Noah's flood returned

Maybe I should have built an ark judging from today's weather. The heavens literally opened ending all thoughts of continuing working on the steel I was drilling. Perhaps that's a good thing as kneeling in a hot steel shipping container in 90F over a drill press while trying to drill 46 holes in some 14 gauge sheet steel was not very comfortable. In fact I had to break that up into several sessions.

Fortunately there was a Harbor Freight drill press in the shed. It had never been used let alone unpacked. A couple of months ago I unpacked it, being surprised at the amount of rust on it. None of that was important though. It didn't take long to put together back then and I seem to have put it together correctly, despite the manual.

Today was the first time I'd actually tried using this drill press. So, in true Harbor Freight style, the first thing that happened was the power switch fell off. Looking at where it was attached, it was held on by a single screw through a tiny piece of plastic that had broken off. That, of course, is exactly why they make duct tape!

I started drilling, using the closest drill bit I had to my 3/16 rivets. Sadly, it wasn't quite big enough so I had to switch to using a step bit. That worked though I had to set the drill depth limiter to make sure the hole didn't get too wide.

It was pretty uncomfortable kneeling on the floor inside a hot shipping container, drilling holes and it was necessary to take several breaks. 90F (32.2C) is not the kind of temperature one can stay outside doing things for too long, particularly with no air circulation.

I'd got down to the last 5 holes when the heavens opened. I'd taken little breaks before, during which there had been showers of rain, mindful of the fact the electric cable leading to the shipping container is connected in various places and the connections are not waterproof. With that in mind, it was time to call it a day. Tomorrow, if it's dry, I can complete drilling the last 5 holes, enlarge those that are too small and start measuring and marking prior to cutting out the area that goes around the door hinge. I have it roughly marked out but I want to be more precise.

The upper door window has a curve right below the window, exactly where I will need to fasten the panel so I'll have to make a bender to form that. No problem. I have enough steel and can weld it together to make a bender. The windows on the sides of the back door are no problem though there is some reflective strip that I'll have to remove. That stuff is expensive and I'll want to replace that. The whole length probably needs to be replaced. It's all around 25 years old and not that great any more. Newer buses also have the reflective strip around the side door too.

It has been cloudy for a few days so today as yesterday I put out my 15w solar panel but aimed straight at the sun. Despite that, all I got was 10W from it. That was my Harbor Freight panel with the vandalized bezel. Perhaps it never will generate more than 10W. I was getting 0.6A from it which was welcome. The strange thing though is that after a shower when none of the panels generated anything recordable, the battery which had been at 61% was at 51%. I cannot imagine a drop of 10% based on the 0.2A current draw over about half an hour. It's looking more as though I have some bad batteries in there or perhaps just one bad battery. It does not surprise me.

I was looking, casting around, for a possible replacement. I've heard good things of used medical lithium batteries. There was one 40ah battery available but the current bit was $265.That seemed high! On the other hand, I have some 18650s in my drawer. Those might end up getting used for my main project though since the current charge controller can't cope with multiples of 3.7v cells.

Finally, after the storm had passed, I put the solar panel away. By the time I did that, the battery had dropped to 47%. That really isn't looking too promising! I would not be surprised if I were to get up pre-dawn to find that the battery was totally dead.