The day that wasn't

Looking on eBay at tracking numbers is pretty painful. Watching things creep ever so slowly around the countryside at speeds that could easily be exceeded by a blind snail slithering backwards while towing an anvil can only be described as cruel and unusual punishment.

Yesterday my new rivets arrived in Columbia where they sat all day. They never made it to the local delivery office despite having been sitting for 24 hours. Either the Post Office has had an outbreak of the virus or they've lost them! I'll have to keep waiting. Today though I tried out my new riveter.

This was one of those eBay things that arrived with no instructions whatsoever so it took a few minutes to work out how it all worked, why I had so many wrench sizes etc. Having done that and dismantled the thing because it wouldn't grip a rivet, I tried it...

As I'll be using 3/16 and 1/4 rivets I tried it with a 3/16 rivet and found that the Harbor Freight battery drill was not powerful enough to complete pulling the rivet and also that my damaged right wrist is not capable of holding the drill. Gloves would also help, I'm sure.

So the end result was that this appears to be a very fiddly device that probably works just not on the rivets I wanted to use. Heaven help me when I need to use steel rivets! They're much tougher to pull!

I probably wouldn't have left things there but I heard a noise so I looked up and not six feet from me were two very large, very black cows. That's right - the kind that go "moo" and produce all those lovely milk products like cheese and butter and ice cream. It seemed to take an age to shoo them out of the yard. When they did leave, they didn't leave in the right direction and a neighbor had to shoo them out of his yard a few minutes later. Then they raced down the road at high speed. Clearly that neighbor has more skill than I in shooing cows. A horn or whistle or something louder than me would probably have been advantageous.

Fortunately the cows had not touched my young veggies. If they'd eaten my veggies, I'd have had to eat them! I can see it now - a few days and the guy comes knocking on doors, looking for his cows while we all whistle, look innocent and try to hide the barbecue pit, piles of cow bones and try to refrain from belching.

Today was one of those interesting days. The news was pretty gripping. Not only do we have the Coronavirus raging and 102,000 now dead from it in the USA alone and 367,000 dead worldwide but we had a space rocket launch to the international space station aboard an Elon Musk rocket and nationwide riots. In fact the nationwide riots were pretty close to home. They started peacefully enough but within hours vehicles were vandalized and on fire. In other cities whole housing estates have gone up in flames, shops have been looted and public buildings sacked.

Now perhaps people might appreciate the need for a mobile lifestyle. To get away from the chaos.

Just one stinking rivet!

Today I put just one stinking rivet into the bus, filling one of the 3/16 holes I drilled to mount the solar panel I decided not to mount in the end. I have to say though that my rebuilt riveter worked well. It didn't jam and indeed performed correctly.

Yesterday the protected 18650 batteries I ordered arrived.  Upon posting a photo on one of my groups they got a very snooty response indicating that they were worthless without the writer even knowing the brand etc. I get so fed up with nonsense like that. This is exactly why I tend to do my own thing, take forever doing it and do so much experimentation. I just cannot trust anything anybody online says. I am reminded of what somebody wrote about a car modification group. They said they'd been interested in how to modify a car they owned. At first glance the advice seemed sound then looking deeper there were increasing technical inaccuracies and improbabilities. In the end after deeper investigation it turned out most of the posters didn't actually own that car. Many had not passed their driving test and hadn't even left school.

I wondered how to test the batteries to see what the capacity was and tapped that into a search engine, coming up with results that looked more like misguided attempts at humor or downright malicious falsehoods. That led me to the groups again. Putting up an inquiry resulted in some more haranguing. Indeed, abuse is largely what I experience from many groups - abuse and nothing but. I closed that question and put up a similar question elsewhere. There, I was made to feel small by one poster for not knowing but as that poster didn't put up an answer, the odds are they didn't know either. Eventually it was suggested to use something with a known current draw and time usage over voltage. That made sense. Then I remembered I have my wonderful (cheap Chinese) charge controller and watt meter.

Attempting to mount the new protected 18650 batteries into the battery holder I found they would not fit. Fortunately I had some unprotected 18650 batteries. Those I'd bought some months ago and not used because I'd bought them as protected and they were not. They also claim to be over 5,000mah which is utter nonsense as lithium batteries seldom go over 3,000mah.

The voltage came it at 15.8v and rapidly under load dropped to 14.4. The LED lamp has a 3W demand so that works out at around 1/4A. I could set the parameters on the charge controller to just about handle an 18650 without fully charging it. No matter though as I do have an 18650 charger somewhere. The idea of solar charging my 18650 batteries is very appealing.

I'd mentioned I was thinking that I might use some batteries for a drone and was immediately leapt on as to all the reasons why it wouldn't work without anybody considering the manner of drone or application. I'm just baffled by the number of people that want to should me down and tell me lies. It is the internet and I suppose the intellectual bar to posting online is a shade lower than it needs to be.

I haven't mentioned drones before but it doesn't matter how heavy a drone is if it's a watercraft. If it's a land vehicle it matters a bit more. Then with air vehicles it could be winged and able to be heavier or hovering in which case it needs to be lighter. It could be even suspended under a hydrogen balloon or perhaps shot off into space where weight is only an issue on the way up. It could even be a hovercraft or a ground effect skimmer. I have not declared the type but apparently, it's impossible. Right - I might as well pack up and go home. Work is impossible too!

So, at a future date - maybe tomorrow - I'll pull out my older charge controller. The one that cuts the power off when it drops to a predefined level. That works better than the solar charge controller. Does anybody remember this?

This is the battery controller. I can use this to switch the load off when the voltage drops too low. I can have the watt meter between the batteries and this and the load the other side. The watt meter will record exactly how much power is used between switching the thing on and the load switching off.

Speaking of loads, I came to the conclusion that the only way to get the fans to work correctly given the faulty nature of the Renology charge controller is to run the power side from a relay. I thought long and hard about using my optical relay but came to the conclusion that I would be better off running it all through an automotive relay. That way I get the high 20A amperage and I don't upset the charge controller. The downside is that the charge controller monitoring gets screwed up more than normal. It'd be nice to know how much power was coming in and how much was going out but this Renology thing doesn't seem to be up to much. I think I can see why people prefer to spend $500 on a really top notch charge controller. Had I realized the Renology would be as junky as all the cheap Chinese stuff then I'd have stayed with the cheap Chinese stuff and gone ahead with using a relay rather than melting charge controllers every time they get to having a half load.

Meanwhile the Renology controller cannot apparently cope with my 3.7v lithium cells. If I were to build a battery from them I'd need a more competent charge controller. It never rains but it pours. Charge controllers seem to be universally poorly made. In fact I'm not that impressed by battery capacity monitors either. They seem not to be all that accurate.

In the dim and distant past, I did use a solid state relay to control the fans before when I had issues with a previous charge controller.  Perhaps I should dig that out and try using it again? This time though I might use it on the whole 12v circuit since the Renology controller is so pathetic. Honestly, I don't know why these guys bother putting a load side onto a charge controller. They seem universally dismal at implementing it successfully. Maybe the need to go back to blowing bubbles and making burbling noises?

One of the things I'll likely have to build eventually is a solar 18650 charger. That's as simple as buying a charge controller capable of charging 18650 battery packs. This is, of course where charging becomes interesting. I could run a totally independent 18650 charger for my drone or somehow integrate it into the house battery charger. Things look interesting! Whether I'll switch to 18650 batteries remains to be seen. I did order some battery holders but they're likely not going to be the right size so I'll probably just find some 1 inch aluminium tubing to turn into a battery holder. 4 batteries should take up approximately 28cm of tube with a spring contact at one end and a stud contact at the other. All fairly easy to make.

Right now I want to concentrate on completing my upgrades so the bus is usable. Then I can work on the drone project which promises to be a whole load of fun with a whole load of possibilities.

A blazing hot day in Smallville USA

Not a cloud in the sky and the sun was beating down, leaving the hood of the bus scorching hot. My DIY ladder had warped so that was currently sitting in the shed with 5 gallon paint drums sitting on it, slowly straightening it. Thus I had to borrow a step ladder for the purposes of climbing on the bus hood.

Since removing the old solar panel I'd been looking at the site where it had been and thinking it looked a lot better and a lot more anonymous without a solar panel in place. As I'd spent a lot of time and effort designing a solar panel assembly it was time to try to install that.

Knowing that the front of the top has some curvature on it, I put a ruler up against the bus and found to my surprise that it was far more curved than I had anticipated.

Pulling out one of my wedges I checked and the curvature was more than my wedges would handle. This is one of the typical problems I run into. I get something to do a job and it's not quite right. I'd been having second thoughts about putting up a front solar panel. Actually there are two reasons for that. The first is the loss of apparent stealth. The second is that the front of the roof of busses often gets whacked by low hanging branches.

As can be seen, there's a lot of curvature there. Sadly, more than I can get away with ignoring. If I raised the solar panels then I'd run into another issue - the panels would be too close to the roofline and would look asymmetrical.

Lacking any clear solutions to install the panels I decided to fill the two 3/16 drill holes made last time and to fill the 4 original mounting holes. That's where all the fun began...

As many of you know, I have two hand riveters. I have a small red hand riveter from Harbor Freight and a big blue long handled riveter also from Harbor Freight. Both of those riveters are prone to jamming. It takes a long time and a lot of fiddling to unjam them. It can be done though because I have unjammed them several times.

My little red hand riveter started off by putting the first rivet in almost perfectly. The mandrel broke off a bit late, leaving a spike sticking out of the rivet - I trimmed that with my angle grinder. The second rivet went into the riveter just fine but then it all got stuck with the riveter refusing to release the mandrel and refusing to finish squeezing the rivet. That led to my having to use the angle grinder to cut the rivet away from the riveter, cut the head off the rivet and then push the rivet through the rivet hole. Though I couldn't take a good picture of it, what had happened was the mandrel had gone in and gone sideways. It had got jammed between the edges of the two jaws inside the riveter.

Not feeling like working on the riveter again, having unjammed it not more than two rivets before, I turned to my blue long armed Harbor Freight riveter. Blow me down if that didn't jam straight away!

I was left with the riveter hanging from a partially inserted rivet and could go neither forward nor back. I had to get the angle grinder out again!

Well look at that - the rivet mandrel has gone in the side again. This riveter I've had to unjam before. This is the only riveter I have that will do steel rivets. Clearly I'm going to have to sit down and dismantle these two riveters and reassemble them. It's a fiddly, time consuming process that involves a lot of cursing. Last time I did this, I had to repaint the room I was in because everything stayed a delicate shade of blue.

Originally the two 10W panels as the back of the bus powered everything. As my power demands grew I added a 15W at the front. Now that I have added portable power points and can put a pair of 30W panels in the windscreen, I don't really need front solar panels. Just the back panels will keep the battery charged if the bus is not in use. I can always put extra panels in the windshield.

With the state of the riveter I'm very tempted just to buy another. Originally, I almost decided to get an air riveter but saw the price and had to pick myself up from the floor. That was why I went for the long armed riveter.

To fill the 3/16 hole I drilled, I can just use an ordinary rivet. The holes where I had my rivnuts will need a different approach. For those I will use wide flange rivets. I can get them with a 3/4 flange. I'll put a washer on the inside and fill the gap between the washer and the rivet head with Bondo. Then tighten the rivet. It will, I'm certain, be a really challenging operation.

The bigger, more irregular hole I used for the power cable will be a much more interesting proposition. The only way to hide that will be to make it a feature. Maybe get some kind of sign made that can be fastened over the offending aperture.

Getting shot of the front panel means I can just retask some wiring which means I now won't need to redo the wire that doesn't work - that can just be bypassed. I can retask existing wiring for the driving battery charger.

As for the now redundant triple 10W panels plus my other spare 10W panels, they're not going to waste. I have plenty opportunity to use them elsewhere. I even have spare charge controllers. It's always a good thing to have spare solar panels.

Would this be considered money or time wasted? Not really. I could have done different things with the time and money but none of this has left me hurting for time or money. I have learned a bit and changed plans a bit. I've had to order some 3/4 flange rivets and I'll likely have to order a sign to cover up my cable hole.

My next task will be - after I've got the riveter sorted out - to replace the roof vent. Rewiring inside the bus to reuse the front panel wires will not take long. After that I have the rear cameras to sort out, sealing around the keypad to do and wiring the solar driving battery connectors to do. Then there's fixing my bad welding on the back door and possibly putting up some window grills. I had an idea about that of welding a ladder to fit the side of the bus out of 1/16th sheet strip and soldering a steel mesh over that.  That way the bus would look much more a prison bus and be more secure.

Yesterday and Today

Yesterday I was pretty tired after doing all the stuff I did on top of a hot bus combined with running up and down my ladder.

This morning I looked at the bus and saw a dark patch. Looking more closely, it looked like there was a dark patch on the roof air vent. It was almost as though something had happened to it. Going outside and getting closer, I took this picture. Now I know where the top to my can of primer spray went. I left it on top of the bus. I also left the can of primer on the hood. Well, that was easily transferred inside.

It was rather a good thing that I'd listened to the Weather Gods and had sealed everything up yesterday because not long after I fell out of bed it started to rain. It rained quite hard and it's forecast to rain all week! Actually I'd have weatherproofed anyway because weather is hardly the most reliable thing and weathermen are twice as likely as politicians to speak with forked tongue!

A while back I bought a Renology Rover MPPT charge controller thinking it might be an improvement over my existing PWM controller. Over the last few months I have noticed it has not been that great at measuring battery voltage and not very good at charging the batteries. In a flight of fancy I ordered some lithium battery cells to make a nice 14 volt lithium battery. Those have yet to arrive from Aliexpress. 

Yesterday I tried running my extraction fans again. I'd noticed before that the controller seemed to pause a while before setting them going but yesterday I paid more attention to what was actually going on. As soon as the extraction fans start, the controller flashes an error 4 message and waits 5 seconds before starting the fans. While doing that, it cuts power to everything. That is not welcome! Out of curiosity I tried it with one extraction fan then the other singly and it was fine. Clearly something is amiss with the charge controller (which was brand new). I bought that controller in January from Walmart. I got it for $79 and now they're selling for $129. I installed it a month later, in February. It's now May and it seems not to be working too well.

Reading the specifications, it says the maximum load of my thirty amp charge controller is just twenty amps. That's a bit of a swizz! I measured the power used in the system as being 3.92A continuous when the fans are going. It is possible for there to be a higher amperage spike needed to start the fans but that, most certainly should not be an extra 14A and if that was the problem then the fans would stay stopped. It would also not show an error 4 (short circuit) but an error 6 (overload) if my reading of the manual is accurate.

Reading further it seems that manual likes to contradict itself. Do not use the load on the charge controller to charge batteries. Why ever not? I have a very nice AA charger that runs off a USB socket. I have phone chargers that run off USB. I have a camera that charges from USB Don't use the controller to power an inverter? Why not - if all you're using is 20A you should be fine.

Thus far I can say I am not overly impressed. I could bypass the charge controller problem by using the two legs from the load to power a relay. I could then run the actual load via the relay straight from the battery. That would require a relay to be operated 24 hours a day. It would make a nonsense of the solar generation and power usage stats. That in turn would make this Fancy Nancy charge controller a bit of a nonsensical overspend. One of the cheap $10 PWM charge controllers could be coupled to a relay, easily.

Needless to say, having looked at the reviews of this charge controller I did find somebody posted this little gem:

load side is too sensitive and goes into error mode from simply plugging in a 12 cigarette lighter plug for my ARB refrigerator. I have managed to get it to work once but as soon as the ARB compressor stops and tries to turn back on later it shuts down and throws an error. It's only pulling 4-5 amps on 12g wire.

That was an Amazon review. So basically this "I can handle 20A of load" but collapsing panting on the ground after just 4A of load proves that the whole instruction manual and advertising is false. It would not thus surprise me to hear that the charge controller is actually built in a Chinese forced labor prison for pennies or the Chinese equivalent - whatever that is- and shipped cheaply to America where Renology slaps some fancy advertising, calling it "Made in America" because they printed their name on it. This thing is just as much of a scam as ownership deeds for Brooklyn Bridge.

Several times I've tried contacting Renology because I know I've discovered this fault before then forgotten about it. This time I actually had a response and a ticket number. Bizarrely they want me to ring them. I don't know about you but I hate talking to people on the phone! Watch this space. I might have to phone them.

Almost there with the new solar panels.

For those with long memories, a very average painter was employed next door. The painter was not high quality and her work left a lot to be desired. She brought with her a child who should have been in school. That child was a teenager and that child clambered all over the bus, tried to pull the battery door open, left footprints on the hood and the roof and broke the plastic bezel on my old solar panel.

A while back I bought three 10W solar panels. I could not replace the 15W Harbor Freight panel nor would I. Since the bezel had broken the panel was of questionable quality. For safety it was best to replace it. 

I'd put off and put off climbing up to fix it because I just don't like ladders. I like ladders marginally less than I like crawling underneath the bus and I've been putting that off too. Anyway, the new panel assembly isn't light and since I'd injured my wrist when I'd been clearing a path through the jungle a week or two back with my machete and chainsaw, I needed a light template to fit in place of the solar panel array.

The solar array had been built quite a while back. I'd spent days riveting three 10W panels in a line to a pair of lengths of aluminium angle. That made a long, thin panel assembly that was shorter from top to bottom than my existing panel but wider from side to side. Initially I'd tried making the template from foamboard but the glue hadn't worked well. I'd had to use several pieces patched together since the foamboard comes in 30 inch widths and the panel assembly is near 45 inches.

Thinking Gorilla glue might be a better solution I'd put Gorilla glue on the foamboard but when I went to work I picked up some white hardboard sold as wainscot for $11 from Lowes (hiss, spit). Upon my return I was very glad to have bought the hardboard as the foamboard had bent like a banana.

I put the panel assembly on the hardboard and marked it out with a felt tip then scored around it with a craft knife. Out of interest as harboard is very thin, I continued scoring and managed to cut the hardboard with the craft knife. Then I drilled two rivet holes matching the rivet holes in the panel assembly. I didn't drill more because they might not line up and I didn't want to have to struggle.

My next task was to climb up onto the hood of the bus and remove the old solar panel. As it was screwed on using just four M5 bolts, inserted into aluminium rivnuts that was pretty easy. The only tricky bit was where the cable had been sealed. I'd done a really good job with silicone caulk. I'll likely have to use silicone caulk again since nothing bar silicone caulk sticks to silicone caulk. I'm pretty sure there will be some silicone caulk left adhering to the metal. I put some tape over the rivnuts and over the cable hole because I just wasn't sure that there might not be a sprinkle of rain.

The rivnuts I ended up filling with Black Jack polyurethane caulk. Bondo might have been better but the caulk was ready to hand. That was after I'd used a countersinking drill bit to bring the rivnuts flush with the body. Tomorrow I'll put some aluminium tape over the holes since two holes will have aluminium angle across them. The other two might just have a more generous application of caulk.

I turned my mind to the pre-cut template. That's when the tape measure, ruler and set square came out or perhaps should I say - that's when the trouble began! It turned out that the center clearance light is 3 7/8" wide. I assumed that would be dead center. That, as it turned out was a correct assumption.  The panel as cut was 43 3/8" wide. That's when the trouble began....

To get the board centered I needed to mark where the center clearance light would go and hold the board against the clearance light then mark around the sides of the board on the bus so I could see where everything went. To do that was pretty straightforward - in theory... I would take the width of the board and divide by two. Then I would take the width of the clearance light and divide by two. I would subtract the half clearance light from the half board giving me the point on the board where the clearance light would start or end,  measuring from either side of the board. 

The last time I did fraction calculations was in college in around 1990 so that's 30 years ago. I remembered the fraction lessons from elementary school some 45 years ago. I did the calculations by hand using the imperial system of inches and fractions having spent most of my life in Britain using the Metric system. I was absolutely convinced I'd got my calculations wrong and went into the house, cursing that I didn't have a tape measure in Metric. In the house I plugged the calculations into an online fractions calculator and blow me down with a feather - the answers were the exact same figures I'd calculated manually. Still suspicious of the figures I marked it out on the board and proved the figures were right. My old maths teacher - if she was still alive - would have been so proud of me.

Putting the template in place, I measured carefully and after one adjustment in which I corrected the angle of the panel - it had been 1/8th" too high on one end and 1/16th" too far to the left, I drilled my two rivet holes - one at each end. That was pretty much it for today. It has been a very hot day.

For those curious - that indeed is a ladder that I built from three pieces of 2x4 using 28 1/4" hex head screws. It's slightly warped which makes using it interesting but it's very stable and safe. 

Having drilled my two rivet holes that was it for the day. Notice if you will the way the paint has faded. It's possible to see where the old panel was.

Just to emphasize it because it's visible to the naked eye but not so visible to the camera, I tweaked the settings of this photo. Now you can see clearly where the old panel used to be. It doesn't say much for Rustoleum Professional paint for it to fade like this. Indeed the whole bus has faded to be quite patchy. Still, this paint is easy to get, not that expensive and does the job.

Having finished work on the bus for the day I was intrigued by the wiggly lines in the sand underneath. I'm baffled as to what would have caused those as they don't look as the marks I'd imagine a snake would leave. They don't look like marks left by regular critters or by the wind.

Now the obligatory reference to Corona. No - not the cheap and sleazy Mexican beer but the virus. On my rare trips out from the ranch, I wear a mask. I go to the stores and virtually nobody is wearing any kind of mask. It is truly appalling. In fact there's a local restaurant that rumor has it never closed and was packed every day. Even the Walmart workers that have masks don't wear them. Thus my visits to stores are very brief indeed. 

This is the kind of mask I use. It's a 3M respirator with two filters on each side. The first - the brown filter is an organic vapor filter. The second (the white filter held by the clip-on misty housing is an N95 filter. It's probably the most comfortable respirator I've used so far. I do have one with a visor that's a more snug fit but I'm waiting for the add-on N95 filters for that.

Too many people are not taking this Covid stuff seriously. So what if it turns out not to harm you. It is deadlier to the already compromised and the elderly. Save lives - don't expose the elderly or the compromised. This arrogant attitude of the virus deniers is just going to cost lives. What does it matter if you have to wear a mask? It's just like putting a seat belt on when you're in a car. You can take the mask off when you're not around people! I've already had one person refuse to talk to me any more because I won't support their silly ideas about the virus being an attempt to dominate the population by the government. It's a deadly virus - treat it as such and eventually it'll either go away or enough people will have been exposed that its foothold will be nill.

Half a step forward

Yesterday after a long hiatus, I pulled out my solar panels that I'd riveted into a frame ready to mount where a destination panel would normally go, above the windshield. Orginally I was going to put a 20A panel then I thought there would be enough space for two 20A panels but the panels that turned up were physically bigger than advertised. No problem - they work just fine. Thus I ordered some smaller 10W panels and measured them carefully to find when they arrived that they were smaller physically than advertised. That's fine. I was originally going to erect two and have 20W up there but then I found I could squeeze in three. That will make for 50W of onboard power made up of five 10W panels.

The first order of the day was to mask the panels ready for spray painting. That took a while with the narrow tape but not much longer than if I'd just used wide tape. The difference being that narrow tape is so much cheaper. With the current pandemic of Covid-19 I have plenty time on my hands!

So I put the first coat which was a primer. It wasn't specifically for aluminium but I'm hoping it'll be better than just slapping top coat down. I'd bought a grey primer just in case my grey spray paint didn't work. That actually dried very quickly in the spring/summer temperatures. I believe half an hour later I was able to spray topcoat. Well, I would have if the spray can had had any propellant left. I could hear the paint sloshing around inside but there was no propellant to eject the paint. Being fairly resourceful I had a go at injecting butane into the can in the hope of getting the paint to spray out but alas it was to no avail. All I had was butane dripping off my fingers.

Putting the butane away and putting the paint can down ready to put a bullet through, I pulled out another grey spray paint can and sprayed the dried primer. Whoops - what came out was bright silver. I remembered when I saw that, picking that can up from the shelf. The cap was grey and it looked just like the grey spray paint. Not wearing my readers I'd thought it was the same paint.  Thus the frame had a lovely coat of silver paint. 

When the silver had dried, I gave it another coat of grey primer just to make it look less flashy. I knew somewhere I had a can of grey paint but sadly, no brushes. I'll probably buy some brushes when I go out next. In fact I might just get the cheap foam brushes since all I do is toss them when they're used. Checking later, I did locate that can of grey paint.

Having put the panels away overnight for the paint to cure I turned my attention to making a template. I had some left over foamboard from when I made templates before. Thus the idea was to make a big two-ply panel about the same size as my panels then trim to fit exactly and drill holes exactly in the right places.  That would involve a modicum of work but no expense - just the way I like it.

So, having cut the foamboard to make two layers, I pulled out some Loctite spray glue. Early indications are that it is no more adhesive than a can of WD40. Fortunately the Loctite was very soon empty so I moved on to the Krylon spray glue. The nozzle was clogged and could not be unclogged which was a problem until I bent a piece of wire so that the wire could go down the throat of the can to press the valve with my fingers being out of the way of any sprayed glue. That worked - I got a lot of glue out fairly quickly though control and direction were more challenging.

An hour later and the resultant sandwhich is not impressive. The Krylon spray glue was not particularly impressive last time I tried it, some 4 years ago (same can). Neither for that matter was the Loctite spray glue. I do have some proper tube glue and I feel I will probably have to complete the task with tube glue.

If, as I suspect, the glued foamboard turns out to be a complete flop, I'll just get a sheet of hardboard, cut that to size and proceed from there. I noticed Lowes (hiss, spit) has a piece of 2.66' x 4' hardboard white wainscot wall panel. That might be just what the doctor ordered. It's easy to cut, light and used correctly, the existing holes should be no impediment to progress. The bonus is it's only $11 and I don't have to faff about with glue. I am pretty sure it will drill better than the foamboard too.

The goal is to mount my new solar panels straighter and better than the vandalized panel. That, I put up too quickly and didn't get it quite centered or quite level. It doesn't really notice but it irks me.

As the front of the bus is slightly curved, I need a wedge when I install the new panels. I can fasten them at the top with impunity but the bottom will need a wedge shaped section to hold them in place properly. Thus a while ago I ordered some "pool table wedges" from eBay and the other day I tried riveting them as a test just to make sure they are tough enough not to disintegrate. It seems they work just fine. I tried with both aluminium rivets (pictured) and steel rivets (not shown). At no point did the plastic look in danger of collapse. The only issue will be if they are not UV tolerant though having said that, their exposure will be minimal.

When I went to work the other day (yes, school bus drivers are still at work - once a week I take a bus out, delivering food to hungry children) I did go to the shop afterwards but since the Governor of South Carolina has seen fit to allow more people to go back to work, the shops were jam packed. I didn't want to be in there with all the virus carriers, given that I was one of the very few wearing a mask and thus didn't get all the things I wanted.