Crush n Run driveway

At the moment I'm looking into hard standing for the bus in the form of a crush n run parking place. According to the internet I'd need 3 tons of crush and run for a 40 foot by 10 foot by 2 inch layer. According to a local trucking company I'd need 10 tons.

Taking the lower guide of about 3 tons or almost 6,000lbs then dividing that into the 40lb bags one can get from garden centers, that would take 150 bags at $5 each or $750. A local trucking company suggested 10 tons and wanted $425. That seems way better value. The upside is it all gets delivered and there's plenty to spread around. The downside is that it's all the work in one go to spread it about. Without a shadow of a doubt, double the quantity at half the price seems to be the way to go.

Meanwhile, I drilled three sides of the plate that goes over the back window. Thus far nobody has responded to me about bending it. It might therefore be a case of my having to build a bender and bending it myself.  I didn't drill the third side as the drill holes would weaken the metal and might make it more difficult to bend. The upper line at the bottom is where the bend needs to be. The lower line is roughly where the holes need to be drilled.

Walking around the bus, he mold seems to be growing well. The sooner I can get the bus out from under the trees and into a clearing with hard standing the better. One of the things I'll have to do is to find some kind of mold remover in one of the car parts stores. This is something they have to resolve frequently I'd imagine.

The mold seems to be everywhere. I did ask on one of the online groups but had so many silly answers that I had to discount all the answers. That's the problem with online group things - just because somebody has heard of the words mold and bus they consider themselves to be experts.

In other news, today was bright and sunny. I put the two 20W solar panels out in the sunshine and managed to get the battery up to 52%. Then it dropped to 47% so I put a watt meter between the panels and the bus. In the time it was there, the bus received nearly 3AH of power. The charge controller told me the battery was on 47% and 12.1v.

About 45 minutes after I'd disconnected the extra 40W of panels, the sun having retired for the day, the charge controller was telling me the battery was on 42% and various voltmeters read 21.1v. Clearly something is not rosy with the system. I'm leaning toward it being the batteries.

Tomorrow should be another good day. I'll try putting the 30W and the 20W panels out in the sunshine and see what happens. Surely 100W or nearly 10A in the sunshine should put a wallop into those batteries. In fact 3 hours at full sun should put 30AH in or nearly 50% of the capacity. I do have very much the feeling that those lead acid batteries are just bad batteries.

In terms of cost, I paid $55 for the one battery maybe 2 years ago. The other I paid $100 for last year. As both are deep cycle they should have lasted a lot longer than this! Replacing the paid at full price would be something like $180. There's zero point in that though. My charge controller will handle lithium batteries. The local Batteries Plus Bulbs seems to be advertising for $249 a 30AH lithium battery. As it seems to have 650 CCA, it should be able to cope with my extraction fans with no problem. So, unless the lead acid batteries keep limping along then it looks like I'll be after a CYL10056 Hyper Sport 30L-BS Lithium Powersport Battery. Honestly the only reason I have two batteries is because one just wasn't enough to run my twin fans. Two was barely enough and now seems to be insufficient. Thus it's probably time for lithium even though I'll have to make an insert for the battery holder to take it. That's no problem. I can weld a frame together and pack it into the existing frame with Bondo.

Thinking about the forthcoming school year, I'm probably going to have to take my bus along if I'm doing midday runs so I'll have somewhere with a bathroom and a place to sleep as well as a place to cook and eat. The breakroom that was so luxurious last year is pretty much out of bounds now that Covid is around.

So, things to do... Get the hardcore and get it laid. Get the steel bent and install the sheet over the back window. Get a new battery and install it.