Things went pear shaped!

When things start to go pear shaped, time to quit and quit I did. I'd been in the shipping container drilling the holes in the steel ready for the rivets. That went fine. Then I had to go to make a more precise mask for where I'd have to cut the steel sheet to make room for the door hinge.  As it so happened, the hillbillies that owned the bus before me had clearly broken a couple of windows, just taken them out and replaced with plexiglass. That plexiglass has been sitting around in the yard for the past 5 years since I removed it and replaced the missing windows with solid aluminium sheet. 

Looking at the plexiglass, there were two sheets - one was clear and the other smoked. The smoked sheet was too dark to use which was fortunate as it was pretty badly broken. The other was perfect so I cut a chunk out with the intention of marking the hinge with my sharpie that I'd located earlier. Of course, when it came time to mark the plexiglass there was no sign of the sharpie anywhere. I retraced my steps, hunting everywhere that I'd been. After half an hour frantically hunting for my sharpie, I happened to put my hand in my pocket. It was there - which was strange because I'd looked at my pockets earlier and thought it was just my phone and my keys.

Well, the plexiglass was marked and compared to the marking I'd put on the steel from before which was just a rough outline guestimated and drawn from where the markings I'd put on my sheet of hardboard had been. I'd overcut the cutout in the hardboard horribly. Well, putting the plexiglass against the freehand guestimation I found I'd been bang on. That was somewhat of a relief, I can tell you!

The cutout on the right on the now fully drilled sheet is where the bottom door hinge is located. The sheet is way bigger than the window but that's perfectly fine. It gives me plenty space to rivet and seal. I don't like marginal clearances. As they say - better too big and have to trim than too small and have to buy more. Since I'd already had something go amiss I left the steel for another day. It's all pretty greasy with WD40 so I might have to wipe it down with paint thinner after I cut the hinge cutout.

When I went out to the bus this morning, the battery was at 47% according to the infamous Renogy MPPT charge controller. Thus I put my Harbor Freight panel out to collect additional sunlight. That thing is pretty darned heavy, I can tell you!

After a while I put out my three 10W panels that were destined to be replacements for the 15W Harbor Freight panel. They take up vaguely the same space but produce double the power and weigh half as much.

I had full sunlight and with the Harbor Freight 15W panel aimed upward I had around 10.1W, not the claimed 15W. I can get better than that with the three panels!

While I was thinking about it - I'd already connected the three 10W panels with the cheap new connectors I'd bought on eBay. I have to say I quite like these new connectors. I had two more 10W panels and two more connector pairs. I sat in the sun on the bus step and connected the remaining pair and coupled them to an SAE connector for compatibility with the bus system. So at the end I had two panels with the new connector jacks and short leads and two leads with connectors going into an SAE connector.

While I was working on this, I pulled the covers off the connectors on the back of the solar panel where I found Aleko quality control was sadly lacking. Both panels had strain relief clamps that were not clamping anything. The outer sleeve of the cable was outside the connector box which meant the clamps had nothing to grip. It didn't take long to slide the outer sleeve into the connector box.

So it came time to test the wiring. I have a policy of testing everything multiple times and on multiple occasions. Better to test than to have a disaster. I spent quite a while working with the two panels before coming to the conclusion that the reason my connection wasn't working was because I had a faulty connector. One of my pack of 10 connectors was faulty. Current is not passing through. I didn't check which side wasn't working but the screws were both conducting correctly - it just wasn't getting through to the pin. That was a bummer! I've had to order more. I do have a pair of 20W panels that could do with being brought into use.

On the way from China are some more SAE connectors. I figure with both sets of connectors I should be all set as far as solar power is concerned. I have to say that I really don't much care for the Harbor Freight panel so that might get used domestically rather than on the bus.

Taking stock of what I have in panels...
2 x 10 mounted on the back of the bus above the door.
5 x 10w (two brands) that can be placed in the sunlight.
2 x 20W that can be placed in the sunlight
2 x 30W that I put in the windscreen when needed.
1 x flexible 10-15w panel (not sure quite what it is)
1 x epoxy 5w panel
1 x 15w Harbor Freight panel.

That's a grand total of 15 panels, none of which cost the earth. All combined, they should provide 200W but I don't need all the panels all the time. The ability to put panels in the sunlight on the end of a cable is very important. Having cheap panels that are easy to replace if lost, damaged or stolen is important too. I have to say I really like the flexible panel because it's so lightweight and because it can be just tied to a rope and hung in the air if needed.

By about 3pm with 55W of panels on the ground in sunshine, two mounted 10W panels facing away from the sun and two 30W panels in the windshield, the batteries were recorded at over 90%. That's a big change from the 47% this morning. I have no idea how low they dropped.