What a day!

Two entries - would you even believe it? Yes - today has been exceedingly eventful. What with no electricity in the morning followed by intermittant electricity, I am much more inclined toward gas as well as my 120v plugin.

After breakfast/lunch/whatevertheheckitwas, I left to go to work. Arriving, I found the normal rooms locked up and the lights out. Then I found the boss. Apparently he'd tried to let me know that work had been cancelled for today but his letting me know had been to ring my phone and leave no message. That wasn't particularly helpful but anyway as nothing could be achieved at work, I turned around and headed back home, stopping off at the barbers on my way. It had been a couple of months since my last haircut!

Arriving home, after checking out the microwave I set to, working on welding the final patch over the hillbilly cable compartment disaster area. It took a while to trim the steel to shape and I deliberately undercut it this time in order to avoid the warping problems I had last time. 

Welding with 6011E 1/16th rods used a lot of rods and I had major problems - as before with burn through. In the end and because I ran out of 1/16th rods I turned to 3/32 rods. What a difference - these were and this is extremely counter-intuitive much easier to weld with. I began to fill the gaps where I'd undercut the steel but before I had quite finished, the daylight escaped on me. Had I had another couple of hours of daylight, I'm sure I would have finished the task.

Using the 1/16th rods I never had a problem with the welder shutting down to cool down. With the 3/32, rods I'd manage about two rods before the welder would overheat and need to cool. It has a 20% duty cycle. If I'd spent more on the welder I would not have the problem. On the other hand, I am happy that I didn't pay for more than I need.

By the time I had to stop due to darkness, I'd welded about 75% of the edges. I applied some black bumper spray since my Rustoleum anti-rust spray and my Rustoleum self-etching primer sprays didn't want to work and since I didn't want to use a paintbrush. 

As can be seen, I haven't finished welding the bottom left now the lower left side. My welds aren't pretty but they do work. I'll be glad when this operation is completed!

As mentioned before, I looked at the microwave. I pulled it out and wire-brushed the rusty parts inside. The more rust I removed, the more I found. The paint just peeled up and revealed yet more rust. It really wasn't very impressive for a microwave that I purchased in November of 2011 and used until May of 2014 then stored in a dry location! I don't think 30 months is a good life for a microwave!

Anyway, I kept working on the rust with steel brush and scraped the paint away with a plastic paint scraper. After a while I noticed that the rust wasn't surface rust. It was rusted through in places. How on earth is this possible? There was so much rust that repairing the microwave just seems pointless. Certainly I can deal with rust. Looking at the holes in the bottom of the roller recess, it just seems to me that the microwave is beyond repair.

Sadly, I took the microwave out of the bus. I'll have to replace it with something else. So, for the moment it's sitting on the ground awaiting disposal or recycling.

I had hoped at least to get the electrical inlet hole made but still, I have made progress. Indeed maybe I might have made faster progress had I used 3/32 rods from the start. I didn't know that at the time for I am but a self-taught amateur welder.

 

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.

Turkey day!

No. It's too early for Thanksgiving but not too early for online turkeys. They say things come in threes and I have two so far.

In my work toward completing the bus, I ordered a Nema 6-30P inlet off some twit on eBay. Needless to say, a couple of days after I ordered, I suddenly had a bizarre note to the effect my paid order was cancelled at my request. No such request had been made. I wouldn't mind betting they advertised something they didn't possess!

In my work toward a solar system, my plan is to use rechargeable D cells for my lighting etc, I hunted around online for information. Drawing pretty much a blank, I put a question on a solar power group. Let's just say nobody ever read my question and I won't be back.

Yesterday for $15 I saw a simplistic solar charger in Harbor Freight. It was basically a solar panel and a diode plus an expensive plastic box. Somehow I doubt it'd live up to its claims. I remember trying to charge a cellphone off a larger solar panel. It took a full week to get enough charge for a 15 minute conversation.

The third turkey arrived today. This is why I'm building my motorhome, of course. The positions available in South Carolina don't put food on the table for they all pay 3rd world wages with 3rd world employment conditions. Indeed, South Carolina is a 3rd world country in the middle of the richest country on earth! I'd applied for an admin position on one of the jobs websites. I had an email back...
I got your resume from a job you applied for on Monster.com.  I just wanted to follow up with you to see what you are looking for in your job hunt and to see if I could assist you in your career search.  Please contact me if you are available to come in and meet with me about how I can help you in your search.
That was a bit suspicious. Clearly the position I'd applied for was the same level of fakery as that mysterious Nigerian prince that wants to give me millions of dollars. I played along...
I'm looking for admin/office/clerical, preferably as a manager but I'll take lower positions if it means a job with a future, real wages and full time hours.

I presume the position I applied for was clickbait rather than a real job?
The fellow responded, denying that the position was clickbait while at the same time, proving that it was...
Our job posting usually cover more than one position since they have similar requirements.  Currently we have 12 administrative assistant positions that all have similar requirements, so instead of posting 12 separate opening, we can cover more ground with 5 or 6 postings.  That being said, they are all real jobs.  Please let me know if you would like to come in and meet with me so I could assist you in your hunt.
 
I look forward to hearing from you.
There's all this emphasis on coming into their office for no clearly visible reason. I'm wondering if it's like the college that asked me to interview then appeared to ask for a bribe. I don't do bribes. Maybe that's why I have such problems finding work? Maybe I'm just too honest? Well, I'd rather be honest than compromise my principals! So, I responded...
I'm happy for you to assist. I remain to be convinced that spending time and money on coming to see you will achieve anything that cannot be achieved via email or telephone.

You have seen my resume. I went a little over the top by putting full job duties instead of the main ones but as you can see, I've been doing admin/clerical/office all my life. With 12 vacancies, I would welcome your putting me forward for them.
Needless to say, since I clearly wasn't going to be a cornucopia for the guy, showering him in chocolates, champagne, roses (or God knows what else), I never heard back from him. And agencies wonder why I block their phone numbers!

Meanwhile, an email arrived from my dad suggesting I put a deadline on finding a decent job in the US. Then simply sell everything at the deadline and just write off the US and go back to an equally uncertain future in Britain.

Today I worked more on the roof seams. They all need work. Truthfully, they all need to be sandblasted, painted and caulked professionally. All I can do is to treat the worst and hope for the best. It's going to rain tomorrow so that's all I have time to do.

It was just a case of caulking where I'd sprayed with anti rust etc. Oddly enough, I'd just done that when the sky began to darken. Clearly I finished the caulking just in time, even though rain is not forecast until tomorrow.

When I worked on the roof a few months ago, I painstakingly climbed up and down a ladder. This time, it seems easier to climb up the ladder then on the way down to slide onto the hood then climb down from the hood. In theory I could do that in reverse using a pair of folding step stools. That would take so little room I could make a pair of step stools part of normal equipment.

A small thing done as well was to fasten the CB radio aerial cable into place using silicone caulk. I taped it with aluminum tape while the silicone sets. I must admit it looks tidier. One day I might even get around to replacing the drivers fan!

After that I commenced work on the battery/cable compartment by cutting some of the steel bedframes that were in the bus. The aperture seems to be 24 inches wide so I'm cutting the frame to 29 inches to working space.

The plan is to make the compartment capable of holding a marine deep cycle battery in addition to the breaker box. Dependent upon the size of the battery, I might make space for two.

In other news, I'd ordered a Nema 6-30P inlet from Amazon since the jerk on eBay decided to cancel my order. It must be the same jerk under a different name. He cancelled the order again, claiming again that I cancelled yet I know I did not. Well, perhaps that was for the best because I've had a different idea on how to achieve my goal. I'm rather more in favor of using a standard 5-15 pair of inlets with the 30A cable ending in a Y junction. That would have the effect that I could use a standard household cable to plug into one inlet or a 30a cable to plug into a splitter. As I'm aiming for low power usage, the 5-15 has much merit!

The marine battery specifications are decent enough for low power usage. By that I'm thinking charging D cells, AA cells, phones etc and possibly also using a small electric element for boiling water in a cup etc. It's 105AH, 44lbs and measures 11x10x7. That means I could have two in the compartment in an L formation or even two in there side by side.

I continued cutting the long members for the compartment until I had four the same length. The offcuts are between 18 and 19 inches long. They will be trimmed to 14 inches. That will allow a battery to be seated end on. Looking at the official battery compartment, there is a roof over it. That, presumably, is designed as a fire guard should the battery catch fire. It looks a good idea and since steel is plentiful I'll probably implement something similar.

I am definitely on the home stretch!

50 miles for what?

Today I took a 50 mile round trip drive to Harbor Freight. Nobody else stocked a grit blaster. It wasn't expensive either. Of course, I paid $2 more to get one with a bigger hopper though in practice it wasn't necessary.

Rather than paying $35 for a huge bag of soda, I went to Walmart and got 3 boxes of soda for $2 each. As it turned out, I didn't even finish one box.

What with driving and so on, I didn't do an awful lot then just after I'd blasted all of the seams that needed attention, the sun went and hid itself. The soda wasn't all that abrasive. Perhaps I might have been better using sugar but all the loose rust and loose paint flakes have gone.

After that, each area was sprayed with rust killing spray. Tomorrow the plan is to repaint each seam with grey Rustoleum and then, when that's dry to go over the affected seams with silicone caulk. Following that, there is a plan to repaint the entire roof since it wasn't fully covered when I rollered it in December.

An area where I had previously used rust killer remained rust free. Clearly the stuff works! The silicone had not stuck well to it so I'll paint and the silicone will stick to paint.

Looking at the steel of the old bed frames, it looks ideal for the battery/cable compartment. I had thought of it as too heavy but it looks good enough. The floor of the compartment might have to be plywood for speed and economy. Unlike the hillbillies, I'll be painting my plywood and keeping it drained and ventilated.

The roof

Yesterday I hunted in vain for a tool to use with the compressor to blast the silicone sealant out of the affected seams on the bus. The plan was to use sugar as the blasting compound principally because its more available and cheaper than alternatives.

Proceeding gingerly along the roads, there was little to no sign of flood damage. Indeed, I had to make a detour to see any. Clearly although the flooding has been tragic, the areas I normally visit have been spared. One would not know this, given the constant media coverage. Indeed, I even saw some articulated trucks on the road. Clearly the fears of road instability have been greatly over stated. Indeed this is probably why so many people are ignoring roadblocks.

Visiting store after store, the story was the same at each one. They had grit blasting tools listed but none ever carried in the store despite what the company website claimed. The one place that would have them was Harbor Freight but as visiting them would involve crossing the somewhat suspect Lake Murray dam, I passed on the chance. Instead I shall investigate to see if small areas can be repaired and shall put tape over the affected seams. Maybe after the floods and danger diminish, I can visit Harbor Freight.

The alternative to Harbor Freight is either Northern Tool and a trip across the dam or heating the silicone and scraping it out manually. Had I started that yesterday rather than wasting fuel and hours driving, I could have been done. That would have been today's plan had I not had another fever. It seems I have some kind of rolling virus. I gather others complain of the same virus and how it lasts about a month. That must have been shy yesterday's shopping was do tiring and lackluster.

Today I purchased from eBay a battery powered shower head. The basic plan is to heat water, dump it into my cooler then use that water to shower with. Unlike other shower heads, this one is powered by 4 D cells.

The advantage there is that unlike the rechargeable shower heads with built in batteries, the batteries can be changed. Unlike the 12v plugin shower heads, it runs off a power supply with more possibilities. By that I mean that if I don't have freshly charged D cells, I can use alkaline D cells. Coincidentally, my LED lantern also uses D cells.

That all has me thinking about solar panels to charge AA and D cells. For simple small cell charging, the solar panel need not be gigantic nor expensive. Indeed, 4 D cells might be all that's needed to power my forthcoming front door unlocking system.

Looking at the solar panels available is pretty mind boggling! The whole thing seems vastly complicated. All I want to do is to put a small solar panel on the roof, connect it to a battery charger inside the bus and be done. It's not simple though. As ever, it seems that what I want to do is unusual and not catered toward.

A short term fix for my plumbing came to me this morning. Yesterday while in Walmart I noticed 5 gallon gas cans. My thought is to collect waste water under the bus in a bucket then decant to a 5 gallon gas can for subsequent disposal. For potable water, a few off the shelf camp water containers would work.

Needless to say, these are all inexpensive things that can easily be upgraded at a later stage. Even the cable compartment, rickety as it is, can be upgraded at a later stage. Consideration has to be therefore given to completing the shower plumbing and the interior soft furnishings.

Despite feeling pretty rough, I managed to put a few minutes in, painting the galley floor. It could probably stand more work to attain perfection but it's pretty good. The next thing will be to put a movable vinyl floor covering such as those that protect carpets from mauling by the wheels of swivel chairs.

There are pits and dents in the plywood of the floor. These are due to the plywood the hillbillies laid being of low quality. Still, those sections were in good enough condition not to have to redo which is why they were left. This is probably why they tiled their floor with such disastrous consequences.

Idly I considered visiting the roof. There is an area that needs more grey paint but the paint can is in the middle of the galley workbench which cannot be accessed due to wet paint! Grabbing the ladder, I leaned it against the bus more in hope than anticipation.

As tomorrow is also a non work day, due to the recent floods, I can leave roof stuff until tomorrow. I'll probably just tape the seams with aluminum tape if I can't clearly see any possible leak sites. At least then, it'll all be done. I did look online at a Harbor Freight grit blasting attachment. Online its $17.99 plus $6.99 shipping. Instore it'll likely be the same but a quick calculation showed that gas getting to and from the store was likely to be $4.30 plus a couple of hours time. I think the wear and tear on my car is more than the $2.69 saving. That is, of course, if I opt to clean out the seams instead of taping and painting.

That's what I was going to do. What I really ended up doing was to head to the roof anyway. It took one trip and a look to see the problem. What has happened is rust has lifted the silicone sealant and allowed water underneath.

The three affected seams aren't too bad. It puts paid to my idea of using a wire brush though. I need to get under the seam more than I can with a brush. This looks like it will have to be a grit blaster and the sooner the better! I'll have to hit Harbor Freight tomorrow. For the moment the seams are duct taped against unexpected rain. It looks like I need a lot of rust killing paint and probably some real baking soda since I don't need to blast out silicone. Oddly enough the hard to remove silicone came off easily with a razor blade. I'm glad I caught it before it became too bad. I have no idea what the other seams are really like though they seem OK. The good news is that where I applied rust killer before, without removing any rust, there was very little live rust.