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.