A couple of weeks ago I bought a replacement pair of tennis shoes from Walmart. They looked great. Within a few days my knees were killing me and by the end of the week I was in so much pain I went and got a different pair. The improvement was instant. Now I'm still in pain but nowhere near as much. It was due, I believe, to Walmart's nasty tennis shoes. That knee pain makes getting up and down painful and climbing stairs uncomfortable too.
The plan today was to complete installing the DVR and front camera then to rewire the two back cameras and the monitor so that it all goes through my blade fuse box rather than having individual glass fuses.
The first part was to put extra cables into the cable wrap that carries solar power to the door lock. That door lock has two power sources - a solar powered digital keylock and a battery powered turnkey lock. It's entirely backwards but that's the way I wired it as the battery power came way before I ever thought of adding solar power. There's no mistaking which wire is which - the solar cables are a white twin wire and a red wire. The camera power comes from a single yellow and the DVR comes from a single white.
There you can see the DVR and at the bottom of the picture, the camera. I had interesting issues connecting it all because there were several excess wires on the camera. I tried connecting them to the power. In the end I found only one of the four extra wires was actually needed. It took some time to work that out, I can tell you!
With the front camera correctly aligned I get a great view on my backup camera monitor of the view out the front of the bus. I'm happy with that. Having got everything worked out just fine, I put the wires away and started connecting the other camera power supplies and so on to the new fuse box.
The new fuse box has screw connectors. Had I thought in time then I would have got one with spade connectors. From prior experience, removing the screw the whole way is a fine way to have a healthy session of find the screw as it'll inevitably be dropped. With my knees as sore as they are, that wasn't a good idea. Thus I wanted to use fork connectors. Sadly I didn't have any - or did I? A simple ring connector becomes a fork connector with the aid of a pair of wire cutters!
I didn't finish work because the daylight was stolen by a marauding demon. I'd got all the cameras connected, the two DVRs connected but hadn't yet wired the switch from the monitor to the fuse box. I would have had it connected if a switch hadn't disintegrated on me. I'd used the switch before but when I tried to undo the terminal screws holding the wires on, either the screws were seized or I turned the wrong way. Without much pressure, the whole switch broke into two pieces. That disappointed me as it was a good switch on the other hand it gives me a reason to replace my two remaining silver switches plus the broken one with standard blade switches.
By the time I'd struggled and failed to remove the broken switch, finding the nut measured 14.4mm and finding none of my tools would remove it, darkness had fallen. As I don't have any spare blade switches that means a trip to an auto parts store at some point.
Meanwhile another one of my plans is to replace my existing West Coast mirrors with West Coast Junior mirrors. The junior west coast mirrors are not heated which is a disappointment. Having said that, it's only in the early hours that heated mirrors are really needed. My convex mirrors are heated though my bus has no heating circuit installed. It wouldn't be hard to put one in though.
The idea is to have a horizontal convex mirror at the top followed by a junior west coast followed by a vertical convex mirror. The reason being...
- The flat mirror (west coast/junior) shows me everything in the next lane and behind the bus.
- The vertical convex shows me everything from the front step to the back wheel so I can be sure no dogs run under the bus when I'm moving and can tell exactly where the back wheel is in relation to corners.
- The horizontal convex shows me everything in the next but one lane that might be changing lanes and also gives visibility to see other traffic approaching from the other land and behind on a Y junction. Bear in mind I can't just stick my head out of the driver's window to see because I have a control console beside me.
People keep asking where I get my electrics and electronics. The answer is very simple - eBay and local stores - Radio Shack (before they went bust), autoparts stores, DIY stores and farming supply stores. Note, I have used Amazon but since they started signing people up to their outrageously expensive delivery service I've not used them. Well, I did order one thing and they enrolled me without my permission into their expensive delivery service.They said it'd be free but it was free only for the first month after which I'd be charged. I cancelled my order and will not touch Amazon now - more so since I had to hunt how to cancel their delivery service and though I managed it, it wasn't easy. Amazon's dishonesty I can happily live without.
One of my problems of the moment is finding a source for mirror brackets such as the one above. There are plenty of 0.75" tubes but my bus has a 1" tube. I might well have to make one myself. It shouldn't be hard. If I used steel flat stock, I could heat it with a blowlamp and bend it to shape, easily. There are plenty alternatives though I'd like to find an off the shelf solution.
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