What is that fuzzy plug?

Yesterday I posted a slightly fuzzy photo of my new inlet in the side of the bus. Many of you will not have seen a connector such as that before. There's a reason for that - it's not sold in Lowes (hiss, spit) or Home Depot (cough). It is designated as a Nema 6-30I. 

The Nema designation means that it's an inlet (hence the I) and will handle 30A at 250v. Unlike the normal Nema connectors used in the US (Nema 5-15), this is a twist-lock connector. Now the twist lock means that when the connector is inserted, it can be twisted and locked into place. This has the upside that it won't fall out but the downside that it's easier to damage the inlet etc by simply tripping over the power cord.

On most RVs etc the connector used is the TT30 connector such as the connector I installed in m'lady's front yard. Here we get to the nitty-gritty! Hunting around I could not locate a TT30 inlet for less than $70. Thus I went for a different connector. It makes no realistic difference. It'll work just the same. The only difference is that if I have to replace the cord then I'll have to build my own cord like I have been. I can't use off-the-shelf cords.

The upside of off-the-shelf cords is that they're available at most RV outlets. The downside is that they're sold at huge prices. Cords are available secondhand (probably red hot too) but would you trust a cord of unknown capacity? I won't trust anything electrical or electronic that's secondhand. I've seen too many secondhand electrics and electronics bursting into flames.

A subsidiary upside of having a bespoke connection is that because it's non standard, it's not as desirable to those that would wish to steal cables. Now I'm not thinking of a masked bandit in a black and red striped sweater with a sack labelled "swag" over his shoulder but I am thinking of less scrupulous individuals that "forget" their RV cord and "borrow" somebody else's cord but never return it.

I can see a day when RVs will largely not have cables any more. Look at it like this - at $2.50 a foot for 30A cable - the cables are just ridiculously expensive. The standard RV cable is about 50 feet. That represents about $75 of investment just lying on the ground for somebody else to pick up and walk away with. If they figure they can get a bottle of beer out of it, they figure it's been a good day's work. Heavens I've even heard of people's house air-conditioners being stolen and they weigh up to a ton!

With the rising price of copper and the almost static cost of generators, there's going to be a convergence. It will soon be cheaper to slip a $300 generator under an RV than to put a power cord. I don't really see solar and wind power as being worthwhile.

Investigating solar power, to produce the 10A at 120v needed to power a microwave directly, I'd need 1200W of power. Solar panels are $1 per watt wich does not mean that I'd need $1200 of panels. Because of the poor light at times I'd most likely need $2500 of panels just to run the microwave directly at midday. 

Batteries seem like a good idea but the cheapest deep cycle battery gives 100ah of power which is a misnomer because you're only supposed to take a maximum of 55% out of a battery before the battery gets damaged. Thus a $90 100AH battery is about $2 per amp hour or 17c per watt hour. 

In order to run a microwave for 15 minutes (thinking about the lowest power microwave in Walmart that takes 15 minutes to cook a plate from frozen and which coincidentally rusts to bits in 2 years), 300 watt hours of power would be needed at 10A. Now those two factors are very important. Remembering the 10% power loss from using an inverter (and ignoring the $300 cost of a 2KW inverter), 100A at 12v would be needed for 15 minutes. Most 12v batteries can't discharge more than 20A for more than a few seconds without getting dangerously hot. To be safe, think about 10A. This means 10 batteries in parallel, each weighing 50lbs would be needed to power a microwave. That's 500lbs of battery.

How much would a system cost that could power a microwave? Well, $900 in batteries, $1200 in solar panels, $300 inverter plus whatever I haven't thought of. That's a minimum of $2400. Of course if you went for lithium batteries, you'd need less batteries and be carrying less weight but be paying 20 times more for the batteries. EG a 300ah lithium battery is about $3500 and has a maximum constant discharge of about 50A.

So, the cheapest form of cooking power is a plug-in for electrical operation. The cheapest plug is a Nema 6-30. But cheaper even than carrying a generator is a portable gas cooker with butane tanks just like you'd use for camping! 

Fighting real nastiness

Today started with my cutting and welding into place, the sides of the new breaker box compartment. My first side was cut too short but I welded it in place anyway. Then I realised that was actually fortuitous. Being 1/2 an inch too short meant that instantly I had a solution to my drainage problem. Welding was problematic but the first side went on well enough. The second side isn't as secure as it really needs to be but as it's just a side that protects against spray rather than being a side that performed a structural function, it's not worth seating over.
Really and truly, I got a bit fed up of welding today. I spent an inordinate amount of time welding before I found dropping the power of the welder down to 40A meant I was less likely to burn through the metal. I might return to welding tomorrow. It's probably going to annoy me that it's not done as well as possible!

After completing the compartment the next order of the day was to paint it and stand back to admire my handiwork. Having suitably admired my handiwork and run around in circles in the yard yelling "Yay. I am the champion", it was on with the next task. The dreaded hillbilly cable compartment.
As can be seen, the wood looks a little suspect. The cable of my electrical system has acquired a nasty lot of white mold on the outside. Needless to say the whole compartment smelled badly.

Removing the compartment was a huge battle. Just about every bolt was badly rusted. All the screw heads stripped trying to turn them so in the end they all had to be removed using my angle grinder. Having done that, it was already dusk but here's a photo of the now empty compartment.
The wood that made up the old compartment was in truly amazing shape. I'm totally baffled as to why it hadn't just fallen out on the road a long time ago. I have a hard time believing that compartment could ever have held anything heavier than a fart!
The wood is not fit for anything other than a bonfire. I didn't go underneath the bus to see if the bad wood had caused rust - that's a job for tomorrow. I did however try the new compartment in place and it fits in very sweetly. The power inlet will hang down a little below the bottom of the skirt but not hugely. It'll make easier access. I did think about using a proper TT-30 inlet but for some unknown reason, TT-30 inlets are either unavailable or horribly expensive. I'm sticking with my NEMA 6-30 twist-lock inlet instead. I could probably go down to a 20A inlet but to be honest, I think if I am plugged in, 30A will give me more and better options. I don't need huge amounts of power but I can see that a microwave could well use up 10A leaving very little room for anything else.

I spent a while worrying about putting on the new door and putting the infilling up on the side, where the old door went before deciding it wasn't worth worrying about. I'll face that when it's time. For now the task is to install the new breaker compartment. The door can wait! Tomorrow there might be a holdup as I have to put more undercoat on some of the compartment and topcoat on the whole compartment. Ideally I'd paint it white but as I only have black topcoat, it'll have to be black. While the undercoat is drying, I can tape a sheet of steel behind the aperture the hillbillies cut, spray around the edges with orange paint and when that's dry, pull it out and trim the steel with my angle grinder. From there I can tape it into place and weld it in. That welding might well take all day or even several days.