First test

 

Those are the stairs on my bus - yes, they are a mess - but they are illuminated by the light of a single two LED red marker light. 

Though it can't be seen, the marker light is temporarily held in place by a single neodymium magnet. It's centrally located above the stairwell. I had wondered whether I might need a second LED light but this seems to illuminate the stairs enough to see the stairs and not so much that it's dazzling or announces "Hey there's a light on in that bus". It preserves night vision and gives enough light to see while consuming just 0.2W. There's not much not to like about it!

In the dark with just the marker light for illumination, it does look rather like one of those movie explosions. Having said that, it's pretty darned good. I might add another of these inside the galley since there's no way of seeing one's way in there to hit the first light switch.

The lower battery bank - the AA batteries - are what used to power the door lock until I switched to the D cells above. None of the wiring is in its final configuration. Tomorrow I will probably work on the door lock circuit and tidy that up. Once that's done I'll turn my attention to the lighting.

That's the switch for the lighting circuit right now. That's a straightforward on-off switch. The future switch will be just an ordinary momentary pushbutton switch. That will fire a SPDT automotive relay and that will lock on, firing a DPDT timer relay from eBay and putting power to the light. The timer relay will wait a minute or so before firing at which point it will disconnect the power to the whole circuit, cutting the light out.

Once all that is done and wired tidily, the door lock circuit will be in its final (so far) evolution as will the new stairwell light. The only thing against me tomorrow will be the cold weather.