Worked on the leak

Today was a hot day and the week had been exhausting. Working from 6 til 4:30 with about 3 hours of breaks during which I have to sit and nap in a hot car is not refreshing. Due to the Covid situation, the work breakroom with its delicious air conditioning is closed. 

So today I did get to the bus. The first thing I did was to set out my hinged solar panels and run the twin extraction fans. Those 5 panels produce 50W between them and are aimed squarely at the sun. The other 80W of solar panels are not aimed directly at the sun but pick up plenty power.

Turning the twin extraction fans on, there was ample power from the panels. Strangely though over the 30 minutes the fans were running, the battery level went down from 100% to 90%. Within 10 seconds of turning the fans off, the batteries were back at 100%. I'm not sure why that's happening when there's surplus solar power and nothing is being overloaded.

I regard my hinged solar panels as a great success and the next project will be to hinge the two 20W panels. That should give me 90W of hinged panels plus two separate 30W panels, two flexible 10-12W panels, an epoxy 5w panel and the 15W Harbor Freight panel.

Following all this, I attended to the leaking light fixture. Today I smoothed some of the caulk that I've been using around the edges of the mount. If there's a leak in the mounting caulk, that'll sort it out. If it's leaking elsewhere then I'll attend to that in due course.

Meanwhile I also had another go at caulking around the sheet of plywood installed over the two windows I blocked off. I need to apply more caulk but needed the stuff installed to cure first. Then I can see where I need to put more. The last stage will be painting it.

The solar panels I've been using are pretty darned heavy which is why I'm really glad I'm using small panels. For panels that can just be set outside and taken in at night or in bad weather, those light epoxy panels seem ideal. The flexible panels are just horribly expensive.

The 5W epoxy panels are available on eBay and are very light, having no frame. If they were available in bigger than 5W or 10W I'd have bought several just to put up inside the windshield and to place outside as required. This is a market that the solar industry seems to ignore. Perhaps making cheaper panels without those heavy aluminium mounts just makes the panels sell for too little money? I like the flexible panels - not for the flex but for the lightness. Imagine one screwed down to a lightweight plastic or wooden frame. It'd make life so much more pleasant.