Not a lot got done today

It was a warm day and I just didn't feel like doing much. Yesterday I'd found I had two sets of 3 wire combiners so I decided to tidy up some of my wiring. This was perfectly good and perfectly safe - all soldered and wrapped in shrink wrap insulation. It just didn't look that great.

I'd bought my blue-snap on cable combiners in Radio Shack. Remember Radio Shack - it used to be a great place to buy overpriced electronic components and then it became an electronic toy shop before it lost its way and became an overpriced mobile phone store that didn't shine in any particular way before it went bust. Sad for the staff that worked there but it gave them an opportunity to get better jobs than the soul destroying retail jobs they were doing.

As can be seen, that blue snap-on connector (behind the white wire) is combining the white and the green and connecting to the green wire that's going into the timer. There were no instructions but it seems to be a case of stripping the wire then snapping a metal bar down then closing the plastic cover.

I tried moving my CPU fan and got no better performance out of it. It seems the bigger CPU fans just aren't as good as the smaller ones. I have a smaller one on order now. That could take a couple of weeks. I'm in no great hurry. As a backup plan I ordered a step down voltage converter so I could use one of the original Walmart 3V desktop battery powered fans. Remember those? I still have the remains of a couple of them. My smaller 90mm fans blow way better than the 120mm fan.

I had a look at the solar panels but felt disinclined to work on them. I have to ascertain which way around I need to put my Anderson connectors. Once I have them in place and done correctly I'll be able to use the panels without using those frightful MC4 connectors. Those things might be good for heavy duty setups dismantled rarely but for my setup they're not worthwhile.

I found I was short of a few things for my wiring harness yesterday so I'll have to try to remember to get them tomorrow:

• Eight, 8-32 one inch countersunk bolts. I have locknuts for them. These will be used to hold both my Anderson sockets in place.
• A pack of short self-drilling No 8 hex-head bolts. These I use for lots of things.
• A pack of 1.5-2 inch self-drilling No 8 hex head bolts. These I use under the bus to attach cable hangers.
• A pack of half or 3/4 cable hangers.

See - all simple stuff. I try not to go anywhere at the weekend in my vehicle because I drive about 200 miles a day or 1,000 miles a week and I quite like the rest from driving. I might even order some of those ready soldered heat-shrink sleeves. Those might make connecting cables faster and easier than those crimp things I've been using.

Well, that's it for another weekend. I didn't get under the bus but I have a feeling next weekend, weather permitting, I might be able to do just that.

Still exhausted from the week

I can't say I've had an uneventful work week with a bus running out of fuel, a bus not starting and a bus that shuddered violently due to (as it transpired) water in the government diesel. Working 12 hours a day is pretty shattering too.

I ordered a new vent for the roof. That arrived and today I climbed up to the roof and cleared the drain holes on my existing vent. I'll get around to replacing it later. That's not a priority right now. The priority is getting the underbus stuff done before the insects decide to make their presence known.

As can be seen, pulling the caulk out of the vent drain hole has probably done a lot. The next heavy rainstorm will tell the tale. I unblocked all 4 drain holes. I have a feeling I should get a rubber gasket to install the new vent. Aluminium rivets should be good enough for most of the riveting but there are four key rivets that would be best done with steel.

I started today by sitting quietly and putting a black twin wire and a single (orange) wire through some cable wrap. As I opted not to buy a tool to put cable into cable wrap, it takes a while. I decided that I really didn't need the tool since it was quite expensive and I can do it by hand anyway. Once that was done I installed a bridge rectifier on the ceiling. The other side will lead toward a junction for all my solar inputs before they enter the charge controller. At the moment that's a DIY rectifier but I'm thinking I should put a real bridge rectifier in instead. Just to keep things tidier.

Once all that was done, I attached the cable to the bridge rectifier but did not connect the single wire. The single wire will go to the fuse box but since the fuse box always has current going through due to the blown fuse indicator, I didn't.

Working on the cable installation I ran out of self-drilling screws and ran low on cable attachments. I could probably have completed the cable leading to the external solar input had not the battery drill run out of juice. Had I not been still utterly exhausted from the work week I might have done some other things as well.

I looked at changing the wires on my solar panels. They looked straightforward enough to change. I'll have to see whether any wire is left over from my wire routing to the external solar input. I know there will be plenty. When I've done with the solar input, I'll replace the wires on my latest solar panels thus switching the MC4 connectors over to Anderson 2-pin connectors. The Anderson connectors are much less fiddly to separate. I'm just so tired on a Saturday that I really don't want to do too much anyway so I left those as is for now. I'll get to them tomorrow or next weekend.

In my hunt for spare screws I went into an old trailer used as storage and surprised a huge rat. Had I been in there with my air pistol, I'd have taken a shot at it. It glowered at me and scurried away. While I was there I found one of my collapsible water containers had leaked badly. Taking it outside I could see that a rat had chewed a hole in it. Clearly something needs to be done about the rat problem. Glue traps and mouse/rat traps seem to have no effect. Poison would but I'm loathe to use something that might also poison innocent creatures outside the trailer that might eat the corpse of a dead rat.

So I really need some 1 inch self drilling screws, some 2 inch self drilling screws and some 8-24 1 inch countersunk head screws to go with my existing 8-24 lock nuts. That sounds like a shopping trip. I really don't want to drive far on the weekends though. During the week I drive 30 miles a day round trip to work and 200 miles a day for work. That combined with a 12 hour day from 5:30AM to 5PM does leave me exhausted. By Sunday I'm just about recovered. I might delay the shopping until Monday after work and get as far as I can with the stuff I can do. I know I need to re-site the fan in the shower. That's not that hard to do. I might even complete the wiring for that and get that fully operational rather than notionally operational.

I suppose I need to get some aluminium rivets too - to fill the holes left by my self-drilling screws where I had the fan installed the first time. Then I'll have to touch up paint. I'll probably have to get a sample pot for each of the three main colors since the paints are pretty ancient.

While I was on the ladder to look at the roof vent, I also looked at the wing mirrors to see why the flat mirrors are angled downwards slightly. I see now what I did. I angled the mounts differently so if I line those up correctly, my mirrors will be straight as they're supposed to be. I don't need them angled now that I have my (almost) perfect mirror system in place. I decided to adjust them, of course, after I put the step ladder away and as you can tell - I'm just too exhausted to drag it out again.

Meanwhile if you remember last week's saga where I broke my worn-out indicator stalk, I found several people offering them new at prices that are pretty similar. $117 from Napa, $119 from School Bus Warehouse (or something similar) and $139 from WW Williams (where I had my bus serviced). As I'm at work when WW Williams is open, I can't go there. That leaves the website or Napa. Thus I used Napa's online ordering system to order it for instore delivery but thus far have heard absolutely nothing. I wouldn't mind betting that the website doesn't really work. I know quite a few websites that do not really work. I can fill in order forms and whatnot until I'm blue in the face and nothing ever comes of it. In that way, I suppose it's similar to those stupid job application websites. I've never had anything from them - I get all my work from personal contact. I suppose I'll have to physically go to Napa to order it as their website as I said, probably is just there to look pretty. In fact I remember years ago an attorney telling me writing letters, sending emails and phoning people was just a waste of time - one had to actually turn up and bang one's fist on the counter to get any service or attention.

One of the common complaints is that service in the USA truly sucks. Most of this is down to the way employment is organised. Initiative and thought are penalized and all companies want is low-wage slave labor that can't think. The kind of staff they can fire without the risk of them turning round with a lawsuit. Of course all that does is to grind the company even further into the mud.

Well, today didn't get much accomplished but it laid the roots for tomorrow. I probably won't get under the bus tomorrow but I might get ready to pass the cable through the floor and I might get the shower fan properly installed.

Ouch! That's going to be expensive!

I tried to fit the chain links into the holes drilled in the end of the battery clamp bar and the wretched things wouldn't fit. I had to drill the holes out a bit more yet again. Then I had to paint and wait for the paint to dry.

Once dried, the whole battery clamp assembled like this. The two chain links  connect to my turnbuckles which connect to loops welded to the base of the battery compartment. The links on the other bar must have been smaller - maybe between the size that was too small and the size I have. Without looking, there's no telling. 

That's the fan I set up in the shower. I tried it again today and again it produced very little air movement. I suspect it needs to come right out of that corner and go nearer to the aisle. That would give it more air to suck.

I started by drilling a hole to install a USB power socket for my GPS devices - my GPS speedometer and any GPS navigational aid I use. The step bit that I was using was worn out in the middle and as I could not locate the replacement step bit I had to persevere. Well, that worked just fine until the battery ran out in my cordless drill. That meant I had to use my more powerful corded drill which worked better. I did get the hole big enough but then disaster struck - the drill snatched and whacked my hand against the indicator stalk, snapping it.

Removing the indicator stalk assembly was easy enough. It was held in by just two screws. So, International chassis users, it really is that easy. Feeling curious I dismantled the assembly to see what had happened. It turned out that the actual indicator stalk had snapped in two.

Fortunately on the base of the unit was a part number. I have a feeling this could be an expensive or hard to obtain part. On the other hand, it should be possible to make a similar part fit. There's no rule that says the hazard lamp switch has to be on the stalk. As a matter of fact the hazard lamp switch was constantly jamming and needed to be flicked to get it to turn off. The left turn signal liked to switch itself off too. 

Looking at the broken turn signal paddle, it's clearly broken at its weakest point. It might even have been cracked beforehand. So, it looks like I might need to get a whole new assembly.  Whether I'll be able to get an identical part remains to be seen. Thank Heavens it's an International part and not a Carpenter part.

If you recall, my horn didn't work the other day. I pulled the 10A fuse and found the fuse had blown. It was a pretty ancient looking fuse so I replaced it with a new 10A fuse. I gather most of these horns are about 5A so that'll give it plenty leeway. While I was looking at the turn signal assembly I also noticed what is probably the horn connector. As it was a little loose, I wonder whether that could be the problem with the steering wheel horn button. If it is, I will replace the connector. Similarly I noticed the connector from the console was a bit loose. I'm wondering if that and the fact that water clearly drips on it is the problem. If so, a quick wiggle will fix things when they're not working or maybe just press the pieces together and tape them with insulation tape.

Looking carefully at the console above, it's possible to see the switches I've added. On the top row from left to right I have a sockets switch that switches my three USB sockets and one 12v socket on that are mounted to the left of the panel. The switch labelled CB is pretty obvious - it powers the CB radio. The unlabeled black switch in the centre of the top row is for the new USB navigation power supply. The red switch on the far right lights up and is a reversing horn switch.  Straight under that is the horn switch - that's a momentary action switch. If I can get the main horn switch to work, that switch can go away. Moving to the far left of the bottom row, the silver switch powers my LCD screen for my backup camera. That is active only when the green switch next to it is illuminated. That is used to power the front and two rear cameras and the front and rear video recorders.

This is the new USB power connector. That allowed me to roll up the cord for my GPS speedometer so I don't have that cable dangling. When I use a GPS navigation unit I'll be able to coil that cable up so it's out of the way when I use GPS.

I ordered the new roof vent. It wasn't too bad at $25 but shipping from Ohio was $15. That'll probably take about a day to install since I'll have to clear up the mess the hillbillies left behind. I'll have to cut the rivets, scrape the nasty caulk they used and then treat rust, paint with my heat resistant paint and then install the vent. Now this vent is supposed to be white. That'll mean I won't have to paint it. On the other hand, if it was black, it would heat air and make the air rise and thus promote circulation.

Meanwhile I tried running my vents today. I timed over 5 minutes and with my 35w of panels on, the voltage dropped to 12.4 volts then rapidly rose within a further 5 minutes. I dare say that with the two 30W panels plugged in that the voltage shouldn't really drop. I'll have to see about putting the rear solar input in place.

My next trip under the bus will probably be Saturday so I'll put the battery clamp in place and might complete the second solar input and the wiring from the fuse box toward the handbasin water pump. Whether I complete that in a day remains to be seen. It could also be that on Saturday I have to run to Carolina International to pick up a new turn signal switch assembly.

When the turn signal switch broke, it wasn't exactly an almighty disaster. It was already not functioning correctly so a replacement was due. I'd already had it in mind, I'd just rather thought I might be able to get away with it as it was. That was not to be though.

My next big expense will be tyres - they're all pretty old and quite frankly I don't like remolds and I don't like that the rear tyres are over size. 6 tyres will be costly but then nothing about bus ownership is remotely cheap.

The solution to the roof problem

Today, between rainshowers I climbed onto the hood of the bus and looked at where I would expect drain holes to be on my roof vent. There were two drain like raised parts of the vent but they had been completely sealed with some kind of sealant and then I'd slapped pain over it all.

Both vents are afflicted the same way. Clearly not a good thing and shame on me for not discovering this until recently, having owned the bus since November of 2014.

As an interim measure I bought a plastic box to tape over the vent and was going to make a hole for my cheap Chinese plastic solar-powered fan. That plan was scuppered when I noticed I'd failed to check to see whether the bottom of the plastic box was suitable as a top. It turned out to have a lip all the way around which would collect water. Not ideal or even anywhere near ideal.

I'm pretty sure that - given the insane amount of caulking - I'll probably end up destroying the existing roof vent when I attempt to remove it. I'm feeling that removing it so I can treat rust and fully paint where it was before reinstalling is my best option. Fortunately we are heading into summer now so it really is painting weather. As luck would have it, there's a company selling just the right kind of vent.

I thought long and hard about getting a more robust solar-powered vent before realizing two things. Well, three actually but we'll go into the third later. The first was that none of the solar powered vents are really designed to be on the rooves of moving vehicles. They all claim to be designed for it but they're not. Branches rake across rooves. I drive a school bus daily for work and my bus roof is often raked by branches. A branch would make short work of destroying a mushroom style vent. The second is that a powered vent would be pulling air from the front of the bus at the same time my existing extraction fans will be pulling it toward the back. I have a feeling those fans would be fighting each other or creating stagnant areas. Now my third thing is cost - the cheapest steel solar vent is about $75. The cheapest rotary vent is about $100. Rotary vents are popular in Europe. The standard vent like I have is $25. It is designed to be whacked by branches. It won't fight my extraction fans and installed properly will be waterproof. I'll probably order one on Monday.

Once I have the new vent in place, I'll be able to touch up all the paintwork ruined by water seepage. That latex paint really isn't up to much! I honestly wish I had used oil based paint throughout. I have had some of my oil paint wear off where it's painted on the floor but how much use does that floor get? A lot, I can tell you!

Chatting with the work mechanic, he confirmed my suspicion that the roof vent is there to make sure the insulation in the bus is dry. It give it somewhere to vent. I hear a lot about people complaining about mold but none seem to pay too much attention to ventilation. There's an emphasis on stopping drafts but no realization that doing so is unhealthy.

I certainly did not complete all that I wanted to complete over the week's break. I wired up the new battery. I moved the bus. I confirmed that using two batteries in parallel stopped the insane voltage drop on the batteries. There's a C/8 formula for discharge on batteries. According to that, my 35AH battery should have been fine at 4.375A draw. As it was not, I added a second - I put the old Harbor Freight battery back in the system. That gets me up to a theoretical 8.75A maximum draw. I think though that the 3.8A draw I had going today was probably about as much as I dare put through the batteries.

Remaining to be done...

• The horn quit working so I need to check what's got disconnected and fix it.
• Change the front solar input to Anderson.
• Add a solar charge line to the driving battery compartment.
• Put a solar input at the rear.
• Put the power line from the fuse box at the rear to the new handbasin pump.
• Move the shower fan from its current location and wire it up.
• Add a switch and USB power supply to the control panel
• At a future point, run all my installed switches through a new fuse box inside the control panel.
• Fix the leaking roof vent. I'll replace it. That seems the easiest option.

The underbus stuff is the stuff liable to give the most problems. It all involves lying on the ground under the bus. The tarpaulin does stop me from getting sick as I don't breathe as much bacteria from the soil. It didn't help last time because after I installed the battery there was nothing holding the tarpaulin down so it was flapping around and of course I had to roll off it for a while. Maybe I should try a respirator or something even though they're hot, sweaty, nasty things.

Two batteries might be the answer

Today I finally got underneath and completed the wiring for the second battery. That was complicated by the fact I'd bought oversized 8 gauge cable for the second battery rather than the 10 gauge I had for the other. My yellow connectors were too small so I had to pull the yellow sleeve off, open the crimp a little and then I could use them. I was very glad of the self-resetting breakers I bought. They made connecting the wires very easy. All I had to do was to put ring connectors on the cables and put the ring connector over the terminal on the breaker.

I switched out the 30A breaker from the main negative connection and replaced it with two 15A breakers that each came from a negative terminal on a battery. Then I connected the live from both batteries to the 30A breaker. In between the 30A breaker and the new battery there's a 25A fuse. That fuse is there solely to protect the batteries and wiring from inadvertently putting a battery in backwards.

The next thing was to install the battery. That went in easily enough but the connecting bolts were a challenge to install. I was using my cordless drill with a deep socket and a drill to socket converter. The socket converter was for a bigger socket base than I was using so I had to use an adapter. That left very little room to maneuver. The odd reason behind this was I couldn't find the correct adapter. It was the usual story of putting a tool down and not being able to find it five minutes later. Needless to say, after I had struggled with an awkward arrangement, I found it!

The proof of the pudding being in the eating, after the battery was fully plumbed in, I turned the power on to my charge controller and then the power from my solar panels. Hey presto, the power level came up as 86%. Well, that battery had been lying idle for the best part of a year. Now I'm using a Harbor Freight battery and a Duracell battery. Neither were really capable of powering my two fans individually. Together they seem to do quite a reasonable job.

As can be seen or rather as can't be seen, there is now no tarpaulin under the back of the bus. That had been on the ground for literally months. Now I have the battery fully installed I will need it only briefly while installing a second solar input at the back and a wire for the handbasin pump. That should all be pretty brief to be honest. I don't know whether I'll get to it tomorrow or not.

I had to move the bus a bit. It was sitting very close to fallen leaves that had not been present when I'd put the tarpaulin down. See - I told you it had been there a long time.  The mud caked to the tyre is clearly visible despite I moved the bus yesterday.

Moving the bus was pretty easy. I was very much afraid of another frozen brake as I'd had before but I had no such problem. The bus does not seem to have binding brakes. I did notice that the horn does not now work and the speedo/rev counter had stopped again. This is why I have a GPS speedometer as a standby. I suspect I've accidentally unplugged the horn switch. I'll have to investigate whether the horn button in the steering wheel actually does anything and why it doesn't activate the regular horn. I suspect it could be something very simple.

I couldn't put the bracket for the top of the battery on yet. The holes were too small for the one set of chain linkers I'd bought and the smaller set was too small to fit my turnbuckles. Thus I was left with no option but to enlarge the holes. That meant a delay as I have to prime and paint the new holes. Before I can do that, the WD40 I used to lubricate the drill has to evaporate off the surface of the bracket as can be seen by the poor adherence of the primer on the right.

I had a wild hair the other day and started to install a fan in the shower. That's going to be used dry wet items hung up in the shower. I started by installing it in one of the corners away from the walkway but airflow was very poor. I'll have to move it closer to the walkway or at least give it another test beforehand. Once that is properly situated I can put the switch and the cable wrap.

Another thing remaining to be done is to install a USB charging connector and a switch so I can power my GPS speedometer and my GPS unit without having a long cable drooping. As I'm out of spare (working) connectors on the main switchboard power bus I'll put in another 6 way fuse box. This has the advantage that I won't need to use individual fuse holders. I can put one connection to the power bus and run my remaining five items.

Today, after I'd finished with the battery, the rain began to hammer down. I'm glad I pulled up the tarpaulin as it would have been very wet. It was then, of course, that my mind turned to the leaky roof vent. I realised that if I were to buy a big plastic lunch box I could dump the lid, cut a circular hole to accommodate my cheap plastic extraction fan, tape the box over the roof vent and tape the extraction fan into the box so no water could get into the bus but the fan could work and extract air and dampness. I'll try to get that box tomorrow, possibly.

I return to work on Monday. I don't know whether I will have everything done that I planned but I got the main thing done which was the battery.

Finally, running water!

I have a very nice week off work at the moment. Those that don't know, I drive for a school district and start work at 05:30, leaving work at 17:00. During that time I'm actually working 05:30-08:15, 10:30-13:15 and 13:50-17:00. Over that time, I drive around 190 miles. It's hit or miss whether I have sufficient fuel to complete the morning run sometimes.

So, I've worked on running water today and a little on another side project. The other side project is to install a fan in the shower. That will allow me to put clothes on a folding drying rack in the shower and have a five inch CPU fan blowing air onto it. When I lived in a crummy little hovel in Lexington, South Carolina, not far from the jail (yes, a really nice neighborhood), I found a fan blowing on my clothes on a drying rack really worked and it was way cheaper than using a dryer.

One of the things I did when I installed the wiring on the shower side of the bus was to install an extra wire. I never used it but now I can. That'll power my fan. I had thought of putting in a 12v socket to use to charge my MacBook but since my MacBook bit the dust, that's not going to happen. Anyway, I replaced the $1,200 MacBook with a $150 Windows laptop that I reformatted and installed Linux. Honestly, Windows is such garbage!

I ordered a solar-powered fan which arrived yesterday. It works and works well. It's plastic and secures via just three screws. That's nice but not in my opinion durable enough to put on top of my bus. While I'm on that subject, the people that had the bus before me caulked around the vent. I'm betting they caulked the drain holes since I get water coming in through the vent. I'll have to look more thoroughly at it at a future point.

Today I was thinking of going under the bus to complete my battery wiring. That didn't happen. Instead I found myself completing the running water project and starting the fan project. Now the running water project was held up for a long time because I was thinking too conventionally about copper piping made into a fixed faucet.

The first thing that arrived was the 12v diaphragm pump that came from China. That came with a length of PVC hose. Then I realised I had to put a strainer on the input side or something might clog my nice pump. That had me foxed as I was looking for a "filter". When I punched "strainer" into the search engine, up came a lot of expensive strainers. Eventually I eneded up in Lowes (hiss, spit) where I could find no strainers despite them being listed on the website. Eventually I found something for a pesticide sprayer - it was a filter on a length of hose. Now I had the pump, two lengths of hose and a filter.

I was still thinking about copper tubing but forgot to look at it in the shop. Then I thought about brackets and remembered I'd bought a pile of brackets that I'd never used. Looking at the V in the brackets I realised that would be the ideal location to lie a hose. Thus I tested that idea and finding it worked, put up the test version in my previous blog entry.

A bit of trimming and the bracket was about right. The next thing was painting. As I didn't want to run to the store to buy one tin of paint, I hunted around and found I had a part used tin of lime green acrylic latex paint. It was horribly slow to dry so rather than spraying and getting the whole job done in a few hours, it took a couple of days. Even though I hurried it up by putting the painted bracket on the dashboard in my car where the hot sun would bake it dry, it was still slow. The wonderful thing though is that the paint matched the Valspar Lime Passion of my bathroom.

While I was out a few days ago, I popped into the car parts store and found this neat little button labelled as a horn button. Now it activates my water pump. That's the water pump at the top. That is, of course, before I completed my wiring. Actually the wiring still isn't completed as the pump hasn't really got a permanent power supply set up yet. I can run it off 8 AA cells when needed or I'll wire it to the spare position on my fuse box with luck before I go back to work.

 

That's what the final solution looks like. If you notice I got the hole through the countertop and the batton underneath slightly out of line. Given that I couldn't see what I was doing and could only guess vaguely where I was supposed to be drilling, I got that pretty good. Pressing the power button, sufficient water clearly flows. The intake hose is currently dipped into a jug of water but can easily be dipped into a jerry can. There's even the possibility later of putting a 15 gallon water barrel underneath the bus. That's not what I'd call likely though.

The top of the DIY faucet is a piece of Perspex/Plexiglas glued down. Those with long memories will remember I took two plastic windows out of the bus and replaced them with aluminum panels. I kept the plastic windows. That's right - nothing ever gets thrown out unless it's really, truly unusable. So, 5 years on and I get to use more of the plastic. Actually it has come in for a couple of little projects - some of which have gone onto the bus and some of which have ended up either not going on or coming off after a trial.

When I was out the other day I bought another strip of aluminum. I've cut, drilled and bent it to shape. All that it needs now is for the paint to dry. Then I'll probably have to touch up the paint. The idea with this one is I'll screw it to the ceiling together with the mounted fan but I'll use self-drilling screws since there's no real weight or vibration involved with my CPU fan. I'm sure I've got some leftover aluminum strip somewhere but at $3.99 for a 3 foot length, it's not going to break the bank.

Getting underneath is something I'm definitely putting off. The leaves are too close to the side of the bus I'll need to work under. That means I'll probably have to move the bus away from the leaves. Why so worried about leaves I hear you ask. The answer is simple - baby cottonmouth snakes love leaves and are more deadly than the older snakes by virtue of the fact they don't regulate their venom output when they bite. It's all or nothing.

When I installed the button on the front of the cabinet, I installed it in such a position that I can press it with my knee. I can even press it with my knee while seated on the toilet if I so wish, thus giving me the ability to moisten a wet wipe or rinse my hands before answering the phone.

As far as the fan is concerned, I need to run a cable up the wall, put the fan up and install a switch. I found my spare switch today and my spare CPU fan as well as some spare wire. I even located my free wire so now I can install my fan very shortly after the paint dries.

After the fan, I'd better move the bus to a leaf and ant free area before completing the battery wiring and installing the second battery. Following that I'll probably run the cables for a rear solar input and the handbasin pump wire. No point now in running extra wires as I have only 8 positions on each fuse box and this will be my 16th circuit. While I was out I did get extra cable wrap. Only Harbor Freight sells the 1/4" wrap and that's all I need for a single cable. I have plenty small cable anchors too. I probably don't need to run off to buy more. \

Once that lot is done I want to switch the solar input on the side of the bus from a cigarette lighter socket to an Anderson socket. I tried to separate some of my MC4 connectors the other day and they wouldn't separate. That tells me I was right in going for Anderson. The other thing will be to put a connector in the battery compartment so that I can charge the driving batteries from a single panel in the front window. That'll stop them from going dead. I already have a charge controller installed in the cockpit with just this idea in mind.

Not much left to complete but as I'm still pretty exhausted from 3 months of 12-13 hour work days I'm not rushing. This does not mean I'm lazy! I know my body limits.

Almost running water

As I'm feeling quite yucky from a kiddie bug (my day job is kiddie transport), I didn't get too adventurous with the bus. Actually on some projects I'm on stop unless I go underneath and others I'm on stop until the bits arrive while others I have to seek out the bits locally.

Over the week some bits arrived and I've also decided to ditch the MR4 connectors for solar and go with a straightforward Anderson 2 pole connector. This is because the Anderson is the easiest to separate and because I could only get inlets for Anderson connectors - not for MR4 connectors. Interestingly, I tried separating some of my MR4 connectors and they wouldn't come apart. That's not too promising!

I ordered a 12v waterpump from China via eBay out of interest. It arrived with a piece of 1/4' hose and was a massive $8 or thereabouts. Having played with it, it shifts a decent quantity of water just plugged up to 12v of AA batteries. It even seems to work well off an exhausted 9V battery.

There are two things I need for the water pump. The first is some kind of filtration unit to stop the pump from getting jammed with gunk. Looking around I see plenty online and they seem to be called sprayer/pump strainers. The trick seems to be finding one with a 1/4" barb that doesn't cost the earth or simply getting a bigger one and a barb adaptor. The second is a push-button switch to operate the thing. I spent ages on eBay looking at various different things using a variety of keywords before the ideal switch came to mind - the humble doorbell pusher. I'm pretty sure I can find all that in Lowes (hiss, spit). I looked yesterday but didn't see anything and - as normal - the staff were so discrete they were nowhere to be seen. I bet I could have walked out with half the store under my arm and nobody would have noticed.

In my toolbox I found two battery holders that take four AA batteries each. I screwed them into the bulkhead, ready to use. If you remember, my 8AA battery holder died when the contact broke off the top last week. I am in the process of tidying the cables - even if it doesn't look like it. I'm on pause there as the liquid insulation I painted on the newly soldered connections needs some time to set.

It was very fortunate that I happened to find a pair of four AA battery holders in that toolbox as I'd accidentally ordered a 10AA battery holder. That'd be 15V not 12V. I could have wired the switch into the solar battery but honestly I like having the solar side separated so I have three totally independent ways of entering the bus.

I bought some ring connectors in Walmart. These are needed to complete the underbus battery installation. I thought it looked like the holes in the rings were oversized. This must have been a purchasing error by Walmart as well as by me. I'll have to head to the car parts store to get some. I might also find my hose barb filter there as well as some more 1/4" hose.

Speaking of quarter inch hose, I'll probably put up a faucet spout on my handbasin now. Looking around though, there doesn't seem to be anything truly good for such a small water flow. I could thus get a piece of quarter inch copper tube and bend it. Bending copper tube is easy. There's either a bending tool or you can fill the tube with sand and do it by hand. I'll probably do the latter. The next issue is the base of the tube. It might be possible to solder the tube into a threaded collar and tighten the collar into place with nuts above and below where the tube and collar passes through a hole in the handbasin surround.

I did have a look at replacing the existing cigarette-lighter socket under the bus but didn't really feel a whole lot like crawling under there. I suspect I can do it without crawling under but the way these things seem to work out, I'll end up under there anyway. I passed on that today. As I said I have a kiddie bug so I'm doing as little as possible this weekend.

My work week is quite busy and quite exhausting. I have to drive from 5:30am til 8:15am taking special needs children to two elementary schools and one high school. Then I have a 10:30am-12:00pm taking a single child from their home to yet another elementary school. I return to the bus yard where my partner tucks and rolls before speeding onwards to a highschool where I pick up a single child and take them to their home, returning to the bus yard at 1:15pm. That gives me 30 minutes for lunch. Then I'm off on the afternoon run from 1:45pm until 5:00pm. During a typical day I drive around 180 miles. That's 9 1/4 hours of driving a day and driving is exhausting. Thus not only is my body tired from fighting this kiddie bug but fatigued from driving close to 1,000 miles a week. Much of that driving is on roads in poor condition and choked with traffic. Worse than that even - drivers that got their driving license from the back of a cereal packet!

The water pump will probably initially be powered by batteries. Given that it's intended use is for rinsing my hands, a PP3 battery would probably be sufficient though I'd love for everything to run from AA batteries or even D cells. I might even hook it up to the 12v solar supply. That would be pretty good. I did run a spare line to the other side of the bathroom, intending to put in a fan that
could blow on clothes hanging from a drying rack in the shower. Without too much difficulty I could tap into that line though I hate tapping in and putting two devices off one circuit. The alternative would be putting another cable into a secured cable-wrap or even adding an extra cable wrap running from the fuse box to the shower. Thinking about that though - the ideal time would be when I put the rear solar input in place. Then I'll be running a cable wrap so it wouldn't be that much extra work.

Meanwhile, I mentioned my brief time for a work lunch. I don't have much time for anything so it's either a quick run to Walmart for a stale sub or an equally stale salad. I swear Walmart must import its salads and subs from Australia judging from their sorry-looking state or to one of the fast food joints for a tasteless burger and tasteless fries all dripping with grease. The alternative is a can of beans or whatever. I choose the latter as it's healthier by far. I have been ill after Walmart's stale subs. The bonus - cans of beans last forever.