A bad day at the ranch

Today was a day when nothing seemed to go right. That started first thing in the morning as my (perfectly good) debit card was declined when I tried to buy a book online. I had to use a different debit card.

From there I went outside and had to rush straight back in to the loo. Yes - it was turning into that kind of day. I'd had a fairly miserable night too. Then there were all the things that were falling off the wall, out of the fridge etc. Not really a day for doing anything.

Nevertheless, I wanted to make a mount for the dynamo. I thought I'd make it out of wood and put the thing on a wooden pole. I located a hole saw and cut a hole. I have a limited supply of hole saws including some that I bought as one unit hole saws and the big hole saw set I got from Harbor Freight that is now stuck fast on one size. No matter how much muscle power is put into it, the thing won't budge.

I have two one-unit hole saws the same size. On one the drill bit had fallen out while on the other the teeth were blunt. I soldiered on and cut a hole with the blunt saw, almost setting the wood on fire in the process.

The edges of the hole were blackened and burnt. After the hole saw had cooled off, I decided to retire it and removed the drill bit and bit holder. That was easy enough.

Having done that I went to work with the other hole saw. I tried to take the drill holder out but met with a problem - the grub screw had partly come out and was now blocking any attempt to remove the holder. Add to that I couldn't lay my hands on my allen keys and the fact the screw couldn't really be accessed.

Putting that away as a bad job I cut a bigger hole using my seized Harbor Freight hole saw but it was too big. At that point, I gave up on actually doing anything today.

The empty roof coating bucket will make excellent turbine blades for a vertical access wind turbine. If that is cut in two vertically and the bottom removed then they will be excellent.

There was an old wheel hub lying around. The plan is to weld the long piece of metal vertically from the center of the hub and to put 5 spokes coming out at ground level from the edge of the hub to provide extra stability. The hub will be filled with sand for extra weight. The whole thing will be free standing. I still have to make a mount for the turbine but I can do that later, knowing what I'm mounting it to.

If the rain tomorrow holds off then I might get started on that. If it doesn't then I might look at putting together a tarpaulin shelter. I've been threatening to do that for a very long time! If it wasn't for the fact my welder needs 20A then I would just weld inside the shed. My cable is not long enough for that though.

I did attach angle brackets to the ends of the arm I made the other day. I just haven't shown a photo of that. They're just loosely attached while I make my mind up whether to rivet or bolt them. I'm leaning more toward riveting.

I'll tell you what's wrong with this thread!

The thread on the end of the wind turbine generator is definitely 4mm. I braved the Coronavirus crowds and bought a 4mm bolt. Trying it in the hole I was perplexed when it would not work. I tried a #8 bolt again and that wouldn't work. 5mm and #10 were too big, #6 and 3mm were too small. It was perplexing to say the least.

While I was out I picked up four small brackets that I have now attached to the arms of the wind turbine generator. I didn't want to blow too much money so I didn't buy plastic drainpipe to use as blades on the turbine. I'd got an idea about using a small plastic bucket that had been used to store dried milk that was now well past its worthwhile use by date.

Today however the roof of the main dwelling was being treated with BlackJack elastometric paint.  At the end of that there were several 5 gallon buckets that had had the paint in them, lying empty. Thus I grabbed one bucket with the idea of cutting it vertically in two so that I have two curved blades for the wind turbine. That idea got put to one side though. I'll have a go at that another day.

Back to the thread. Can you see the problem? The thread turns to the left. It's a left-handed thread! Thus, checking online I found left handed M4 bolts were ludicrously expensive from US sources. I do mean ludicrously. I was getting no prices under $25 for a single left-handed M4 bolt. That is absolutely ridiculous and is exactly why I have bought so much from Coronavirus as the thing is liable to be in the post for 2 weeks. That's more than enough time to kill the virus.

This must be why I have never used that turbine. I almost wanted to drill out the thread and re-tap the shaft with a common bolt size like 10-24. That would have meant (since I can't find my 10-24 tap) buying a 10-24 tap in the store. I'm obeying instructions and keeping out of stores though.

When I went to the store to get the M4 bolts and whatever else it was, the store was packed. People were not obeying the stay home rules. People were not social distancing. Nobody bar me wore gloves nor masks. It would not surprise me in the slightest if the President decided to put National Guard roadblocks on major junctions and near stores, checking people's identities and reasons for being out. It would similarly not surprise me if people were given periods in the week (ex monday PM) for doing their shopping and had to have permits to head to work. That is probably the only way to stop people mingling and passing the coronavirus to each other.

It would similarly not surprise me since some wannabe survivalists have bought up the nation's entire supply of toilet paper, hand sanitizer etc to hear of looters raiding people's homes for toilet paper and hand sanitizer. The massive increase in gun and ammunition sales tells me that!

Batteries down to 41%

The batteries measured 41% earlier today. I'd left the MPPT charge controller with the default settings so it should have identified the batteries as AGM. I have a feeling that one battery went bad and dragged the other one down with it. Like as not I'll have to get a pair of batteries.

On the plus side, I ran my extraction fans for a few seconds and found that they use exactly 3.75A as I had previously calculated. So my amperage consumed including the door lock was 3.8A. Two 35AH batteries giving a combined 70AH should in theory be able to provide that with no problems. Using C/20 that would give 70/20 or 3.5A. That's close enough for me!

I'm not surprised one or both batteries has died. I'll hazard a guess that the Harbor Freight battery that I just don't think is a good battery is probably fine. The expensive Duracell that cost twice as much is probably the dead one. As I usually get a bad tummy from the bacteria swilling around under the bus, I'll probably have to wait until I get 4 days off in a row.

Right now I am working two days on and two days off. That means earlier this week I worked Monday and Tuesday having been off since school got cancelled due to the Coronavirus outbreak. I work tomorrow too, which is Friday. Next week it's Monday, Thursday, Friday. Then I get the weekend plus Monday and Tuesday off. Saturday or even Friday of that week is when I can get under the bus to pull the batteries to test them.

In terms of replacement, if I have to replace one battery or two, I'll probably just order from Walmart. I really don't feel like going all the way to Harbor Freight for more of their Thunderbolt Magnum batteries. I have heard good things of Walmart's Mighty Max batteries. The best thing is they're even cheaper that Harbor Freight's batteries.

Today I pulled out a piece of aluminium angle to work on a project several years in the making. I have a small wind turbine generator that I bought online from China several years ago. I've never used it before. I had some thick aluminium left over from the hillbilly bus conversion so I cut a block to fit the end of the "generator". Actually, it was two blocks because the shaft on the generator was quite long.

I had to drill three holes - one for the shaft and two for bolts. The shaft had a pin running horizontally through it so on one block I cut a groove that the pin could fit into. That will mean the turbine arm will not slip.

Needless to say, at one point the drill snagged and twisted itself out of my hand. It landed on the floor and bent the drill bit so now I can drill curved holes.

That's what the core of it all looks like. The plan is to have two blade ends made from something simple and light weight. I did think about using guttering but that would involve buying guttering. I have some steel sheet and a couple of fridge doors I can make blades from. Ideally the blades would be plastic. I don't want to put too much weight on what looks like a flimsy Chinese generator.

The point of this is just to make use of odds and ends and make something to generate electricity. I can combine this with one of my cheap Chinese PWM charge controllers plus a 10AH gel battery pack. That will allow me to install low-power lighting in the house for time when and if the power goes out.

I was going to use this in the bus conversion for extra power generation but I decided in the end not to. That was purely because the thing just looked so flimsy. Since I won't be ordering anything more from Coronavirus-country, these things have to last. If the thing keels over, I have surplus solar panels that I can use.

I'm going to have to see how many amps a CPAP unit uses and whether I can run it if I get an inverter and a bigger battery. That plus my surplus solar panels might help somebody I know out in the event the power goes out. I'd have to work out how much I'd need. Cooking can always be done over an open fire or on gas. Maybe I should invest in a propane cooker and some propane bottles. I really wouldn't need much propane to cook for 3 months.

Maybe also like the neighbor next door, it's a good idea to plow the yard to plant veggies. The big problem is if the power goes out, there's no power for the well. I suppose a hand pump could do the job but getting a hand pump for a deep well might be a challenge.

Meanwhile I'm going to do my best to get the wind turbine to function.

Corona Virus Day 2

Well, not actually Corona Virus day 2 because nobody knows the exact date of the first infection. It is, however, the second day of my state mandated Corona Virus holiday. I get paid - I just don't have to work. Bonus - the President is aiming to give everybody $1,000 to spend at the casino (assuming one can be found that's still open).

I wasted my dollar a few weeks ago buying a green hat in anticipation of St Patrick's day. Today being St Patrick's day, I have nothing to do but salute my wasted dollar by quaffing vodka. I couldn't do that on a work day. Mind, now I gather I'm on call to deliver food and homework to kids so I can't drink it on any other than Friday and Saturday night. C'est la vie!

Today started rainy and sitting at the computer playing solitaire was about to do my head in as was watching silly YouTube videos. Eventually the clouds cleared and the rain eased so I could get outside. Bear in mind there are a lot of things I want to do that need power. I thus needed either to buy a generator or to wire up my TT30 socket with its 30A supply.

Last time I'd looked at the electric box outside I'd seen big black wasps going in and out. It appears the "professional" that installed the well pump couldn't be bothered to put his cables into proper conduit. Now that's one thing I insist on - everything has to be done properly. The wires need not be buried but they must be in conduit. In fact I didn't bury the conduit last time but when it was time to pull it up, it was buried under an inch or two of soil. That's the power of nature!

So, pulling the lid up on the box, the first thing I noticed was somebody had put the panel in back to front - likely because they had knocked out the wrong blanks and been unprepared enough to cover them with tape. In fact they hadn't properly blocked off the hole in the underside of the box where they'd put their wires. Had they done that or better even, used conduit, there would not have been a wasp nest inside.

The wasps didn't bother me because they hadn't had time to lay eggs. They were still building their nest. They flew away when I opened everything so I let it be. Returning after a few minutes they were back so I gave them a good squirt with my wasp killer spray. They'll find somewhere else now. I just hope it's not going to be underneath the bus as it has been for a couple of years.

I'd spent quite a while pulling the ground spike on which I'd mounted the TT30 socket box, a couple of weeks ago. It took a few minutes but I drilled out the rivets that held the box to the steel post and then screwed it to a handy nearby wooden post.

The cable went down to the bottom of the post in my nice conduit then snaked away. I've secure it as best I can with a leftover cable clamp. I never throw things away because there's no telling when they'll come in useful! 

This is the electrical panel. I've turned the front panel the correct way around and taped over the holes where the idiot pulled the wrong breakaways away. I pulled the lower one off thinking I could get my breaker in there. Wrong! It seems that whoever wired the panel in the first place did a hamfisted job of putting the big wires in place. Disconnecting those, trimming and reconnecting them would have been a significant challenge as I don't have the tools and would have had to turn the power off. Yes - you read that right - I did all the work today with the power on, working on live wiring.

It's not actually that dangerous if you're careful. It's like crossing the street. If you don't look and go carefully you could be hit by a car. I didn't want to upset the system because goodness knows whether CPAPs were in use or oxygen machines or whatever.

As mentioned before, the people that did the water pump really weren't good craftsmen. I can't call them rednecks - they probably were and rednecks can usually do a darned good job. This was done by some slap happy amateur that calls themselves a professional. Look at those bare wires. Now compare that with the semi-professional big tube in which the main power supply enters. Then look at the smaller conduit in which my amateur wiring runs.

I have to look everything up to make sure I'm adhering to the correct wiring codes etc. It takes me a long time because I check, recheck and check again. I look things up when I'm not sure. I never make assumptions. Thus, my craftsmanship is likely way better than some professionals - likely because it's not my craft and thus I take more care. My big challenge was that I couldn't dig any holes or put in any earth spikes due to not knowing where the pipes and wires were buried. The city couldn't help with that one as they were all installed by a contractor for the property owner at the time. Now it's just a mystery. Fortunately on the earth side, there were already two earth wires running down the power pole. I just attached my earth to one of those and called it a day! I'm just hoping those earths (which disappear beneath the ground) actually do what they're supposed to.

Anyway - that length of wire (which is now likely 4 feet shorter than when it was installed in the other breaker box) is now correctly installed and gives me probably 20 feet distance from the box toward my bus. That's good enough to connect my two extension cords end on end but to reach the bus I'll likely need another.

I do need to get to Lowes (hiss, spit), Tractor Supply and Harbor Freight for various odds and sods but whether I'll be able to, I don't know. I hear locally there is a curfew. That might get extended if there are enough idiots around having corona virus parties. I remember reading in one of the newspapers that there were "sero change parties" in which people tried to catch AIDS. What sad lives some people must lead!

Now I have the power supply available again, I can try my new flux core wire welder. I have scrap steel to try it with too. Not only that but now I have an apparently unlimited time to do it in. The word is that aside from perhaps occasional driving free meals to school kids or homework to them, I'll be pretty much free until April. Having said that, the way this virus is going, it could be longer.

The USA has the kind of problem most third world countries have. For some unknown reason people believe the nonsense pedaled by the few. The few don't want government healthcare because it'll mean higher taxes to pay for it and healthcare providers don't want to limit their fees to something reasonable. Nobody wants to live a normal, happy life. Instead they'd rather live the lifestyle of royalty while the poor fall sick and die. The fact is most of Europe is happy and healthy because of universal healthcare that's taxed on employers (not the employees) and free at the point of use.

This means that somebody who is sick will keep working through their sickness. They can't afford healthcare and don't have statutory sick pay. If they stay off work sick for a few days to recover, they'll lose income and hence their home. Thus, the sick work and pass on their ilnesses to other poor people and to customers and hence to the wealthy. It makes no sense. The purile hatred of a national healthcare system persists though. That is what is going to make the Corona Virus conquer America!

Corona virus holiday?

As the world is now in the grip of the Corona Virus which seems to be more targeting men of fighting age (could it possibly be a Chinese biological weapon test), I'm expecting plenty time to work on the bus. This weekend was a 4 day weekend because of the work timetable. The first day was spent not doing much because frankly those 12 hour days are exhausting. The next day was spent shopping and admiring the empty shelves in the stores. People have gone nuts on stockpiling hand soap, bleach, disinfectant and toilet paper. There have even been fights in stores over toilet paper!

I sat in the driver's seat of the bus and ended up adjusting it. Lowering it took quite some doing! I was there with a pair of wrenches and still didn't get it absolutely spot on. I have a feeling there might be some warping.

When I bought the bus, the seat was jacked all the way up. I generally drive with my work bus seat all the way down and pushed back a bit. This has helped with my bus as my knee used to impact the steering wheel. Now it does not - it touches lightly. I still need to raise the accelerator a bit in order to get it closer to the brake pedal height.

A while ago I ordered two lots of rivnuts. One lot was in 4mm while the other was SAE #10. The #10 steel rivnuts arrived. The M4 rivnuts did not. That pretty much continues my run of eBay bad luck. I'd ordered on February 4th and they were supposed to arrive by March 12th. They did not so I filed non-arrival. The seller then asked if I could wait another week. I told them straight I would not wait another week and that the fake tracking number they gave did not aid their case.

So, I wanted to test my steel #10 rivnuts. Thus I pulled out a sheet of rusty steel and drilled a hole, enlarging at the same time with my step bit. The tools used - a drill and step bit, a multi wrench, a 10mm wrench and a #10 bolt. I did switch to an adjustable wrench later when the 10mm wrench proved to be too loose.

On the bolt are a nut, a washer and the rivnut. The basic idea is to put the rivnut in the hole, turn the nut so that it moves down the thread, compressing the rivnut and the washer will slide against both the rivnut and the nut in order that the rivnut does not turn. That didn't happen in this instance. The rivnut turned.

The solution to the rivnut turning was to drill another hole - bigger than the circular portion of the rivnut shaft but smaller than the hexagonal collar. Then I picked up a handly piece of 2x4 and whacked the rivnut into place so that the collar would bind on the hole and allow the washer to act as a lubricant.

Two complete turns of the wrench while holding the bolt head steady got the rivnut into place with the shaft compressing to grab the steel firmly from both sides. I could have turned some more but it was holding and this was just a test.

So eventually I got as far as working on installing my new charge controller. Already I like it more than my old controller. It seems to measure wattage used more accurately. It measured the batteries at 85% so perhaps it's not a dead battery - just the old controller (which had been in use for a year) was on its way out? Time will tell.

I had to move my rectifier for my solar panels and getting the controller in was a tight squeeze. The instructions said it needed the thermometer installed near the batteries. That might happen at some point. The instructions also said that the controller needed to have 6 inches of clearance above. That's not going to happen in this bus. As it's a 20A controller and the maximum continuous power through it is likely to be just 7A, I'm not particularly worried about that. It takes a maximum of 400W solar and I have (currently) 20W attached to the back, 15W that will be upgraded to 30W at the front plus portable panels of 2x30W, 2x20W, 2x10W, 1x15W and 1x5W for a grand total of... 205W of which I'll likely be using an absolute maximum of 110W, but of that only 50W continuously.

One of the things I particularly like about that new controller is that it automatically senses the batteries and sets itself automatically. No need for me to read the manual. Of course I did read the manual. Then I had to hunt to find out just what order to put the wiring in. There was no mention of it in the manual so I followed what my other controllers did. First pair of holes from the left positive then negative for the solar panel. Second pair of holes from the left positive then negative for the battery. Third pair of holes from the left positive then negative for the load.

The only issue so far in setting up the controller was that it was set for 15 which is load on or off at the press of a button. It was set for on but it was off. I had to toggle the on/off button a couple of times to get that working.

It was supposed to rain tomorrow but started raining before I got the new charge controller installed. I would have proceeded on from installing the new controller to testing the new plastic wedges and installing the new solar panel. Thus I stuck with installing the new charge controller. I'd not felt energetic all day anyway. It's partly those 12 hour days that take a toll but also the bugs I pick up from my passengers. I'd been wanting to install the charge controller since I bought it back in mid January.

I was going to install it using rivnuts but started off using self-drilling screws then just stuck with those rather than enlarge the holes and install rivnuts. I'll probably have to go rivnuts in the end. It was nice though to have attachment points big enough to take a self-drilling screw. All the other controllers used small plastic attachment points.

One of the biggest problems I had was that I'd sprayed xylene foam inside the cavity at the back of the bus. What a pain that was. If anybody suggests to you that spray foam is a good idea, you'll know you're talking to a complete imbecile.  When you need to get at the point where it has been sprayed you have to dig it out, a little at a time, watching for wires  buried in it the whole time. So I now have a broken thumbnail that'll take a month to grow out.

That's the stuff to avoid. The best thing you can do with a can of that is to put it on a wall and shoot at it. The foam will burst out and set and make aesthetic art sculptures that you can spray lurid colors and sell to tasteless people on Facebook or Craigslist.

They turn out like that if you shoot them right! Needless to say that was my last ever can of Great Stuff. I now would not touch the stuff with a bargepole.

The only bit I can't make myself!

In order to replace the damaged plastic solar panel with a solid, metal solar panel it seems I need a shim. The front panel above the windscreen has a curve on it toward the bottom that starts about half way up. That is unwelcome and unexpected.

Holding up a ruler to the front panel and keeping it pressed against the flat portion, another ruler was used to measure the difference between the straight edge of the ruler and the curved portion of the panel. It turned out that using a 1 inch tall shim, the full 43.25 inch length of the panel, the shim would have to be 1/4 inch thick at the bottom and 3/16th inch thick at the top. That's quite an appreciable difference!  That is something I'm going to have to buy, machined like that.

While I was it it, I measured the back windows. That fridge steel is just too darned thin to weld properly. Even with my MIG welder, it'll be a bit thin. If needs be though I'll try with 0.25 wire if its available with a flux core. The three windows at the top that aren't filled in measured 20.5 inches by 25 for the sides and the top door window is 31 by 21 inches. The bottom window will have to be redone as I'm unhappy with the result. It's watertight but not a good result. I asked about 9 gauge steel but I think 11 gauge would work better. Maybe even 14 gauge.

While I was in the bus today I heaved out another pile of garbage to take to the dump. You wouldn't believe how much space can be gained by disposing of packaging. In the last few weeks I've pulled out probably half a pickup full of garbage.

I had it in mind to replace the self-drilling screws in the access panel over the rear door with rivnuts and #8 bolts. Thus I started and the first hole that I enlarged with my step drill went too bit. That was my fault as I'd used the wrong step bit. That led to consternation as now a #8 rivnut wouldn't fit the hole. Fortunately though I had some bigger rivnuts. Using the correct step bit the hole was enlarged and the new rivut fitted. That led to another problem - after spending a while hunting for the correct rivnut tool adapter and installing the rivnut using that tool, the rivnut just spun in the hole. The rivnut tool couldn't crimp it tightly enough.

So with the rivnut not properly tightened, it couldn't be used. Fear not - the caveman method of installing rivnuts is always available. That involved using a bolt, a washer, a nut and two wrenches. The process was pretty simple. Screw the nut to the head end of the bolt, put the washer on the bolt then screw the bolt into the rivnut. Using the first wrench, hold the head of the bolt steady. With the other wrench, turn the nut clockwise. There's plenty resistance but when the rivnut is tight, resistance increases tremendously. It took a complete turn of the nut to achieve nirvana. As I had only 6 quarter inch rivnuts, I used just one and did the other 8 rivnuts using my #8 rivnuts but with the correct step bit.

Looking at the bus, it desperately needs to be out on the road. There's damaging green mold growing over the external surfaces - even on the paintwork. I noticed also that the rubber on the hinge side of the door is disintegrating. That will be interesting to replace.

When I was out shopping, yesterday, I picked up a few goodies - some welding wire for my gasless mig welder and I did have a look for more breathing masks - nobody wants to breathe in welding fumes. The coronavirus panic has caused the public to sweep the shelves of any kind of mask. The vast majority of face masks are not proof against coronavirus. Certainly none of the Harbor Freight masks are - they're just there to block smoke particulates etc. Viruses are way smaller.

There was a gripe about my power connector the other day. I haven't been using it yet there were allegations that I had and that I'd been using vast amounts of power. I pulled up the power cable, disconnected from the distribution panel and pulled up the pole I'd driven into the ground. That pole was hard to remove as the ground. It had 4 feet of ground suction. That took some levering!

I've not yet installed the power pole in its new location but that'll probably be done next weekend. I'll have to get a long power cable too since my existing 20A cables for the bus just aren't long enough. That'll give me the opportunity to get a 30A cable. It has always been my desire to upgrade the bus power system to the designed 30A.

I made a slight error a few days ago. I ordered and paid for this little measuring gauge. This is actually a pretty good little gauge. The money would have been better put toward a real micrometer though. I have a digital calipers and a manual 1cm gauge. A micrometer would have been more versatile.

How much has been spent on the conversion? That's the perennial question. I honestly don't know. I was submitting all my receipts to be collected and entered. The first time some were entered, the file was lost (Windows being Windows). Then the receipts were piled into a drawer and nobody has entered any of the data. I have a ton of receipts in the bus but already some are fading away to invisibility. It would be nice to have the information rather than guesstimates but it just looks like nobody is going to add them all up again.

This weekend coming is a 4 day weekend. I've done virtually nothing for quite a while. I need to get on and complete what I'm doing with the bus. The projects waiting to be completed...

1. Replacing the roof vent

2. Replacing the vandalised solar panel

3. Putting steel sheet over the back windows.

4. Fixing the broken solar cable.

5. Putting sealant around the digital door lock. 

6. Switch the charge controller over.

7. Find the bad battery/batteries and replace.

8. Put a way of powering the security cameras via solar power for when I'm parked.

9. Put a way of keeping the driving batteries topped up from solar power. 

10. Paintwork - some of the grey is flaking and needs to be redone. The roof paint also needs fixing where that too is flaking.

Once all that is done I'll have to give thought to installing an air tank powered by a 12v air pump. That would allow me to inflate soft tyres and operate air tools.