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.