What a disaster!

The angels wept today and did drench the surface of the earth with their tears. Menwhile, an icy blast and possible Snowmageddon quietly began. Yes, folks, today was bitterly cold and wet. Not a good day for doing anything on the bus. Thus, today was mostly a shopping day.

In Walmart, I picked up a couple of things, the most interesting of which was for $10 a miniature cordless electric drill. It seems to charge off 6v. 20 years after everybody stopped putting NiCad batteries in things (aside from the Chinese) and it has a NiCad battery. Now normally I use a full-sized electric or cordless electric drill. Most of the time that's just fine. For my breaker box compartment it's just too big. I can't get the drill in, in order to get the holes in the right place to attach the compartment to the frame. I figured if I takes an hour a rivet hole, that drill will be worthwhile. I only need it in order to install 6 - 8 rivets! There was a better version available at $15 but I figure if this little fellow can do the job and since it's a job I probably won't have again then there's no point in spending more.

After I weld the next bits on my breaker box compartment I'll have to replace the paint that burns off so I bought more paint and some cheap brushes. At 68 cents a brush, it really isn't worth wasting gasoline on them to wash the paint out. While on the paint thing, I also got some appliance paint. I figured I can try derusting my microwave, spraying it with rust killer and then appliance paint. I know it still works - it just doesn't look pretty!

Remembering what the guy I read about the other day had said, I bought some paint thinner. The grey paint is peeling off quite well in some places. I can simply brush the loose paint off and wipe down with thinner before repainting. If the fellow mentioned online was correct then it might be the solution to problems like this:
I shall be rather glad to be in a position to register this bus as a motorhome. I feel that's getting ever closer. I could have done that with the old hillbilly compartment but wanted to redo it anyway. I am waiting on delivery of my screw eyes and rivnuts right now. These will help me to complete the shower. Then I will have a shower with a funky water delivery system but a shower nevertheless. Other than that, water disposal is taken care of with a bucket but I want to go to stage 2 and have at least one underbody tank. The proper breaker box compartment is a huge step for electrical supply and having seen the old compartment was probably little short of essential.

A 12v electrical system is not as yet planned out but the concept is there. Ideally, rather than a battery, I'll use a supercapacitor setup. That kind of thing can be left alone and it'll be just fine. No worries about overcharging nor about the cells wearing out. 

I said last year that I wanted this bus done by April. It definitely looks like being this April rather than last April. If I can only get a good weekend then I can get the underbody compartent done! It is literally a tiny bit of welding, a tiny bit of painting and some rivetting and bolting away from being done. After that it's a tiny bit of plumbing, some riveting and application of restraints and the waste water system is done. Then there's erecting the shower curtain, cleaning inside and it's done.

For the future I'd want to install my 12v system, possibly an underbelly water tank and way off in the future, possibly a black tank. Then of course there's the bedroom and kitchen ventillation and that is all that I can reasonably hope to want. 

Another epiphany

Toda started with the usual tummyache after eating too much on Christmas day. Then I headed outside to do battle with the metal that I dragged out of the bushes a few days ago that looked like an ideal floor for my battery compartment.

Cutting thin metal is always a challege for my angle grinder - which is now working perfectly thanks to the new carbon brushes and I went through several grinding disks. Good job I bought a second 10 pack of disks a while ago! Just look at the state of the disk I've just been using.

I cut the steel construction I found a few days ago, cutting the edge off one side and cutting it in two such that when two edges are welded together, the construction will be approx 18" by 29" which is about the size of my battery compartment.

As the steel had some handy folded edges, these will act as a strengthening bar down the center of the compartment. Very useful. I had, however to trim the excess fold off as it is somewhere water is likely to collect.

While cutting the floor of the battery compartment, a thought came to mind that has occurred before - namely why I'm even putting a battery compartment. I definitely need access to my main breaker panel and that's always best under the bus. Other than that, I can store the cables more securely inside the bus.

Given that I'm not putting a big house battery, the point of a battery compartment is somewhat questionable. Having said that, it does set me up for future expansion.

Thinking about batteries I was wondering about using NiMh batteries rather than lead-acid or lithium. Lithium batteries are just horribly expensive. NiMh batteries just don't seem to be available in 12v. This is a bit annoying! Out of interest, I looked up NiMh AA batteries and found I could get 48 for $24 and 3,000mah each. If they were put in sets of 10, giving 12v per set then I'd get 4 sets at 12,000mah or 12Aah. 

Thinking further about the NiMh idea, 6v would be way easier to work with just 4 batteries put in series. The downside is that all the charge controllers are set up to charge lead-acid or lithium batteries. To my mind, NiMh is way better than lead-acid because it doesn't gas and can be completely discharged without harming the battery.

Given that the only power I'd need would be to charge my phone, tablet and batteries for my LED lantern and my shower pump, I could probably get away with just D cells and a solar D cell charger. The D cells could in turn power a USB charger. Heaven knows how long that would take to recharge my phone though.

There are a whole load of different options out there for power. My favorite for cooling and for refrigeration at the moment are fans powered solely by solar power and a fridge powered solely by solar. The cold could be maintained in a fridge by simply using freezer blocks. The fans need only to remove heat when the sun is shining. As for the rest, lighting, the shower pump and phone charging - these can all be done from NiMh D cells. For the moment though, I shall continue the plan to install the battery compartment and the shower outflow.

Meanwhile, in a stunning development, the bathtub that m'lady often complained about has vanished. It didn't so much vanish in a puff of smoke but more behind a garden tractor and was hauled to one of the junk piles in the back yard.

It certainly looks better without the bathtub. For those with long memories and the ability to hunt through this blog, the bathtub came out of the original construction. It was used for most of the last year as a handy trash recepticle and had it not been full of trash, would have been easy just to carry.

Things are definitely progressing. The last thing done today was to paint the underside of the new bathroom vanity. This vanity will not have a sink. Instead it will have a removable plastic bowl that can be emptied either into a bucket or down the shower and hence into the bucket under the shower or onto the ground.
Apparently emptying water that's been used for hand washing is frowned upon. That seems to be just plain bizarre to me but I suppose if dumping grey water was approved, people would stretch it further and dump sewage too. Honestly though, as long as its buried properly even sewage can be disposed of outdoors without harm to the environment.