Inlet socket

Today was spent utilizing the warm temperatures. Inside the bus it was a rather sweltery 82F and I sat in the bus to write today's blog entries. First off, the bad. Two of the $3.99 self-adhesive paper blinds that I installed are falling down. This does not surprise me one little bit. My experience of glue is that in general it's just not very good. Those things are helf up by a self-adhesive strip. I can see that I shall have to go back to Walmart and buy some proper roller blinds. Still, it's only 5 that I have that are self-adhesive so that's not exactly going to break the bank.

The main thing today was to work on installing the power inlet in the side of the bus. It took a while but I managed to drill a hole large enough to accommodate the Nema 6-30P inlet (rated 30A at 250v). Now that socket though it's rated at 30A should easily handle 50A at 120V. Having said that, my current cable is 20A and my planned maximum is going to be 30A. I just don't see any need for more than 30A - at least not in a motorhome.

Having drilled the hole, I slipped under the bus (how I detest being in such a cramped space) and painted primer on the inside. It's supposed to be a rust-killing primer so I'll have to see if it works on the small specs of rust that were on the bare steel. Then on with a mission for m'lady for about 30 minutes.

By the time I returned from my mission, the primer was dry and I managed to pop the power inlet cover temporarily into place. It looks pretty darned good, to be honest. There is orange paint on the edges of the cover from yesterday when I used orange spray paint to mark the outline. I love orange paint for just that purpose. It seems to scrape off with my thumbnail so that shouldn't be difficult to clean off.

The next order of the day was to drill a few more holes in order to attach the inlet directly to the side of the bus. The inlet will be secured to the bus and the housing I bought will fit over it. Really and truly, I could have done my own housing using PVC piping but I didn't think of that in time. There's a problem with the housing as only 2 of the 4 screws will work. Two shreared off during a test assembly. Two should hold it though. 

Having got all the requisite holes, I again slipped under the bus and painted the inside with topcoat. I'll probably put a rubberised spray over the inside later. Of course it follows that I also painted the outside of the bus too. Both times I used grey Rustoleum. Now if it peels off nicely primed, clean, dry, steel then we will have absolute proof how ghastly Rustoleum is. I await the results with baited breath!

Following this, I bolted the flange on the inlet through holes drilled in the bodywork and through the socket cover that I'd bought. The socket back, I didn't have time to install though seeing as how two of the four threaded holes have bolts broken off in them, I suspect I might be wise to replace it or to follow a different solution. Indeed, the plastic tubing solution sounds lighter, more water-resistent, cheaper and though not squirrel proof, definitely worthy of consideration. Needless to say, I plugged a spare Nema 6-30 plug into the socket and it worked brilliantly.

I'm not sure I got the socket 100% square but it's pretty darned close. Somebody would have to be really anal to notice that!

Next week's task is to build on what I have done today, to install a socket backing and possibly some protective PVC tubing over my electrical cables. Once that's done, I can work on installing the main breaker. It'll mean yet more grubbing around underneath the bus and put me a bit further behind schedule but I want to get this done right! As I always say - a job's not done unless it's done right.

Unexpected achievements and a bad Kahr.

Today was, I had thought, going to be a day of zero progress on the bus. How wrong I was. I did most of the things I intended to do for tomorrow!

Work, which was scheduled for today, was to have been a full day of training but that was truncated at 1pm when two of the trainers were indisposed. Thus, being sent home early, I popped into Lowes (hiss, spit) for some plumbing pieces (of which more at a later date) and headed home.

Arriving home at 3pm, there were 3 good hours of daylight left so they got put to use. Last night I had been thinking about a handbasin for the bus. I considered the end of a small gas cylinder. I'd noticed there was such a cylinder on the junk pile. Thus, out of an abundance of caution, I placed it on the ground, ready to ensure it was empty. The cylinder said "helium" on it but it could well have been refilled with propane. Labels don't always mean what they say!

Not wanting to cut into a cylinder that might have propane in it, I decided on remote ventillation so I grabbed my (somewhat disappointing Kahr PM9) and fired a single shot from about 25 yards away. The shot did not immediately appear to have hit the cylinder to I aimed for another shot whereupon I discovered the blasted thing had jammed. Racking the slide, I found it kept jamming. In the end I put it away. That Kahr PM9 has been nothing but trouble since I bought it. I wish to Heavens I'd gone for a revolver rather than that stupid thing. Revolvers never jam! I would hate to be surprised by a bad guy when carying a PM9. I am pretty sure the PM9 would be more effective simply hurled at the bad guy. In terms of penetration the PM9 managed to get through one side of the (very thin) steel then totally failed to make an exit hole. I can hear the bullet rattling around inside. I'm going out on a limb and going to say that I just don't think the PM9 would penetrate a bad guy's shirt!

Putting the cylinder out of the way for the moment - the plan is to cut the top off to turn it into a handbasin - I proceeded onto today's work. I'll have to see if I can weld something this thin. That might present a significant challenge!

Today the plan was to complete welding the patch over the hole in the side of the bus cut by the hillbillies. That took me all of the remaining daylight. It was just a laborious process of building up steel and filling gaps until eventually the result was pretty good. It looked rough from the outside but it'll do.

I put the power socket cover over the area where it'll be fitted and sprayed with orange paint. Then I pulled out my angle grinder but instead of a cutting disk, I put a grinding disk. This worked surprisingly quickly and ground the excess welds flat to the point the socket cover fitted without rocking. It did reveal two small holes in the welding where the welding has not really filled the gap. These holes are minimal. I had thought 6011 rods would penetrate and fill holes but oh well. 

Next, the whole lot got cleaned up with a wire brush then painted with brown undercoat. This bus does not have to look perfect - it just has to work well. The undercoat went on well enough. Tomorrow I'll put undercoat on the back of the plate then paint the front with grey paint. But before I do that, I'll make the holes for the socket cover. With any luck - if the paint inside is dry in time, I might put a second coat inside and then install the remains of the underbody electrics. The main breaker inside will be installed at a later date. Some have asked why I'm putting a main breaker box. The answer is simple - the main breaker is there to protect the cable from overloading. Currently I have a 20A cable but I'll also make up a 30A cable and might get a 10A cable too. The reason for this is twofold. Firstly different sites offer different facilities and secondly, the heavier rated cables cost more per foot. If I can park close to a power point I can use my heavier cables and get more power. There is another thing in that the heavy cables being more expensive are more prone to theft.

More welding excitement

Reading about welding last night, I found the difference between 6011 and 6013 rods is that 6011 is a penetrating steel that will flow into crevices and 6013 is a rod that will just lie on the surface. As it happens, I'm out of 6013 rods so I went to work on welding two of the pieces of roller shutter assembley together. While doing so, I noted that the 1/16 rod was much easer to work with than the 3/32. I think 3/32 might be a bit much for my welder. It took quite a while to weld the two pieces of steel together which was fine. I must say though that the bitter cold outside was more challenging than the welding.

The biggest problems when welding today were that the two pieces of steel moved slightly in relation to each other. That meant that it was slightly skewed. No matter - it should work just fine as it is. In fact, if there's anything I've built that's geometrically perfect, I'd probably faint! The other problem was that one of the pieces of steel warped while I was welding it.
The warping wasn't expected. The movement of the parts was something I hoped wouldn't happen. I'd wondered whether I should drill and rivet the two pieces together first but decided to wedge it with a brick. Clearly I rocked the whole lot at some point and movement occured.

The next stage was to trim the excess steel off and straighten the bent steel. The angle grinder made quick work of trimming off most of the excess.  Straightening the warped steel was straightforward too - I just pulled out Mohammed's screwdriver and whacked it back into shape.
Having done that, I'd had enough of the bone-chilling wind howling around me and the daylight - such as it was - which wasn't that good due to low hanging and ominous clouds began to fade. Apparently sleet is forecast. I hurriedly sanded where the paint had come off the steel due to welding, brushed the slag off the welds and slapped rust-killing primer on the metalwork. Interestingly, I'd sprayed some clean steel with Rustoleum zinc paint a week ago and it's now rusty. Typical bloody Rustoleum. I really wish I could find paint locally that's not utter garbage. I did idly try some paint with a rather suspicious name of "Miracle" a few days ago. The only miracle was that it was cheaper than Rustoleum. Let's just say it achieved a surface peel in 5 days as opposed to several months for Rustoleum.

Inside the bus I put up the two blackout blinds in the bedroom. One went on crookedly but it works. The other went on quite well and looks pretty good. It's more a privacy thing than anything else.
Following that I put the final white blind up and then on a window that it wasn't possible to put a blind on, I cut a shower curtain and stuck that up with self-adhesive velcro. I'll have to see how all this self-adhesive stuff lasts. I suspect not very long but only time will tell.
Tomorrow I want to try to complete my breaker box compartment and to replace the old cable compartment totally. Before that though, I need to experiment welding thin steel. I really hate that thehillbillies put in that dreadful cable compartment. In fact, I don't think anything they did with the bus was worthwhile. I'm wondering if they simply gave up and sold it when they discovered how half-assed their workmanship had been. 

The big thing is that after I have put the shower curtains up, everything else I do will simply be upgrades. I'll have to order some more 8-24 rivnuts and some 8-24 screw eyes. I did think about self-adhesive stuff but I'm pretty sure all this self-adhesive stuff will fail in the summer heat. I will probably replace the blinds with roller blinds and the shower curtain over the one window with a section cut from a roller blind that's screwed to the framework. I"ll have to wait and see though. 

Even the cable compartment will be an upgrade. The existing compartment is rotted. The new compartment will not rot. Underneath the new compartment I can install the holder for the new power inlet. I bought that the other day. Despite the fact the bottom inch will be visible, it shouldn't be that noticeable. I really didn't want anything hanging below the skirt but I don't think anybody will really notice one or two small things.

A rainy day

I blundered today. When I went out to the bus, it was dry. While I was inside, it began to rain. I had hoped to derust the other side of my steel plates then to paint them ready for welding tomorrow since tomorrow is alleged to be going to be a dry day. We all know the weather forecasters speak with forked tongues though!

While I was in the bus, I sat down and completed my second 20A cable. The one terminates in a NEMA 6-30R which will plug straight into the NEMA 6-30C when the battery compartment is completed. Construction in failing light was not easy but was completed fairly swiftly. I have to say it doesn't look at all bad. It was confusing that the hot/cold pins had no markings other than X and Y which meant I had to look it up to see which wire should go where. I'll doubtless get the same issue when I wire the NEMA 6-30C.

Meanwhile, since the lottery is now up to $900,000,000, m'lady wanted a ticket so I headed to the store and bought two tickets. I don't so much believe I stand a chance of winning but I'd love to see somebody win $1,000,000,000 and be a billionairre for a day - before the IRS takes 50% and the state takes their 20%, leaving them with probably $400,000,000. It'd be hard but I'm sure that by economising they could just about live on that money! For myself, I"d be happy with any amount

When I went out I planned to stop off at a place where barrels were on sale. Oops... I was in thick traffic and missed the turning so I carried on to Lowes (hiss, spit). There, I realised I'd forgotten the piece of tubing I'd cut to take to Lowes for sizing! Still, I had a look at various plumbing bits. Then I looked at hooks from which I could hang my bucket. Looking at them, they would have had a difficult job coping with the lip inside the skirt on the bus. I passed on buying a hook. That was fortunate as it so happened.

On the way back home, I passed the sign where used barrels were on offer. The actual place was a long way down a lane. Down the end of the lane was a downtrodden looking mobile home. In the yard, a big dog barked noisily while some 15 gallon barrels stood to attention. The fellow must have seen me arrive and opened the door as I approached. He was very pleasant and didn't have change for my $20 so rather then buying two of his $8 apiece 15 gallon drums, I bought 3 with my $24.  They had contained some kind of brownish liquid wax. That was slopping about inside the drums so I made very sure the caps were screwed on firmly in order to avoid spills. Clearly the fellow worked where such barrels were used. I'm very happy with my barrels. I suppose I could put 3 grey water tanks or two grey and a black just in case I decide to put a flush toilet some day.

30 or 45 gallons of waste water is a very attractive idea because that puts me squarely into boondocking territory. I can carry fresh water in jerry cans and to be honest the risk of tampering with fresh water supplies accessible from the outside is low but nice not to have. Indeed, with the waste water, a faucet could empty that into a bucket or a hosepipe.

Looking around the bus today, I noticed a tag from a conversion company. I've never noticed it before but it looks like it was Tennessee hillbillies that did the conversion. Clearly some kind of professional hillbilly conversion.

Now that I have the barrels, all kinds of possibilities open up for plumbing. Of course, the things I would have liked to have done didn't get done. The path is there to go way better than just a bucket.

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.

Rainy day at the Chicken Ranch!

No - not that kind of chicken ranch - the kind that actually has chickens that lay eggs! It's pouring down rain like there's no tomorrow. Indeed, after my hot shower this morning, I've had several cold showers since that made my hot shower seem somewhat arid in comparison.

Being a rainy day, I went shopping after my voluntary work this morning. Stopping off in a few places, I found that the Geek Squad won't work on tablets. I was, fortunately, referred to The SmartPhone Medic. Arriving there I found that they couldn't tell me anything because the boss was away. That begged the question as to why the place was even open and staffed since the staff seem so purposeless.

The next stop was *spit* Lowes where I got some copper tubing to make the base for the coil for my magnet. While there, I looked at the price of cables. $1.15 per foot for 20A and $1.89 per foot for 30A. Needless to say, since I want to set up for both 20A and 30A I bought 20A cable. Now, I don't really see a true requirement for 30A though internally the bus is wired for 50A. I figure a microwave will draw 10-12 amps and a fridge - if I install one - will draw 2-7A.  That's 19A and I can always unplug something if I need to use more amperage. Now I bought 30 feet of 20A cable. That worked out at $34.50 whereas a 30A cable the same length would have been $56.70 - that's appreciably more. I also got a 20A double pole breaker just so I won't accidentally overload the cable if I end up plugging into a 100A, 50A or 30A supply. 30 feet should do for most things. If I need longer cable then 20A is going to save me a bundle. Ready made 20A cable of 25 feet was $80 which I thought excessive! Admittedly I had to buy a 15A plug and 15A socket so theoretically I'll be overloading them. The truth is though that they're made the same as a 20A but with the live pin angled differently. I needed 20A cable in order to supply the welder. If I need more cable - say another 30 feet then the savings with 20A over 30A are much larger.

The general plan is to be able to use 20A and 30A. That's way off in the future though. Right now the plan is to get the bus operational as a motorhome. There's welding to do but that'll have to wait until a dry day. Putting the cable together is a breeze that can be done in approximately 20 minutes. Initially I'll put a 15A socket on one end but after I've got everything done, I'll switch that to one of my Nema 5-30/6-30 connectors.

The big battle is to get things done enough that the bus is operational. Then I can get it retitled as a motor home. Speaking of retitling, today I took advantage of the deluge to visit the DMV to get the retitling papers. As I suspected, nobody wanted to get wet so I popped in to ask which forms I needed. The reeptionist pointed to a seat and told me somebody would be out to help and within a minute or so, a very helpful lady arrived, asked what I needed, zoomed off and returned with some papers. It was all very civilised and very quick.

Once I have the cable/battery compartment completed and a battery installed powering USB and 12V devices, I"ll be ready to retitle. There'll be a lot of tidying and rearranging to be done inside plus installation of roller blinds or drapes as well as the shower curtains but it's all getting tantalisingly close!

Danger, danger danger!

This is why air conditioner engineers make extremely bad electricians! Look at the bare wire to the right. It looks like an earth wire but its connected to the right side neutral bus. Interestingly the live and neutral wires going to the air conditioner unit are both live. It looks like the cheapass that installed the air conditioning unit used 3 wire cable instead of 4 wire, running the two live lines through the live and neutral wires and the neutral through the non insulated earth wire. The result is shocking wiring. I am informed that the incompetents that installed this may well have been a South Carolina firm called Kabiner or something similar. I am apparently the first person in 5 years to open that breaker box! Let's just say I'm very glad I inspected, used a voltmeter and rubber gloves. Thus kind of horrendously dangerous electrical workmanship is far too common in South Carolina!

I still have to cover my conduit with soil but my 30A socket works. It's all correctly wired and working. Sadly, I couldn't bury my cables due to the fact nobody else has which would make putting a shovel in the ground somewhat hazardous. Dish Network for example, laid cable that looks like stitching with alternating above ground and slightly buried cable. The old phone conduit is largely underground but above ground in other places. There are various loops of cable of various types poking out of the ground, hence my decision to lay my conduit on the surface and cover it over. It is most definitely not the recommended solution but the only alternative would have been an aerial cable which would have had to be armored against squirrels.

The end result was a working socket. I tested it with a TT30 to 10-15 adaptor and a fan. Tomorrow, the big test when I plug my welder in. For now though, the electric cable that has been running under m'ladys front door for the past few months is now gone.

I'd been stressing over doing the wiring because I had to look everything up. Normally, I go by what was done before but what had been done before was so horrendously dangerous, it couldn't be used as a guide. As I said, normally I'd bury the conduit but what with it being a low to no traffic area being in a nook by the end of m'ladys trailer, I'm not afraid of foot traffic over the cables.

I braved the Black Friday hoard!

Well, not really. I didn't leave the house until 4pm. By the time I arrived at Lowe's (hiss, spit), the car parks were pretty clear and the roads about as busy or quiet as normal. It was pretty mundane in actual fact.

In Lowe's I found the Nema TT 30R that I was looking for. I looked for an adaptor to turn it into a standard household socket but they didn't have one. I would have left it at that but I spied a stand with 60W equivalent LED bulbs for 99 cents each. As bulbs are dying in m'lady's bathroom, I added four and then a flashing LED necklace to spice things up a bit at work over Christmas. I got out for $16.

Next stop was Walmart where I got the Nema 30TTR to Nema 5-15 adaptor and a can on black spray paint they had for 96 cents. I got out of Walmart for about $8.

Returning home, the mail still has not brought my cooling vanes for my Peltier cooler. This looks a bit suspicious! I ordered it on November 8th and the seller provided a tracking number that doesn't state the vanes actually arrived at the carrier. I'm suspecting they're hoping I won't notice they haven't supplied the product.

Tomorrow I hope to complete the wiring for my RV power socket. The adaptor I bought says "don't use for more than 15A" yet looks to be solid brass connectors. I'm putting 20A through it and will just watch to see what happens. I suspect they labelled it conservatively. Worst case scenario, it melts and catches fire. Not a big deal, where its located.

Maybe Sunday I can do some welding!

As far as the heatsink is concerned, I suspect I'll have to buy another elsewhere and try to get a refund off eBay!

The best laid plans of small marsupials and of homo horizontalis!

I must have been laying down on the job. The idiot at Lowe's sold me a Nema 10-50R when I needed a Nema 30-TTR socket. After battling all day to lay cables, I can't put the socket in place. Without the socket in place, I can't wire the breaker box. Without the wiring completed I can't do any welding.

Tomorrow I might have to venture out in the Black Friday melee to get a socket. Perhaps visiting the mobile home parts store nearby might be in order. Otherwise, its available "cheaply" online at $15 or in my nearby * hiss, spit* Lowe's for $8.

In more positive news I did discover the spare brushes for my angle grinder. I'll have to see if that solves the problem.

Laying the cables needed two people and the conduit isn't even buried yet! The big problem was sliding the 30A cable through 10 foot lengths of conduit. It ends up needing a thin wire passed through, pulling the thicker wire. Even with that, it needed copious quantities of WD-40 to make it possible.

By the end of this weekend, I want to be welding. Heaven knows whether I will be though. Everything this last two months has been characterized by unforeseen delays. Maybe by the 3rd coming of Christ, I might be ready!

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!

China wins again!

I've had major issues with US based suppliers of Nema L6-30 FI connectors. They just don't seem to want to sell the product they advertise. Twice I've had my order cancelled by some joker that says I cancelled yet I did not. Then I found a local supplier that wanted $50 for a $15 part. Others wanted $80 for a $15 part. So, the upshot was I went back to eBay and ordered the part from a Chinese supplier. I expect it will be delivered next week. I just don't get why this is such a problem for US suppliers. It's not as though customer service is a challenging skill. Equally US suppliers seem mathematically challenged. Surely its better to sell 100 of an item at $1 profit per item than to sell 1 at $40 profit?

It rained very heavily overnight. Thus when I checked the inside of the bus, I was pleased to note that water ingress where the ingress had been bad was down to a few drops. The bedroom was down too but there was still a small puddle.

Not so welcome was what had happened to my paintwork. It looks like somebody has thrown acid over the paint. I'm pretty sure they haven't but the hood will have to be redone. There's paint peeling off the rub rails too though curiously only in tiny patches and only on the tops. The roof of the bus is unaffected. It can't be the baking soda because that was all over the roof and the roof is unaffected. It's just the hood (where there was no baking soda) and selected areas on one side of the bus. Notably, under a tree but the tree is only by some affected areas.


If it was a problem with my painting Rustoleum over cellulose then surely the paint would have bubbled universally yet it has not. I'll have to load my sprayer with sugar, sugar blast the affected paint (which peels away in big flakes) then repaint with Rustoleum. Perhaps I'll spray this time.

When its dry, I'll head back to the roof and will attend to the questionable seam. Clearly I missed something. I might just as well work on the other seams while I'm up there - adding more silicone.

The rain came down heavily again, putting paid to the motion of more work outside or under the bus. Indeed, even going out to the bus was too much of a challenge. The rain was that heavy!

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.

On my back again!

But definitely no legs in the air! Today after work I had a few moments to work. Another socket was installed and the cable attached and stapled to the woodwork.

The view from under the counter of the backs of the sockets isn't very exciting. Basically, the cable goes through a 3/4 inch hole in the woodwork.

You can well imagine the fun positions I had to get into in order to drive the nails in when stapling the cables to the woodwork. It's a job I can honestly say isn't done as well as I'd like but given the difficulties, I'm unlikely to want to try again. My nightmare would be if there was something wrong with my wiring that meant I had to redo any of it.

Speaking of wiring, somebody pointed out that if I'd used 6-3 instead of 6-2 cable I could have had the equivalent of 100A available from a 50A four prong socket. Neat idea but my whole aim with this bus is to run it off the least shore power possible. The ultimate aim is to upgrade to 100% solar. That's several years away though and the budget is tight right now.

The view from the front shows my 3 installed sockets. The astute will notice 6 breakers in the box. Three are for potential future expansion. The other three are assigned one per socket.

While I did get the wires in place and through the cable lock at the bottom of the breaker box, I did not have the time nor the inclination to do anything else with them today. That's a job for Thursday night!

Today my $20 inlet socket arrived. It's way deeper than my existing socket housing. I might have an interesting time fixing up a housing for that! Still, its a good thing to have. Now I need to find some plugs to fit it. One will go to a 30A supply and one to a 15A supply.

As I've said before, my plan is to use ever decreasing amounts of mains power with the eventual aim of being able to boondock continually.