Yes. I've been pollinated.

No photographs of work under the bus because my phone had mysteriously eaten most of its fully-charged battery despite not having been used. I keep saying I'll get a different phone. Actually, I went to Walmart with the intention of getting a new phone but was totally ignored by the staff. I've tried a couple of times to get a new phone but each time I've had the same issue in Walmart. That and the fact that Walmart has the phones locked away because it doesn't trust its customers or its own anti-theft technology.

The first thing - the halogen bulbs I ordered arrived. I have a pack of ten, ten watt bulbs. They do emit heat and use four times the power but cost $5 for ten as opposed to $7 for two with the Walmart bulbs and $10 for the Home Depot bulb. In terms of cost, the halogens are way cheaper by a factor of over seven. The Home Depot bulb is exceptionally bright but I'll have to build a little globe to put over it. Thus far the LED bulbs I have tried just have not lasted very long at all. It doesn't matter how much I pay for them, what the brand is or where I buy them. They just don't last a fraction of their alleged life.

My extra mirrors eventually showed up. The postman left a note in my mailbox that there was nowhere secure to leave my parcel then gave the address of the post office in Lexington town as to where it would be available for pickup. He also left the option of ordering it to be redelivered. The webpage given refused my data. The QR code on the note also failed to function. There's plenty space that's secure here to leave a parcel. Anyway, out of curiosity on Monday I went to the post office near my work to ask for the status of my parcel since it was never redelivered on Saturday (I'd found a way of ordering redelivery). Bizarrely it was at that post office (which is not the Lexington town post office). Thus I am left wondering whether Walmart workers perhaps moonlight as Post Office workers as the standard does not seem high. But I almost forgot the guy that brought me my package - he must have been a UPS worker in his other job as he managed to drop my parcel while carrying it 10 feet. Had he been Fedex, I'm sure he'd have drop kicked it to me!

The mirrors that just arrived is the top mirror on each side. They're identical to the bottom mirror. The top mirror shows a wider view so I can come out of a branch of a Y junction and see behind me to see what's coming from the other branch. The way my bus is built I cannot lean out of the driver window.

All of the mirrors I've bought recently have been either polished aluminium or stainless steel. The trick to turn them black was to spray black electrical insulation on the stainless steel and black paint on the aluminium. The two convex mirrors (top and bottom) are heated but as the West Coast Junior (middle mirror) is unheated and as the bus has no heating circuitry  I've just trimmed the supplied cables to between 6 and 8 inches with the idea that if I eventually do put in a heating circuit they can be connected. Realistically I don't see any likelihood of my doing anything like that.

After working outside in the pollen, I was coughing and sneezing badly so I had to dash in for some antihistamines. I was very thoroughly pollinated!

Eventually I got under my bus. I thought I'd share this picture of the mudflap. It's definitely crooked. If you could see the workmanship employed by Carpenter in the construction of my bus I'm pretty sure you'd weep. The interior workmanship is quite wonky and there's even a window that's set in at a slight angle.

Anyway, under the bus I passed the wires from the battery hanger on the right to the battery hanger on the left. They're all fastened into place as is the battery connector. Just beside the battery hanger I put a fuse. Thats there just in case one day a battery is put in backwards. I have two 10A breakers to put in on the live side. One will go to each battery. That way neither battery will have more than a 10A load exerted on it. Truth be told, 5A is probably was too much for the batteries I'm using. The fuse on the cable is 25A. That should blow fairly readily and I can always down-rate to 15A if need be.

The main reason I didn't proceed further is that I am totally out of yellow ring connectors. Once I get those I can move the tarp to the other side of the bus and get under to work on the final part. I did think about slipping the battery underneath but it's still pinning the tarp down.

I treated a few spots where the gray paint is flaking. I just sanded and sprayed. While I was up there, I looked at my roof vent. It seems to be about a foot square. I didn't measure it. The problem I'm getting is that rain is seeping in, soaking the insulation and oozing over some of my interior paintwork. The problem that it's causing is it's thinning some of my latex paint to the point I can see through to the OSB behind. It's probably down to the vent which I really don't think is all that waterproof. In fact I've seen water dripping from it on the inside recently. 

The white elastometric paint seems to be flaking in places. That's really quite surprising and not what I expected. I can get up there and wash the roof with warm, soapy water then after it has dried, put on another couple of cans of paint in the hope no more will flake and crack. Perhaps the layer was a little too thin in places?

Of the plans in hand, I want to complete my battery tie-up. If that works as I hope it will then my ventilation fans should work correctly without causing the battery to trip the charge controller into shutdown. The other plan is to modify the solar input by installing an exernal power input at the rear and to upgrade the cigarette-lighter socket solar power connectors to Anderson connectors. 

I bought some MC4 connectors and splitters, thinking it was a good idea. Now I realize they're just hard to pull apart, hard to use and generally a pain in the neck. Anderson connectors are so much easier and with the amount of power I'm using, pretty much all I need. MC4 is for heavy current. I'm using light current.

Tomorrow is going to be rainy but I have to buy connectors. As I drive daily for work, I do not plan to go anywhere I really don't have to and that includes the car parts store. I take my downtime seriously as I am on the road for work for a total of 9 hours a day.