Plans and ideas

Remaining to do on the bus are:
1. The front door unlocking system. A quick and dirty solution would be just to add a standard door lock and wedge something under the door locking flap to stop it locking the door. That would allow me to lock it from the outside on my way out. Ideally though I'll continue with my plan for an electromagnetic solution. There's nothing to say that I can't use both solutions.
2. Waste water system. The bucket under the bus is a temporary measure that will work just fine though the goal is to plumb in two 15 gallon waste water drums. Even a single drum would be just fine though.
3. Fresh water system. Now here I had a brainwave. I clearly cannot trust used chemical drums for fresh water nor any kind of secondhand drums. The 5 gallon buckets from Walmart are a little small but several plumbed together could well provide enough water for a couple of days. I saw a video on YouTube about how one woman put leak-proof plumbing into a 5 gallon bucket. That gave me thoughts though securing such a small thing as a 5 gallon bucket will not be easy.
4. Carrying on with the 5 gallon bucket idea, it would be possible to put a copper tube looped through the bucket. Air could be blown through the tube. The bucket could be filled with water that's allowed to evaporate via the inlet. This would have the effect of cooling the air slightly. That could be useful for air-conditioning. Pouring water into a barrel will have zero cost. Blowing air through a tube using a CPU fan will use negligible electricity.
5. Ventillation in the bedroom is planned using a CPU fan to suck air from ceiling level to blow it out underneath the bus via an existing hole made by the hillbillies.
6. The cooking extraction fan will have to go through a hole in the side of the bus. Again, a CPU fan will be used.
7. The lights still need work to turn the school bus flashers into brake and indicator duplicators. The front reds will just be removed.
8. The reversing horn needs to be wired to a switch on the console. I'm not a fan of horns coming on automatically.
9. The drawers need padding and separators in those intended for crockery.
10. The breaker box compartment needs to be built.
11. I'm going one way and another as regards batteries. Currently I'm thinking that since I'm using solely 3 fans - maybe 4 if I put one in the bathroom. Other than that, all I'm using battery power for is charging phones etc. At most in terms of power I'd be using 20AH a day. That could easily be handled by 60 AA NiMh cells. I spotted 100 NiMh cells of 3000MaH on eBay. That seems to be better value than lead acid deep cycle batteries. NiMh have other benefits too in that they can be totally discharged with no ill effect. A battery compartment below the bus means the batteries performance might be adversely affected in cold weather but inside the bus there's a risk of fire left unattended while charging from solar panels. Thus, a small battery compartment under the bus could be ideal. Such a self-built battery would probably be best housed in an old metal ammunition box. That could even contain the charge controller and a voltage regulator.
12. Given that I'm now using gas, fitting a further compartment where a 20lb gas cyliner might be fitted could be interesting.
13. The bathroom vanity - now that I've decided not to use the vanity as a site for a gascooktop - does need a sink but I am still against plumbing in a standard sink. I'm considering a drop in-lift out enamel bowl with handles. If necessary, I could weld handles onto a standard enamel bowl.

The good news is that I should imagine I shall soon be able to work on the bus in the evenings on a weekday. The evenings are drawing out now to the extent that at 6pm, instead of barely being able to see my hand in front of my face, I was greeted by this scene as I left work.
Of course 15 minutes later it was pitch black but that'll change fairly rapidly. Currently we're gaining another minute of daylight every day. I predict that this will be the amount of light left when I get home by around the end of February. By then I hope I'll have done everything needed with the bus including getting the alternator belt changed.

One of "those" days *sigh*

Today was a day when nothing went quite right. I woke with a headache which is never a good portent of things to come. After a leisurely breakfast of yet more Xmas dinner leftovers, I went outside and noticed the sky was overcast. Clearly no welding today because the instructions on the welder say do not use in rain and rain was forecast.

The steel I cut yesterday has bright orange rust spots on the freshly cut edges. That's not welcome but not unexpected. I didn't treat the edges as they'll have to be welded anyway. The rest of the steel is fairly rusty so I'll have to sugar blast the whole lot to clear the rust. Then I'll have to paint it with rust killing paint then scrape the areas to be welded and weld it all together then put yet more anti-rust paint and then a topcoat. I did, however, remeasure what I'd cut and aside from probably having to trim corners to fit around bolt heads, it's pretty much the right size.

Next I looked at the schoolbus flashers. I need  to switch the amber and red around so the ambers are on the outside. That was something I could do relatively easily so I hopped up on the hood and started undoing screws for it was a simple matter of switching the lenses around. Wouldn't you just know it! One of the screws refused to budge and the cross head became a cone. I'll probably have to drill it out now. At that point I said that given the way I was feeling, it wasn't sensible to proceed and packed up for the day.

I looked at my old red LED sign that had been broken in my car. The actual sign still worked but the mounting was broken. As I need a car cigarette lighter plug, I cut the cable off and tossed the sign in the trash. It was sad to see the sign go but it had paid for itself and I'd had a couple of years use out of it. I used to put that sign in the back window of my car and rent it out on fiverr.com as advertising space. People would pay $5 to fiverr to advertise their product for a week and I'd get $4 of that in my Fiverr account. After a very, very long time I amassed enough to deposit in my bank account and by the time they had charged me a fee to deposit into Paypal and Paypal had charged a fee to deposit in my bank account the money was even less and I figured given the time and the chargers on charges on charges, it wasn't worthwhile. So, yes - to the people who ask - I did make money from Fiverr but in the end it works out at about $2.50 per hour so it's really not worth the effort.

I checked out my solar panel and connected it to an electro magnet which then failed to pick up anything despite the panel voltage being around 16.7 volts. I'm really not that impressed with this solar stuff, to be honest. It all sounds phenomenal - I mean - who doesn't like the sound of free electricity? The reality is somwhat less than satisfactory. As an experiment a few years ago, I connected a powered off mobile phone to a panel and left it on a windowsill, facing the sun, for a week. At the end of that week, I powered up the phone and while there certainly was power there was only enough for about 15 minutes usage. I'm going to plug on with solar but I'm not going to be fool enough to believe that it's going to be majorly worthwhile. It might - if I covered the roof with panels - charge my phone every day but I doubt that it'll do anything more than that. Indeed,  as I said before - the amount of money spent on solar panels to charge batteries would pay for a generator and a whole load of gasoline which would charge the batteries in a fraction of the time, day or night.

My solar panel - for those who're interested is allegedly 12v at 5A. I have yet to see it do anything bar make a tiny light bulb glow very dimly when exposed to direct sunlight. My idea had been to connect the panel via my ciagrette-lighter socket in the cab to the battery to allow it to keep my battery topped up. I fear that the LED on the cigarette lighter socket might use more power than the panel can supply in a day!

The electro magnet I started the other day still needs to be completed. I'll have another go at that another day. I'm not feeling that glowing positive feeling at the moment what with the cloudy weather and the absence of success. This wonderful two weeks off for Christmas has turned largely into two weeks confined to the house due to the weather. Still, I have another week left - there's a huge oppotunity there for the weather to change its mind and give me glorious sunshine and dry days.

Out of curiosity I put the meter on the lighter socket and got 12.3 volts. Clearly something amiss there. The voltage should be higher - something in the region of 13.8v given that the batteries were charged a week ago. There could be some form of resistor or zener diode in the lighter socket, limiting the voltage to 12.3v. It's good to know! I suspected putting a solar panel on as a battery mainatiner wasn't going to be simple. Nothing ever is which is why though I was all in favor of an all electric bus I'm beginning to veer towards as little onboard electrics as possible. Indeed, I might even rethink this battery compartment and possibly just have a compartment for the main breaker box. That'll be a load lighter and smaller. It also means I can rivet most of that silly hillbilly cable compartment door shut and just use part of it as an access panel to my breaker box.

Thinking more about batteries, I discovered a source for C size NiMh cells. There seem to be people putting them together in blocks of 10 to produce 12v batteries with 10,000mah (or 10Ah). There seems to be something called a DC-DC converter which takes whatever voltage and outputs at a constant voltage. Thus, as the power in a battery declines its voltage will drop. The DC-DC converter maintains the voltage at a constant level, presumably at the cost of amperage. That answers my questions about how supercaps can be used. As their power level drops, so too does their voltage.

Given the low amount of power I need, given that I'm really only charging my phone, my $50 tablet and a $20 mifi pad, I'm really wondering what kind of power storage to use. Realistically, I probably don't even need a battery compartment for that amount of battery power! Still, I'll plug on because I might want to expand later.

Bloody Hell!

They actually arrived! The two heatsinks I ordered for my Peltier cooler arrived today! I had serious doubts as to whether they would actually arrive, having ordered everything on November 8th and everything else having arrived very quickly.

Unpackaged, this is everything. Two heatsinks, the Peltier element and the heatsink glue.

It was pretty inexpensive - under $10 for the lot. Anyway, I glued it together and when the glue dries (which might take a few days), I'll be able to test it all.

The theory is that putting power through the Peltier element will transfer heat from one side to the other. The problem is, this is electronics and I generally find electronic gizmos have a very high rate of being junk. It's not worth spending more unless it actually works.

So, I'll wait for it all to cure then perhaps hook it up to a solar panel, mount it into a box - perhaps a plastic sandwich box and put a thermometer inside. Then after a while, check external and internal temperatures. If it works, fantastic. If not - its expected.

Meanwhile I looked more into lithium batteries for my bus. I found that only the most expensive were rated for 100A continual output. That's a major problem that makes a generator more attractive. There are other options though.

I looked at supercaps because if a supercap can hold 10ah then be recharged slowly from a traditional lead acid batterry I have a potential solution. The capacitors could release 8ah at 100a quickly then recharge slowly from a deep cycle lead acid battery.

I also looked into building my own lithium ion or nickel metal hydride batteries. Lithium ion cells seem to be 3.7v only. Looking at the costs, both lithium and NiMH seem excessively expensive.

The supercap solution looks the most economically promising but again, it's electronics and they so rarely seem to perform as advertised. I would use a supercap engine starting battery if I could find out their full specifications.

One of the problems if not the biggest problem is that nobody ever seems to publish full usage specifications on anything. It's like trying to sell shoes without mentioning important things like sizes!

Walmart had a sale

In that sale there was a roll of foam bedroll for $8. Very useful stuff! I bought a roll and will use it to make a honeycomb to put in my drawers in order to protect my crockery. I prefer real crockery as its easier to get clean than plastic crockery - particularly when its handwashed!

Meanwhile, a tragedy struck a couple of days ago. My old Sonicare toothbrush died. The batteries in them degrade over time until they finally just won't hold a charge. As they're sealed unit batteries, nothing can be done. It's quite frustrating and I really didn't feel like spending $100 on a brand new unit. I liked the small head and the way it really worked.

The problem with the old unit was that the charger ran solely from mains voltage. That would have meant a big battery and an inverter in the bus. I'm not a fan of inverters as they waste power.

Bravo! It seems there's a Sonicare battery operated tooithbrush for $10. I got one. I'd been wondering how I was going to work around my toothbrush needing mains power. It takes two AA rechargeable batteries. Now those can be charged from solar power!

By now you'll have noticed two things. The first is that the sink unit isn't very clean. The second is the water dispenser. Underneath the sink is a bucket - just like the one destined for the bus. Yes, I do live in a low rent place!

Since batteries are expensive, the plan is to make a compartment that will carry two batteries. I might put a single battery just so that I can charge my phone etc overnight. As much as possible will be manual. This will be a low power consumption motorhome.

The Power Budget

The reason I'm putting in a 120V plugin is because solar and battery power are so horribly expensive. The reason I'm going with a bucket and Jerry can approach to water is based on cost also.

In my eagerness to proceed, I've forgotten my underlying principle of low cost. I've also allowed myself to be trapped by the hillbillies into following their ideas and plans. The electrical box the hillbillies put in was ludicrously large for just a cable compartment! It looks kinda sensible to use it for batteries.

The microwave would use 1200w at 120v. That's 10 amps! Without even considering the losses from using an inverter, running the microwave for 15 minutes would burn up a lot of power. Converting 1200w at 120v to 12v would be 100 amps. Given that a full battery holds just 105 amps, discharging it in 15 minutes would probably melt it!

While it would be possible to provide 100A at 12v, it could take quite a few batteries. Certainly more than the planned two! Thus, where the battery compartment is planned probably isn't the best location.

The big door put in by the hillbillies is a huge red herring, in my opinion. Far better to rivet the hillbilly battery door closed, make a smaller compartment and door for the 120v supply.

As far as electricity generation, solar panels seem quite pricey. As the roof is curved, flexible panels make the most sense. At $200 for a 100w panel, solar isn't cheap!

In terms of other power usage, I'd be charging my phone, batteries for my lanterns etc. No heavy usage save for possibly a fridge. If it was a Peltier fridge then the usage would be 5AH or 60W.

Although I don't like gas, it looks like being the sole solution for cooking unless the bus is plugged into a power supply. Refrigeration, small battery charging, ventilation etc could all be run straight off solar with a cool block in the fridge to maintain coolness at night. Perhaps a small 6v battery to maintain cellphone charging capability at night.

Looking up NiMH cells, it looks that once one goes beyond AA and AAA cells, prices rocket. That is rather frustrating!

Looking in another direction, generators have a place. A well installed 1800W generator could charge a single battery while providing power for a microwave. The trick there is to set the generator for remote start and remote stop.

Whichever electrical solution there is, looks like being several hundred dollars. The cheapest is gas and no electricity. There is, of course, no reason at all why gas couldn't be the initial solution then electricity later.

Meanwhile, I'm reconsidering welding. It might be fun to have a go at some welding.

I might recover

Today started with the intention of taking my car for an oil change and getting a few things for the bus. That's when all the trouble started..

Reaching the dog food place I'd been told about, there were plenty empty 30 gallon open top barrels. Sadly they're too big at 18 inches diameter. I need 15 gallon barrels. Resigning myself to having to buy barrels at $40 each plus $20 shipping, I headed to Home Depot.

As normal in Home Depot, nobody could understand basic English so I spent the next hour browsing the plumbing bits. The plan was to sling a barrel underneath the bus using nylon cargo straps. It was then that I had an epiphany... Why not instead of using 15 gallon drums, use a few 5 gallon buckets with lids from Walmart at $2.50 for the bucket and $2 for the lid? I hunted in vain for a threaded tube with nuts that could be used with rubber gaskets to create a waterproof port through the bucket lid. This would have been ideal but bar a product sample display, nothing was available.

Abandoning the bucket or barrel idea, I bought some Allen keys that would allow me to disassemble my Harbor Freight grit blaster head in order to work on it. As 13/64 was the recommended drill size for a 1/4x20 bolt, I also bought two such drill bits with hexagon heads.

Moving on to Tractor Supply, I picked up a handful of nuts and a handful of stop nuts. Then I emptied the 1/4x20 by 1" bolt drawer into a bag. There weren't many left but they're all mine now. Checking for water tanks, they had a 30 gallon tank that looked very nice but it was way too large. I looked and they had better plumbing supplies than Home Depot but nothing that would make my bucket idea work properly. I left after buying just nuts and bolts.

The next step was the garage for an oil change. Sadly I was too late (at 3:00) as they were packing up to go home. Typical! From there I went to Walmart where I intended just to get a soft drink and some batteries. There, I had another epiphany. I realised that under the shower outflow, I could just put a bucket with a lid. Under the bathroom handbasin I could just put a bucket with a lid too. Tanotherr), I purchased three buckets. One for shower water, one for handbasin water and one for the toilet. This Walmart had no buckets.

While in Tractor Supply I had noticed blue plastic 5 gallon Jerry cans for $25 each. Walmart had two of the same blue plastic Jerry cans for $13 each. They don't now!

Moving swiftly on, the next stop was Radio Shack for some electronic gubbins. Four capacitors, two battery holders and a couple of other little things reminded me what an outrageously expensive place Radio Shack is! I should have ordered from China via eBay, waited 2 weeks and paid 10% of what Radio Shyster charged.

Next was fuel. That was a ripoff too. Last time it was $1.75 a gallon. Today it was $2 a gallon! Moving swiftly on after putting $20 in the tank, I visited the next Walmart for something not available at the first - the buckets. In that Walmart I got the three buckets and noticed the blue plastic Jerry cans were $15. Clearly different Walmarts have different prices.

Actually, the three local Walmarts are quite wild. The one in Red Bank has somewhat of a reputation for sleaze and gunfights in the car park. The one in Lexington has ladies of the night doing their shopping. The one in West Columbia closes at 10pm because they get robbed if they stay open later. That's probably the most dangerous Walmart as I've seen cars riddled with bullet holes in their car park.

So, I proceeded home. The first task was to work on the grit blaster gun. I cleared some clogs and enlarged some holes as suggested on the reviews of the grit blaster. If it doesn't work at all now then I haven't lost anything because it didn't work before.

The new plan for bus plumbing is to use the shower just as a shower, the bathroom handbasin as a handbasin and have the handbasin empty into a bucket. A different bucket goes under the shower outflow. That might benefit from extra plumbing in order to make positioning the bucket easier. Fresh water is carried in 5 gallon Jerry cans. There's plenty room to stand them in the shower when the shower is not in use.

The plan for the electrical compartment remains the same. I'll drill out the holes to 13/64 and put 1/4x20 bolts through. Meanwhile, if it turns out I need to cook and don't have electricity, I can simply use a sterno stove on a fireproof pad.

The 5 gallon Jerry cans were somewhat of a brainwave. They stand very nicely by the shower. Another will fit (when I get it) very nicely beside the bucket underneath the handbasin. I'm not too bothered about collecting shower water as I rather suspect that nobody will much notice nor care about it. Besides, I can always say somebody pinched the bucket!

I attacked the problem of the door mechanism next and put 6v from D cells into my electro magnets. They refused to repel each other. Clearly something is amiss there! I'll put those down as being cheap Chinese junk. I have never before encountered an electro magnet that would attract steel and attract another electro magnet but would not repel another electro magnet when the power, hence the fields are reversed or rather, opposing.

Next I put some numbers on the bus. Tractor Supply had the cheapest numbers at 48 cents each. I realise I could have sprayed the bumpers but since the Rustoleum garbage doesn't seem to stick to anything whether the surface has been prepared or not, I just used stick on letters rather than spending time with a stencil and a paintbrush.

Clearly I'm going to have to wind my own electro magnets. This, I can do. I'll have to buy some thick enough bolts but that looks like being the solution.

Plumbing has been downgraded to a much simpler and cheaper affair. Indeed, I wonder whether now, its better on several grounds. The cable compartment as is, kinda works. It's just not safe for a battery. Thus, rebuilding that is a priority.

Thinking about protecting crockery in drawers, another yoga mat could be sliced up in order to make liners and dividers. Clearly I need to tidy and clean the bus. The inside is pretty well done. I just need to clean the floors, put in drawer liners where needed, put up some curtains and shower curtains etc. One problem I had was that my bucket won't fit in the toilet side of my toilet unit. The square kitty litter box will, however. Clearly I need a second kitty litter container. I must have designed it like that and forgotten.

I'm definitely going to have to put some kind of solar panel to maintain the bus batteries. I can't have them going flat all the time! There's probably a power leak somewhere and that'll just be hard to trace!

I'll have to see now about registering the bus as a motorhome.

Aha or uh-huh or something like that!

On my way from the treadmill back to my bus, I paused as planned at the dollar store. Navigating around obstacles such as empty boxes, transport dollies, uncooperative customers, spilled nastiness on the floors and collapsed shelving, I located the battery rack.

The battery rack didn't have a great selection of batteries so I chose a PP3 9v battery. This was probably a mistake. I'd probably have been better off with 6 D cells though as yet I don't have a holder for 6 D cells.

The original idea for the magnet was to run two in opposition to lift the latch that locks the bus door. As 9v magnets were available, it seemed sensible to use 9v magnets and run them off a separate battery rather than use the bus battery.

As it turns out, the magnets do repel each other but the pp3 battery does not put out enough power to make the magnets work really well. As grippers, the magnets do an excellent job. They're supposed to be grippers. I need them to repel too though.

The next task will be to get 6 D cells and solder them together. That should provide ample power to work the magnets. Another idea would be to charge a capacitor from the 9v battery and use that to activate the magnets. That would involve fiddling around good a week or two with electronics and no guarantee of success. Keeping it simple seems best.

It might turn out that the magnets just won't work and I'll have to make my own. I'm hoping that's not going to be the case but it might have been better to do that from the start.

So, tomorrow's task is to get a pile of D cells. I can always use D cells for my lantern and my shower pump.

Meanwhile, I've got a slight dampness in the cockpit. I'm not sure where its coming from but I'll have to look at the roof seams again. Speaking of which, Eric mentioned roof flashing repair tape and yesterday I saw quite a selection of tapes available to repair roof seams. Some are quite expensive!

Caulked

Today before work, I completed caulking around the shower base. That's not going to be moving anywhere on its own now. The next thing will be to install the underfloor waste tanks or at the very least, a way of emptying the waste. The waste pipe definitely needs another nut to hold it down but that has to be applied from under the bus. I don't actually have that nut either. Since Lowe's does respond to their twitter account, I sent them a tweet to try to get if not another nut, at least the specifications so I can order one online.

Lowes did eventually respond with the ultimate answer that they weren't going to help. Meanwhile I diud track down the real manufacturer, Danco and explained that due to a constructional oddity I needed a second nut. As of now I'm awaiting their response. Worst case scenario, I have to buy a complete second outlet just to get the nut!

The handbasin since it looks like its going to be used, needs to be fastened down, somehow. The proper mountings never came with it so I will probably have to get creative. It's one of the reasons I don't like that handbasin.

Since I'm waiting on plumbing parts, I'll probably work on rebuilding the battery/cable compartment. Unlike the hillbillies, I'll build it with real angle iron of which I have a large supply. Alternatively I could use aluminium which would be lighter though I'd have to buy the aluminum. Either way, I need to buy nuts and bolts. Ideally I'd rivet it but don't have a supply of strong enough rivets nor an appropriate rivet gun.

My Nema 5-30 inlet arrived today. My next task is to fit it where it can be used. To do that, I need to rebuild the cable compartment. I really wish the hillbillies hadn't made such a massive compartment. It really wasn't necessary. Really and truly, I don't need that compartment. I'd rivet the blessed thing shut given half a chance! Sadly though, I need some kind of access hatch to access my main breaker. I do wonder about cutting the door in half and putting a half-sized compartment instead. One that contains just the breaker box. The cable I can store elsewhere. As far as a house battery is concerned, I can put that in anytime and it really doesn't need a special compartment. If the compartment housed solely the breaker and Nema 5-30 socket then it need not be built strongly. In fact it could just be there to protect the contents from water!

Installing batteries is another issue entirely. Speaking of which, I noted the fridge I removed from the bus was made by Avanti. Looking at Walmart's website a search for Avanti threw up a so-called superconductor fridge for $120ish that runs off 120v AC or 12v DC. Current consumption was high at 83 watts but that's because it probably runs off a heater element. That looks interesting and something that could be fun off a pair of batteries.

I'm still waiting for my drawer bolts to arrive. They should be here anytime now. That'll complete the galley area. The bathroom plumbing and every underbody facility are my main battlegrounds now.

A day of small things and big plans

Today as yesterday, the major problem was rain showers. Even with my wonderful LED lantern, it was hard to see to work. The plan for the weekend was perhaps a little ambitious. The intent was to:
1. Finish painting the countertops
2. Install the shower base.
3. Complete the window tinting.
4. Install the closet chain.
The countertops never were completed. One was as was the bathroom vanity. Only one countertop was screwed down. All the windows were tinted and now look fantastic!


The batwing doors had a second coat of white on the edges. I'll still have to touch up areas where I screwed up with the white but that's small stuff.

One of the small plans had been to paint the wood floor inside the cockpit black to match the existing floor. It just smartens things up a little. I'd bought a small pot of black paint to do this but as I tidied the countertop a little, I found a bigger pot so I used it to paint the cockpit floor. It might need a second coat. That seems to be the way of things but it's beginning to look quite tidy.

That, of course, has to dry thoroughly before I dare walk on it. It's Rustoleum black anti rust paint but it should work and be more durable than my white latex paint. Inside the galley I had put a coat of latex primer. I'm not sure whether to put a latex top coat and just lay a black vinyl mat over it as I have in the bedroom or what. I suspect the mat will be the cheapest and most durable option.

After that, I had a look at my hand basin for the bathroom. The mixer tap is quite low so it looks very much as though it's not really suitable to fill jugs, bowls or kettles. That'll have to be done elsewhere. I did check on a spare mixer assembly lying in the yard but the holes were further apart. I'm still of the opinion that hot and cold water tanks might be barking up the wrong tree and that I might be far better off with a single hand pump, a bucket and a kettle full of hot water. If my ancestors could do it then so can I!

My thought is that simple is usually best. One drain for waste water, one source for fresh water. Here's my latest idea. Under the bus I have several 15 gallon water tanks, plumbed together for fresh water and another set for waste water. I choose 15 gallon because they can't be seen underneath the bus skirt.

Rather than having an electric pump to pump water, I have a hand pump. This eliminates problems with power supplies etc. Having just one water source eliminates many sources of potential leakage too. Having a suction pump eliminates wastage through leaking pressure seals and the big bonus - its cheaper!

The water can go into a bucket from which it can be used directly or even pumped straight into a kettle. Once in a kettle, it can be heated either electrically in an electric kettle or over a fire as a camp kettle. I could even connect a 120v bucket heater to heat it when the bus is connected to the mains or via a 12v heater such as this.

Once the water is heated to an appropriate temperature, it can be used straight from the bucket or via a shower attachment such as this.

Of course, its important to realise that as with a house, every option can be changed, improved upon or developed before or after implementation. With a drop-in heated element (the one depicted is for a static hot water tank), either a 12v or a 120v element could be used.

The element depicted is of interest on the basis that I could put a small vertical tank in the bus, fill it with cold water in the morning, let the power from a solar panel heat the water during the day and have hot water for an evening shower.

This all seems much preferable to pressure pumps etc. For the moment I have painted the existing bathroom vanity top. There's nothing to say I can't just put an ordinary plastic bowl and a straight, ordinary top instead. In fact, I would consider that to be far more hygienic!

As far as 120v power goes, I can't squeeze my breaker box into the space available. The new plan is to install the breaker panel in the rear storage closet with the input socket at the back, on the passenger side. The 120v 20A wires (all four) go in a conduit from the back of the bus to the front with the conduit riveted to the body skeleton (not the chassis).

The existing hatch the hillbillies built into the bus will be retained. A new battery compartment will be built that will house two 12v 105ah marine deep cycle batteries. These will power solely 12v equipment such as 120w 12v heating coil, fans and charging phones etc. Maybe a 12v cooler unit too.

Eric suggested a 12v fuse panel from a GM Astra but the guy in car parts store didn't have a clue. Maybe I'll have to visit a scrapyard when I next visit my parents in Britain and get a couple off scrapped Vauxhall Astras (same car, different country).

My diesel mechanic is still around so I might have him change my alternator belt and fix my rev counter. With luck, I might even get him to put in some trailer wiring and a tow hook. As I said to him, we'd have to wait until the hornets are asleep as there seems to be a nest under the bus.

Light!

Yes... Light has come to my darkness.

An inexpensive Walmart lantern taking D cells has given light to my darkness. It's 500 lumens only so its not that bright but it's brighter than the darkness so its somewhat of an improvement.

As I'm trying to work out the cheapest way of doing things, it seems to make sense rather than installing expensive cabling and light fixtures just to have a couple of led lanterns.

The minimum I could get away with is a single 120v socket. That could be used to power the fridge then be switched out to power a microwave or a kettle. I'm definitely going to need some 12v power for water pumps and for powering USB chargers etc. For water heating, the best solution seems to be solar power and a 12v heating element though the unit needs a temperature regulator rather than being solely a dump load.

I've been advised that 12v marine batteries aren't really deep cycle but on the other hand they're readily available. I have a feeling I'm going to be better off putting in a 120v system that runs off a Harbor Freight cheapo generator initially then build up to a full solar system.

One things for sure - that lantern isn't bad. It takes 4 D cells so it should last a while between batteries. Maybe I could find some rechargeable D cells too.