More steel

Today I got on with cutting more steel. The actual cutting was pretty fast and straightforward. Everything has been cut over-sized. There will be a lot of trimming needed before I can actually use any of the steel I cut. The point was though to grab the steel I need before it all vanishes.

Last night I'd been thinking about the upper window of the back door. It's not really needed, to be honest. In fact I could easily install a much smaller window. That, like the two windows each side of the door, is not an immediate priority. The bottom back window is more of a priority but even that is not as much of a priority as installing the 3rd battery.

So, having cut my two pieces of steel, I set to and removed the chunks of insulation that were on them. As yesterday I vanished in a cloud of insulation dust and my clothes and my drill were covered in white dust. I was glad of my googles though a respirator would have been nice. One day I might get one.

After cutting and cleaning the steel came the painting. The cold galvanizing compound spray gave up spraying before the can was actually empty. This is why largely I prefer paint pots and a paint brush. The second sheet (shown) I started on the left with cold galvanizing compound but that ran out after about 6 inches of spraying. I switched to bumper spray and did another foot or so before that ran out. Then I moved on to white which ran out after a few seconds. Then I pulled out some silver spray that I'd bought in error and used that. That just about did the last foot or so before that finally ran out too. At least I got to use my odd ends of paint. All it has to do is to prevent rust.

The cold galvanizing spray won't burn when I weld so I don't have to worry about it. The white enamel paint on a fridge (the other side) won't burn when I weld either. All other paints seem to burn and catch fire when I weld. That's not great.

I would have cut steel to make the battery holder today but what with taking a truckload of trash to the dump, cutting the steel, cleaning and painting it and making a two piece sheet of aluminium to block a rat hole in the house, I just ran out of day. Mind, cutting and cleaning the steel was pretty exhausting work and my arms are sore from that.

Getting steel

One of my projects is to replace the windows on each side of the back door and the lower window of the back door of the bus with steel. This is purely because they are not actually used for anything. They already have internal panels over them.

As my friend was throwing out an old cooker, I asked if I could have some of the steel sheet that it was made from. As I was given the OK, I cut one of the sides off and found that it was very rusty. That precluded my using it for anything whatsoever since I don't want to have to clean up rust if I don't have to.

Now that cooker has a very interesting history. It was purchased secondhand from a local secondhand appliance dealer. The cooktop was used a little over the year it had been owned by my friend but the oven was used only once because that's when the cooker would give electric shocks to the chef. As the secondhand dealer had a policy of repairing defective appliances only if they are brought into the store, that meant she had a duff cooker that was to all intents and purposes unreturnable and a complete waste of the $100 she spent on it.

Taking the side off revealed a lot of pine straw inside and a lot of rust, heavy at the bottom and lighter at the top. This would lead me to believe it had been left outside with a tarp over it and that it had been outside for quite some time before the secondhand dealer happened across it. I believe I went through two complete Harbor Freight discs cutting that side off! As it was, the steel was unusable.

The cooker door should not have had rust inside it but it did. Thus, it is my theory that cooker had been made of bits of old cookers, was definitely not safe when it was sold and was in fact quite the lemon. It would not surprise me for the "dealer" to have a long and illustrious criminal record.

I am very fortunate in that my friend bought several appliances from that rascal. Some are fridges and because the insulation is glued to the inside of the metal surfaces of a fridge, there was little likelihood of there being any serious rust involved.  I thus decided to use the top freezer door from an upright fridge-freezer as an experiment.

From previous experience, the foam insulation has to be scraped away slowly. Previous experience also showed that cutting thin steel really eats up Harbor Freight cutting disks. So, I started work and cut the steel from the front of the door. Interestingly, I used a Walmart cutting disk and it didn't eat away the disk at all quickly. It seems thus that Walmart cutting disks are better value - pretty much like Walmart angle grinders.

Having cut the steel out, I had to lever it up slowly. It was well stuck to the insulation. Eventually The steel came free but with a very thin film of insulation adhering to it. That took quite a few minutes to remove using an abrasive disk in my battery pistol drill. It also took the complete charge of one Harbor Freight pistol drill battery.

Having cut and cleaned the portion of the freezer door that I need for one of the back windows, it was bare, bright steel. Thus I whipped out a can of Rustoleum cold galvanizing spray and sprayed all the bare steel.

There is more steel available, obviously. I just didn't feel like working on it today. Once I have it cut and painted then I shall have a steel sheets that can be put over both sides and the bottom window. Having said that, I'm wondering whether a smaller back window would be more appropriate. That's easily doable using the steel available.

The problem with solar charge controllers.

Well, more accurately, the problem with every solar charge controller - regardless of whether it is PWM or MPPT or even direct charging is that they just don't work well.

Picture this scenario: Loads of sunlight, full batteries and the charge controller is doing what it should be - trickle-charging the battery. That's fine. Then say you want to run something like a pair of electric fans that demand a hefty current. That's where the charge controllers all go belly up.

What seems to happen is that they keep trickle-charging the battery while the fans draw current from the battery at a higher rate.  Picture this - fans drawing 4A from the battery and 7A of solar panels in full, glorious sunlight. What you'd imagine would be happening is that the charge controller would be saying "hey, we have plenty sunlight so we can run these fan things directly from the panel power, supplementing that as needed from the battery. That would be the sane, sensible thing to do.

Um, no. That kind of thinking is far too advanced for makers of solar charge controllers. What actually happens (it doesn't matter if it's MPPT or PWM or any other flavor) is that the charge controller keeps putting that trickle charge in until the voltage of the battery drops low enough to merit drawing more power from the panels. So the net effect is the solar panel power is just being wasted and the battery used instead. It's akin to having a free lunch offered to you but opting to go to a restaurant and paying instead.

As far as I can see, most of the solar charge controller engineers need to be lined up against a wall and used for ballistic testing by the ammunition companies. That's all they're worth. What a cockamamie way of building charge controllers!

Wow! More progress...

Again I was in the bus. I spent rather longer than I wanted to, installing the cabling for the shower fan. This was made easier because I'd already installed a spare cable to the inlet on this side of the bus. I have no spare cables ready run now. I don't think at this point that really is at all relevant since I have just about everything that I can think of connected.

I have to report that installing the switch and the fan were a complete success. I still have 4 rivet holes to fill but that's small work. I will probably have to rebuild my riveter.

Today started with rain and it rained heavily last night. Later it dried up and was quite pleasant. I started a new project - covering over the lower window of the back door. For that I needed some sheet steel and what better donor of sheet steel than an old washing machine?

Here, people buy a lot of secondhand appliances. This was a washing machine. Somebody seems to have painted it black over the white. The front had a lovely sized sheet of steel. Of course the only problem with using an angle grinder on sheet steel is that it really eats up cutting disks.

Nevertheless, the front was removed in short order and the remains of the washing machine returned to the storage area. Out of curiosity I tried the lid against some of the smaller windows but it was substantially too small. The big sheet from the front will have to be cut carefully to size.

There it is and it's a pretty big chunk. Well, after that I started cutting it to the right size but my grinding wheel didn't particularly care for the thin metal. Thus I have to get more grinding wheels when I'm out tomorrow.

It has got to the point where it's not really usable. There's only about an inch and a half to two inches of usable disk before they become so stumpy that they're unusable. I don't get this problem cutting thick metal. It's the thin stuff that does my disks in.

Well, that was all my achievements for the day. Not much and there's a pile left to work on.

Things done and things not done.

As I had to do a course at work for half a day I used the second half and went shopping. First off there was Harbor Freight. They had more cable wrap, a pair of cheap ratcheting crimpers for the spade connectors I use. This is important since I damaged a muscle in my right arm. Sad to say I didn't get it from punching anybody's daylights out. I have no idea what happened. It just means I cannot apply the force needed to crimp with a traditional crimper. 

After Harbor Freight I stopped in at Northern Tool. There awaited me quite a surprise. In fact a delightful surprise. I managed to get my favorite 7014 welding rods. Now I can get on with cutting some steel to weld over the bottom back window. I can also get on with welding the steel ankle I bought later from Tractor Supply into a battery holder for my 3rd 35AH battery.

Originally I planned to have just one battery but that didn't really work out. Now I have two and it really makes a huge difference. Three will probably be the ideal. It's not a capacity problem but a discharge rate problem. I cant get enough power out of the single battery in the time permitted. What would have saved me money would have been if I'd gone lithium in the beginning but this whole thing has been a learning progress.

That's the current state of the cockpit - wires to be installed under the bus for the new battery, a 5W solar panel used for testing things, tools and supplies galore. You can even see the new roof vent though I'll definitely need a dry day to install that. I need dry days for the underbody wiring, the welding and the roof vent.

A small thing done today was to complete the wiring for the external solar panel switch. Needless to say I had to pull out my meter to work out which was on and which was off. The switch needs some double-sided sticky stuff to stick it firmly to the ceiling but it's fine otherwise. 

The shower fan finally got installed. The wiring remains to be completed. I just didn't feel like doing it when I'd put the fan in place. That required some soldering since the crimped connections weren't conducting electricity as they should have. That's the problem with the toy wires these CPU fans use. Unlike the bigger fan, this 90mm fan does move air at the base of the shower. I can feel it. That means there's good circulation and it should be good for drying clothes put on a rack in the shower.

No spectacular progress today. Nothing is quite completed yet. Still the same things need doing:

• The sheet metal on the back door needs a dry day.
• The underbody wiring needs a dry day and access to the compressor for the final bit. I'm still waiting for my 10A breaker,
• The roof vent needs to be switched out. I have some epoxy putty and rivets as well as the new event. Since I rebuilt the long handle riveter, that works. My short hand riveter now needs to be rebuilt. The roof vent also needs a dry day.
• The solar switch just needs a piece of double-sided padded tape. I've used all that I have and just need to find more.
• The shower fan needs the wiring to be completed and the switch installed. I have all the bits.

One of the other things I got the other day at Harbor Freight was a metal detector. I can see a fault with the Harbor Freight one in that the telescoping section doesn't work well. It was bought though so that I can check the ground where I want to move the bus to for nails etc. Those things vanish into the sand then surface unexpectedly. Before I move the bus to a new parking spot, I'll put down some tarp or something so that I can suppress grass growth and hence rust. 

Thank God I'm not a millennial!

Today I resolved to do two things - install the shower fan and switch and install the rear solar-input switch and wires. That was the plan. Looking at the box I'd mounted the switch in, there are two small mounting brackets molded into the plastic. Those I measured at exactly 1/8th inch diameter. That's way too small for my self-drilling screws. It's about the size of a 6-32 screw but I don't have any 6-32 rivnuts nor do I have any means to install a 6-32 rivnut as my rivnut puller doesn't have a thread that small.

In the end I decided to bodge it a bit and use the cables to secure the switch box against the ceiling until I can get some double-sided adhesive pads to slip between the box and the ceiling. That'll mean a trip to the store.

In order to put the switch in place I needed to crimp connectors onto the cables. The first of the two crimped on nicely. Crimping the second I had an almighty pain in my right arm. That was pretty much the end of work for today. I'd clearly upset an injury from last week to my elbow. I'd wondered what I'd done - clearly I'd torn or pulled a muscle somehow. My right arm strength is now much reduced.

So, today's two projects are being shelved until my arm heals. Both require crimping to be done. Posting the problem on a mechanics group got the response that I was a silly parsnip for not using a ratcheting cable crimper. In my defence I didn't know such a thing existed and had been using this obscenity from Radio Shack for the past 5 years.

Clearly I can't keep using that. I had a look online and found some from China but with August delivery dates. I need it way before then. At this point it's probably worth spending $20 - $25 for one locally than $5 on one from China that could take a couple of months to arrive - if it ever actually does arrive. I'm still waiting for my 10A self-resetting breaker. The tracking number, of course, is fake. Looking at the seller's feedback, they seem to suddenly have a large amount of negative feedback. So, that's something else to buy when I'm out and about again.

China and eBay seem to go in waves. I'll have a long period of success followed by short periods when everything either doesn't arrive or arrives but is junk. Right now the bus is pretty damned close to completed. It was completed before - or so I thought - then I went on a short trip and found out the shortcomings.

Left to complete - from memory (which is fickle):

• Bathroom fan - including filling old screw holes with rivets.
• External solar switch installation.
• Installation of the cable from the main battery compartment to the distribution point under the bus - including installation of an as yet to arrive 10A self resetting breaker.
• Attachment of some cable wraps to as yet unattached to beams using my air tool.
• Installation of wires from the second charge controller into the battery compartment.
• Construction of a battery holder to have a small battery in the battery compartment.
• Installation of the new roof vent.
• blanking off flush, the lower back door window.

I have had a problem with wasps under the bus. Today I believe two of the three I'd seen got inside the bus. I raced to the house and got the wasp spray, hitting them and knocking them down. The cockpit of the bus now smells like a refinery and that stuff leaves a nasty smell in my nose for ages after. With those dead, I hope there will be no more wasp nest under the bus.

I say Thank God I'm not a Millennial for two reasons. First - a millennial would go crying to their mommy or a physician or a psychiatrist. Second, unlike a millennial, I know its just an accident and there's nobody to blame or sue.

At least 4 inches of rain fell today

After I unplugged the drain holes in the roof vent 4 inches of rain would have had water pouring inside the bus. There was none - aside from the persistent drip over the instrument panel. Even the wall that usually feels moist didn't feel too bad. I might have cracked the wet problem.

I'd been outside to work on the bus. I'd started to put together a switch to turn the power from the external rear solar input on and off. The default (which is manual) is supposed to be "off" just in case somebody accidentally plugs in something of too high voltage. It was the usual comedy of errors but I overcame them all to end up with this.

The holes in the plastic case take #6 bolts so I'll have to see if I can find my #6 rivnuts. With that mounted in place and all in cable sheathing, it should all be quite presentable. I'm putting the plan to put a voltage switch on the extraction fans on hold for now. The new plan with the new simpler switch is to try installing a 3rd battery so the simple switch will be all I'll need.

After that I started to put wires into my new battery connectors. That went well enough for the first three wires. As the wires are 8 gauge I had to use a butane torch to melt the solder and heat the wire. An ordinary soldering iron is not hot enough! So, having got the ends of the wires tinned and the cups on the ends of the connectors full of solder, it was time to solder the wires in. That was pretty easy - just hold the end in pliers, dunk the tinned end of the wire into the solder in the cup and wait for the solder to solidify - that took several minutes for each connection.

Having done 3 wires out of the four, the Heavens opened. It rained cats and dogs and a few camels and baboons too. By the time it ended, the trash cans I'd left open in the yard to dry had at least 4 inches and possibly more water in them. That did not dry out the nasty trashcans and didn't dry out the massive maggots in the trashcans either.

As the ground is sandy, water drains readily. I was able to head out to complete my 4th connection. That means I now have connectors ready to connect to a battery and a cable I can connect into the battery system. I have 3 spare connectors. My plan with them is to make spares for my existing connectors. 

At the moment there is a wasp nest under the bus. I can't see clearly where it is though. At one time they were building a nest by the fuel tank. I took care of that with some PB Blaster. Now I have proper wasp and hornet spray but they're building their nest elsewhere. I'm suspecting it's somewhere over the transmission so I might just have to start the engine and run it for 20 minutes or so just to get it hot enough to drive them away.

Under the bus I want to install my new battery cables. I'm still waiting on a self-resetting breaker from China. I might just break down and buy one locally though since I saw the car parts store sells them. I want also to install the wires for the solar battery charger for the main driving batteries. Finally, I want to use the air compressor in conjunction with my air socket wrench to put cable ties where I can't currently install them.

Inside the bus I need to finish the switch and cabling from the solar input to the charge controller and finish installing the bathroom fan. On top of the bus I need to replace the vent. Other than that there are a couple of things I can do to tidy up internal electrics but that's pretty much it.

There is an idea I had for installing hot water via an instant 120v water heater and an idea I had for installing a 5K BTU AC unit powered by plugin electricity but both are plugin ideas that I'm not currently going to pursue. I keep thinking about installing a bigger gas cooktop but I'm not really all that sure I want to go that far when I can just use my portable butane cooker on a folding table outside. Another idea I had involved using a Harbor Freight tarp and connecting it somehow to the bus and stakes screwed into the ground. Or perhaps just an umbrella that screws into the ground.