my route (with the approval of the mechanic).

Anyway... A rundown of whats planned with the bus...

1. Complete installing my C-DVR units.

2. Complete installing my battery under the bus.

3. Seek out my perfect mirror system.