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!

Lol. What a load of plonkers!

Out of interest, I had another look at the bus conversion forum online. Yup... They're still mostly plonkers. I put a simple question about paint and had answers from the outlandish to the ridiculous. Not one could name a barrier primer nor the best value economy top coat yet they all claim to have busses and all claim to have repainted them!

Today I visited Tractor Supply. I didn't buy much. In fact I spent less than $10 but in addition to 100 10-24 nuts and two M4 bolts. I got some 1\4x20 bolts, nuts and lock nuts. Thinking about it, I'd probably have been better off buying all my nuts and bolts from Tractor Supply as they sell them by the pound!

The 1\4x20 bolts will carry way in excess of 1200lbs before sheering. Again, looking for the sheer strength online produced very dubious looking figures. My usual go-to source of The Handbook of Chemistry and Physics didn't have anything bar a definition of sheer strength. Perhaps my engineering handbook would but at the moment it cannot be located.

The 4mm bolt did the biz. This screws into my electro magnet nicely. The bolt is a shade too long but I can always space it off with washers or even trim the bolt a shade with my angle grinder. All I need is to bolt one to a steel bracket and the other to the underside of the latch and the bracket to the bulkhead beneath the latch and its a very simple electro unlocking mechanism. They always say to keep it simple!

If the dual electro magnet affair works as hoped then it would be possible to add remote unlocking. Remote locking could be more challenging, however.

Thinking about a pull on the front door to close it, I realised that as I have a penchant for large size keyrings, I could put a small hook on the outside of the door and use my keyring to pull it shut. Thus I would also be more certain of not locking my keys in the bus!

On the path of Houdini

Houdini could open any lock. I'm almost there myself with the front door locking mechanism. Today my electro magnet arrived from China.

The magnet apparently runs off 9v so after a long hunt I located a pp3 battery. It was inside a radio transmitter detector that had been lurking in my drawer since I'd had to track down some unauthorized listening devices in my old home. The battery was several years old yet it powered the magnet very successfully. Indeed, it even grabbed onto the door locking mechanism strongly enough for me to lift the latch.

As the magnet didn't seem to have much grabbing range its probably going to be best used as a repelling magnet. I'll mount a permanent magnet on the underside of the latch and the magnet can repel it in order to lift the latch. That's the plan anyway.

Also arrived today was my Nema 5-15P socket. I tried it with my plugs and it all worked perfectly. Now all I have to do is to rebuild the battery/cable compartment. I tried both plugs and they both fit nicely into the socket as can be seen from the combined socket, plug photo.

Speaking of the battery/cable compartment, the bolts and lock nuts arrived that are intended for use in the new compartment. I'd been afraid they'd be too thin but looking at them, they'll be fine. I'll use many more than I think I'll need, just for security.

I can't find the sheet strength for the bolts but given the entire weight that needs to be supported will be probably 20lbs for the compartment frame plus 55lbs for each of two batteries plus say 30lbs for luck then doubling it all in order to allow for rough roads. That's a grand total of 160lbs. Assuming each bolt will bear 10lbs then 16 would be needed. An unverified online source states 200 lbs sheer strength per bolt. That sounds doable. Another online source quoted 700lbs. I'm being conservative and reckoning 20lbs per bolt. I don't want 160lbs of battery compartment falling on the ground!

The shower sucked!

Again today I moved the bus. It wasn't quite where I wanted it and its still not exactly in the right place but it's good enough. It started though not as easily as yesterday. Clearly I need to put a battery maintaining solar panel in place.

Next I slipped under the bus and loosened the shower pipe nut. Tomorrow I might slip under again to check whether there's any leakage from my plumbing work.

Having loosened the pipe, I went into the bus and took the drain out of my shower pan before adjusting the hole in the floor to better accommodate the nut on the bottom of the shower pan and then adjusted the underside of the pan. There were ridges where the pan would have a waterproof washer. I smoothed those out then reassembled, adding copious quantities of plumbers glue.

Finally the shower base was all tightened down. Some say my $18 rubber shower base won't last long. People fail to realize none of this has to last a long time. It can all be upgraded when finances allow. Right now I'm having to do everything all at once and that's taking all my budget.

Next I tried the battery powered shower unit. It seemed to work well enough though there were two issues. First it didn't lift the water very high. That could be the alkaline batteries. Perhaps it'll work better with rechargeable. Secondly the Chenglish instructions aren't that great.

To get the pump to work I had to pump a manual pump on the bottom of the head unit in order to prime the pump. That should tell you right there that it's not a top quality unit. The good stuff self primes. It's just a weak motor - possibly an impeller.

Having said all that, it worked quite well. It did lift the water about three feet. The reviews of the unit are poor but I really think that for $20 or thereabouts, its not bad. The pump unit can always be replaced with something more powerful. As I said earlier, I'm doing all the construction over about a year. Even though I'm not now paying much rent, $9 an hour doesn't pay for much especially when it's part time. Sadly, that's all I can get at the moment. That's the basic reason for the bus - cheaper accommodation and I can drive to where the work is. Clearly there's none anywhere near Columbia, South Carolina as none is advertised.

This is the key switch I ordered. It arrived a few days ago. This is a high security ignition switch from a Harley Davidson. It has to be switched on then off rather than being the momentary action switch I'd wanted. On the other hand, its not beyond the realm of possibility to make the magnet into a momentary action device. Needless to say, the magnet is now speeding its way from China with the urgency of a retarded snail!

Meanwhile, I have two tasks I can complete. The first is finishing the cleaning then the decor of the bus. There is, of course, the battery compartment. I might investigate how much it would cost to have the brackets welded. That way I can get a couple of dozen 1\4 x 20 nuts and bolts and be done.

Red letter day!

That's an old Chinese thing. In China, a red letter means good luck. Usually on a red letter day, children receive envelopes stuffed with money.

No money for me though. The nearest to a genuine red letter is that my electrics as installed, work. I tested each of the three sockets by plugging in a humble fan. The main breaker box is not yet secured due to my needing to rebuild the hillbilly battery compartment but this is how it looks.


The whole system is earthed and the white and black wires are in the correct places. This is a very simple system with 3 sockets only. There is room for future expansion on the breaker box and, replacing the inlet cable, the system can go to a maximum of 55A. If the cable between the breakers were to be replaced, 100A would be almost possible.

The ratings on my system as installed are:
1. Electrical sockets - 20A
2. Wire betwixt sockets and distribution panel - 30A
3. Distribution panel - 125A
4. Wire betwixt distribution panel and main breaker box - 55A
5. Main breaker box - 70A
6. Wire betwixt main breaker box and plug - 30A
7. Plug - 30A
8. Breakers in distribution panel - 15A (all six)
9. Breaker in main box - 30A - dual breaker.

So, my system can take much higher amperage assuming portions closer to the supply are changed. I regard this as being a safe system. Indeed, if anybody can see a problem, I'd like to know about it!

By the way, for anybody wanting to use 30A solid, 30A flexible and 55A solid wire, yes it is hard to work with! It took a good couple of hours to complete what I just have. Partly this is because I am still not 100% recovered from my virus but also because the wire was hard to work with and I was being very careful to get it right.

My bus electrics are now 100% complete on the 110v side. Next comes the plumbing. For that, I need a few things. As it is, it should pass inspection as a motorhome. And I'm only 8 months, 12 days behind schedule! Mind, my schedule was over ambitious.

What followed the electrics was little short of a miracle. I removed the large pieces of construction debris and stored the surplus materials in a nearby shed. Given that I'm not over my bug, that was a lot of work. I can almost reach the driving seat now.

The hillbilly underbody compartment wasn't quite as bad as it looked. Certainly its badly installed and for that reason alone, needs to be replaced. It is, however made of inch thick marine plywood. I found that out when I drilled a hole through it to allow me to plug my electrical cable in from underneath.

Where the hillbillies went wrong was in not painting their plywood on the inside of the compartment. Having seen that, I'm minded to use plywood for my compartments. Mine, however will be painted white on the inside but with oil based paints rather than latex. Unlike the hillbillies, my compartments will have angle iron on the corners, strengthening and supporting them.

Thinking ahead to a 12v battery system which will power future extraction fans, charging ports etc, I'll have to find how much weight plywood will support to see how much bracing to use to support a battery. I have a feeling that just a single 105ah 12v marine deep cycle battery will provide for most of my needs. Of course, if later I use batteries to power my fridge, I might have to raise that capacity.

Thinking further, until I have sufficient solar and battery capacity to power a microwave, I could perhaps use a cheap generator to provide 800w to run the microwave while taking 240w from batteries to gain the 1040w needed. That would take me squarely into boondocking territory!

Later, after dinner, I returned to the bus and cut the PVC planking to the right size to fit my shower base. In a few days I'll have the base put together and the bus fully cleaned.

My favorite place at the moment is my bathroom as I can sit on the toilet lid and think. There, I had the idea that since my LED lantern has a loop as a handle, I could put screw hooks in the ceiling to hold my lantern. I'll have to see if Lowe's sells 10-24 screw hooks or bigger s-hooks to use with their existing screw eyes.

Some people might see my minimal electricity lifestyle as somewhat quaint. I regard it as practical. I'm just not a great fan of electrical appliances in general. This is why my forthcoming water pump will be manual.

Thinking about night privacy, I looked at my windows and measured them. The bathroom windows I don't give a rip about. I'll put pieces of shower curtain over the windows but that's all. No need for more than that.

The galley windows are doubles measuring 54 wide by 28 high. I figure a wooden dowel with a plastic fabric fastened to it together with a string could act as a roller blind. The problem would be what to use as bearings.

The bedroom windows are 54 wide by 14 high and 26 wide by 28 high. That's just 4 blinds needed. I've had various thoughts but I really like the idea of a DIY roller blind.

Aside from that, there's just the pool noodle needed over the doorway from the cockpit to the cabin and some form of lock on the front door. Well, not really a lock but a way of unlocking the existing door lock from the outside.

As well as that, I have to put my white and grey tanks under the bus and rebuild the hillbilly battery compartment. There's plenty to do and since I'm doing it all on my own, its taking rather longer than I'd like. The big thing is that I'm learning a load of new skills.

It's pretty astonishing how much I've done since I started the project in November.

Bah... Pesky drill!

Today was a very brief session working in the bus. Earlier I'd been to Lowe's and bought the screw eyes and s hooks I needed in order to complete my closet rail. I also bought an RV style 30A plug.

Reading around, it seems 50A is not really practical and most camp sites have a 30A supply. In Lowe's I saw a 50A cable and a 30A cable. Quite honestly I cannot imagine using anything heavier than 30A. It was really thick and heavy.

It turns out also that my breaker box is a sub panel with no main breaker position. Had I known that, I would not have bought it. It looks like I'm going to have to make a few blunders before I get this crazy US electrical system down pat. It's completely alien to me, having been brought up around European electrical systems.

Actually, dropping from 50A to 30A doesn't make much difference. My heavy demand appliances are my microwave and kettle. I don't have a TV or anything like that. I never have been a real power hog even though I use far more electricity than Eric

It looks as though I need to put a main breaker elsewhere. I'm thinking alongside the fuse panel for my 12 supply. Somewhere I can access it easily in order to switch breakers around for times when I'll be on a 15A supply.

Inside the bus, I laid out my screw eyes and s hooks ready to install them but paused to install my new knob on the grit bucket side of the toilet. The power drill got a third of the way through the wood before slowing. Fortunately it got all the way through before it died completely. Clearly I should have put iut on charge last night. The knob went on fine though. It doesn't match my plastic handle though. It seems Lowe's no longer carries the handles I bought several months ago. It doesn't look too bad.

While I was sitting at the toilet, I worked and oiled the door lock. It's really not very happy about looking and unlocking. Today I had to abandon my attempt to unlock it from outside and had to go in through the back door. I'll keep playing with the lock but I think I'll have to replace it. The lock company whose name shall not be mentioned charged me $20 and claimed it was a special order. I saw the same lock in Ace hardware for $15 last week!

Remaining to be done inside the bus are just the shower base mount and the rest of the closet chain. Everything else has been done. Certainly there's cleaning to be done, some floor painting and a touch of touch up but that's all aside from plumbing and electrical. Things are progressing well.