After a leisurely and moderately healthy breakfast of coffee granola and almond milk, I continued on the work started yesterday that has not yet been mentioned. Did I mention that I'm quite keen on healthy living?
One of the first tasks today was to spray the new camera mount brilliant white. It had already been primed but now it has a brilliant white paint finish. I would say that it took all of 30 seconds but in fact it took longer. Not as long as it would have previously though as yesterday my big thing was putting things away that have been littering the cockpit.
Yesterday I did not "do" too much but as stated I did sort things out. In so doing I found missing screwdrivers, missing tube benders, missing wrenches and some thing that I had completely forgotten that I had.
The only thing I "did" yesterday was to rewire the console for the light, voltmeter and 12v socket. That turned into somewhat of a marathon. I'd used an illuminated switch for the socket and an ordinary flip switch for the voltmeter. The plan had been just to change the voltmeter and the switch but in the end I couldn't fathom the wiring I'd done and then the crimp connectors started sliding off.
When I'd wired the panel initially I'd used a Radio Shack combined stripping and crimping tool. That, clearly, hadn't been all that helpful. Since then I bought a ratcheting crimper which is much better. In fact that Radio Shack tool really isn't very good. It's no surprise that Radio Shack went under, given their high prices and low quality.
So, several hours later the panel was completely rewired with all the connections properly crimped. Needless to say, the bottom switch was put in upside down and I had to fix that this morning.
Given that yesterday I was struggling to find blue spade connectors (male and female) I presume that I'm pretty much out of them. Thus I had another go at doing the CB coax connection. I'd bought a coax tool on eBay for $5 and tried using it. It kinda worked but not very well. That's no fault for it being cheap - it was clearly designed for a different coax usage. In the end I did get the coax connector wired on correctly and soldered into place.
Turning the CB on, I went through 40 channels of nothing but static. That was an improvement over before. Now I have had that CB working but the connector wasn't done correctly so I'd pulled it apart then left it as I wasn't that bothered. There doesn't seem to be any real radio traffic on the CB which does not surprise me. I did half hear a voice but only for a second. I'm pretty sure it's working.
The plan for today was to switch out the voltmeter on the left on the panel above but that never happened. I'd also have switched the push button switch for a double push button so that with one button press I could see both solar and battery voltages. That did not happen though. The new voltmeter is sitting on top at the moment, awaiting installation. As usual, I did different things. One of those things was to gather together a lot of my crimp wire connectors.
I did have a go at soldering wires onto a switch but in retrospect the wires are too thick. I do have thinner wires. I might redo this later. One of the things I'm short on is heat-shrink sleeving. I did try what I had and it was way too big even when heat shrunk. That is something that will have to be obtained.
Meanwhile, today for a change I ran the engine for 8 minutes. That was when I was surprised by a mystery buzzing noise. I'm not sure whether I've always had this buzzing noise or not. I did track it down to the console. Looking inside, believing it to be a relay, I found a black box with wires coming from it. Very strange and upon investigation, it stated on it that it was a buzzer. That was where my mystery buzzing was coming from.
Looking at the wiring diagram, handily installed by Carpenter, it seems there are three buzzers. One for the back door, one for the windows and one for no clear reason. It is the only buzzer visible and so is clearly where the buzzing was coming from.
I don't want to just disconnect the buzzer until I understand why it's there and what it's doing in case it's trying to tell me something. I'll ponder that over the week and maybe ask a work mechanic if, of course, he remembers Carpenter busses.
My attention turned next to the bedroom light switch. Inexplicably it had ceased functioning. Eton is supposedly a good brand but this one seems to have conked out after really, very few operation cycles. I tried blowing in it and flicking it but to no avail. In the end I just had to replace it. If Harrow makes switches, I might try them.
Following that I looked at a mysterious black box in the engine compartment. It seemed, when photographed using a cellphone to be little more than a weather cover over a cable outlet. That was a disappointment! That's where the horn wire comes through and the horn has ceased functioning again. The red wire is the wire the hillbillies put in and had no fuse. Eventually I'll get the right fuse into the circuit - I'd have thought 10A would have been adequate for just a horn!
Not feeling like doing anything too complicated or strenuous I went for a tramp in the woods. He got away! I did discover that the trees have been making pallets though. At current lumber prices this has to be worth at least $800!
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