It lives!

Today was cold but not overly so. Last night was bitterly cold. The kind of weather when brass monkeys turn up at garages asking about brass welding while clutching two spherical brass objects! The temperature inside the bus dropped to 18 Fahrenheit or minus 8 centigrade. It didn't seem to bother the 7 gallons of water in my 7 gallon water container though.

A few days ago, a close friend was burgled. She caught the burglars in the act so I was a little surprised since she carries a gun that she didn't shoot them as she was entitled to do by law. They were amateurs who, rather than just taking what they wanted and going, had vandalized the place too. The fridge door had been ripped off, for example. That in turn reminded me that I had a mini fridge from the original bus conversion. Needless to say, I offered it to her but she declined, having fixed her fridge door.

So, mini fridge in mind, I pulled it out of the ramshackle shelter it had been sitting in for the past two years. It has acquired some rust patches but it wasn't in bad condition. Plugging it in, in the yard proved it did actually work, turning a tub of warm water into a tub of ice fairly swiftly.

Looking at the label on the back, it was surprisingly energy inefficient at 1.3A. That means over a day it would use 31 AH or about 3 kilowatt hours. I can't say any of this electrical stuff impresses me greatly. It's expensive, doesn't last very long and isn't very efficient. Primitive cultures just don't know how good they have it. Indeed, looking at modern technology makes me wonder whether the Amish, the Hutterites and other such technology rejecting groups have it right.

It's a very small fridge and I took account of its measurements and the measurements of other similar fridges during the construction phase of the interior of my motorhome. Indeed, I even put an electrical socket there, ready for use. I'm of two minds though. I really like my lack of electrical dependency. Solar panels while providing a laughably small amount of power for a mind boggling cost and ridiculous complexity aren't an option I'll be pursuing. I could put the fridge in and use it or I could just use a cooler. A bag of ice in a cooler should last a week. In terms of cost, the fridge would cost probably 100kwh a month. At current prices, electricity is 13 cents per kilowatt hour. That's $13 a month just to run a miserable little fridge! I can buy 20lbs of ice for $1.50! You can probably see why I'm so skeptical about modern technology.

As can be seen, there's the space for my fridge and a power socket riveted to the side of the breaker box. As yet, there's no main breaker. I put power in, thinking I'd be able to use my microwave but found out too late that the microwave was toast. Winding the clock back, rather than spending the money on the electrical system I suspect I'd have been far better advised to put in a small gas hob and a gas bottle. I already have a small cooler.

Running the fridge via a converter would require a battery capable of holding at least 3000 watt hours or in 12v terms about 250AH. Now that's going to be four large, heavy batteries just to run a sodding fridge. It really is not worth the expense, the fuss or the bother. Let's look at costs.... a converter will be about $150. A single battery will be about $100. That's an expenditure of $500 just to run a fridge for a single day. Add in solar, wind or a generator and the costs rack up into thousands just to run a sodding fridge.

Now let's look at coolers. A bag of ice twice a week for a total weekly expense of maybe $10. Over a year that would be $500. Don't forget the fridge could go wrong, the batteries have a 5 year replacement cycle and the converter probably has too. Ice will never go wrong. Coolers are cheap. Then there's heat generation. Coolers produce no heat. Fridges produce a lot of heat. I ask the question... how much heat is it desirable to introduce into an already hot tin can in the summer?

Thus, the fridge lives and works, just like the water heater I removed but are they of practical value? My thought is no. At least though, I know that the fridge works, should I feel the urge to install it though I shall resist all such burgers.

Past time or time expired?

In 2011 or thereabouts I bought a solar powered clock synced to the atomic clock in Denver. It was digital and had the day, date, temperature and relative humidity as well as the time. As I recall, it was expensive at $25. I could have just got a clock with a dial for about $4.

Recently the clock display has been somewhat strange with the temperature, humidity, day and date showing clearly. The time, however, has not been displaying. All I can think is that the clock has broken. I tested the rechargeable NiMh battery and it was at 90% capacity. The clock has never been dropped. It has always been on a desk.

As can be seen, there's definitely something gone wrong with the clock. It's definitely not caused by abuse and not by cold either. LCD displays do freeze but this hasn't frozen. Besides the temperature needed to freeze an LCD display is far below the temperatures normally experienced in South Carolina.

I keep coming back to the same thing, namely what appalling value for money most of this electronic wizardry represents. Over the past decade I've been through...
Two laptops (haven't replaced the last)
Five tablets (the last is still working)
Four wristwatches (the cost of replacing the battery is usually greater than the price of a new watch).
8 phones - they just are junk, which is why I now refuse to spend more than the absolute minimum on them.
A microwave that died after just 3 years use.

When you think of the money blown on all this electronic garbage and on services for it, the amount is staggering. People wonder why I have not put any provision in my bus to charge electronic devices. The fact is so much electronics are complete garbage and not only that but they're expensive; expensive short-lived toys.

I am reminded of my dad's scorn for electronics. When something electronic didn't work he'd say something like. "What do you expect, it's electronics". Really and truly he spoke the truth. I am reminded of this at work with the strange things that the work bus gets up to. Yesterday for example it was making strange beeping noises, the fuel gauge was fluctuating wildly while the vehicle was just ticking over, there was a strange clicking noise and interior lights dimmed then went bright alternately.

I am so glad my bus is fully mechanical. There are no electronics to worry about. Even so, the ABS system has a short circuit. Being largely electronic free has advantages. I pay $15 instead of $50 on my phone each month. I do not pay for TV nor internet, merely using available connections.

Today winter arrived. There was a light dusting of snow that covered the ground. That melted fairly quickly. It was bitterly cold. Trying to drill holes was no fun and I gave up. The carbide drill bit arrived yesterday and made no impact in the steel I was drilling. It's almost as though the steel is unusually hard. Still, I have just 10 holes left to drill. After that its drilling into the steel of the bus which is a known quantity. I wish I knew what grade of steel I'm dealing with from the hillbilly bed frames. It could be time to cut two new angles rather than keeping blunting drills on stuff that seems impossible to drill through.

A good hard spanking

That's what Lowes (hiss, spit) needs. Their selection of drill bits is utterly miserable. I've had two of their 5/16 drill bits burn out on me. The first I thought I overheated the but. The one today was used at the slowest speed on the drill and I made sure not to press down on the drill, letting it cut under its own weight. The drill bit failed after 3 holes. The previous one failed after 50 holes.

I give up on Lowes (hiss, spit). The quality of their tools is low while the prices are high. I've had to order a bit from eBay. Not only was the but cheaper, it was also carbide.

Despite the problems, I have 16 of my 18 barrel hangers done. The next stage will be to paint them with rust-killing primer. I'll probably dip them in the primer rather than painting them. I'll likely do the same at the painting stage.

I spent most of the day trying to drill as slowly and carefully as possible yet Lowes (hiss, spit) sucky drill bits ensured an unsuccessful end to the day with two hangers left to drill. That's 14 holes short of being able to proceed to the painting stage.

Once the barrel hangers are installed and the existing barrels hung, I'll make up the security bars for the drivers window and the back windows. Then I will be in very much a position to retitle the bus as a motorhome. I'm not so bothered about retitling from a driving point of view because I can drive any single unit vehicle of any weight, with or without passengers and even haul a 10,000lb trailer, according to my commercial drivers license. I'm more interested because it means cheaper insurance and that's always welcome!

The missing photos

These are the missing photos from the last post. Being an astute reader you should be able to work out which is which.

HughesNet is still out so I had to head out in my car to find some free wifi, which I found beside the county jail. I guess the inmates have everything... free healthcare, free food, free wifi.... all the stuff the rest of us live in poverty.

Rain stops play 2

Yes, you've guessed it. Today as yesterday it was raining and so no work was done on the bus. I have steel that needs to be drilled and painted. I have to attach things underneath the bus. The trouble is with rain and wet ground that's not possible either. I can't work with bare steel in the rain or it will rust. Mind, I'm expecting to have to deal with rust on my car. Nissan, it seems, cannot be trusted to do decent paintwork on their vehicles.

At this point I would have inserted a photo of peeling paintwork on a vehicle that has been looked after fir all the time I have owned it. Then I would have uploaded another photo of which more later. The vagaries of satellite internet though mean that I cannot do this. For some unknown reason the images were resolutely up,oading to 90% then just stopping. HughesNet is not used because it's good but because it's the only alternative to cellphone data. There just are no cables to the area in which I live.

I did head out once today. If you remember, following the demise of my smartphone I pulled out my trusty Blu phone and put a Tracfone SIM in it. That turned out to be an interesting experience. My previous provider had been Straight Talk. Both ran on the AT&T network. That's where it gets really interesting because I never ever had a problem with Straight Talk on AT&T. Tracfone by comparison was terrible. In the month I had Tracfone I made one moderately successful phonecall. I placed the call and after plenty shouting repeat that, say it again and can you start again, about 20% of the message was actually understood. I tried placing another call and had some ridiculous message about the network being full. Then somebody tried calling me and couldn't get through. And that was my lot for Tracfone. Today the month prepay expired. I'd used maybe 200 texts and 1 phone call. I don't know about you but Tracfone just seems to suck, especially when a fair few texts just never arrived.

So, today I headed out and picked up a Verizon flip phone. It's pretty good and even has a built in alarm clock. Unlike my smart phone which needed at least daily charging, the flip phone could keep going for a week or more. Thus far it looks pretty good. I would have inserted a photo of it but for HughesNet being somewhat useless today.

Have I missed having a smart phone? No. I have not. I'd like to take photos of bus construction with a smartphone but my tablet does just as well with its camera. I have seriously not missed being played by the phone companies. There's a huge difference between paying $50 a month for a connection and $18. I'm going from unlimited talk and text to 300 texts/minutes. Last month I made one two minute phonecall and sent about 30 texts. This is why Tracfone appealed so much to me at $20 every 90 days. Really and truly I don't even need to be paying $18 a month. If I could get a phone where I paid for only what I actually used, the phone company might make $5 a year!

I'm pleased to say that despite the torrential downpour there has been no water ingress into the bus.

Now you see it!

What on earth are these strange things I hear you cry. The answer is simple, gentle reader. They are remnants of the steel bed frames the hillbillies installed in the bus. They are also my new barrel hangers. The 4 hole side bolts to the opposing steel channels under the bus. The side with two holes has a chain joiner as shown but with a chain attached that supports the barrel.

My new drill has a variable speed that goes up to a reputed 3,000 RPM. Clearly I should have set it to a lower speed because after about 50 holes, the drill resolutely refused to cut deeper than the distance between the tip and the wider part of the drill. The edges must have overheated and softened. That put me even further behind schedule as I'll now have to head out to buy a new 5/16 drill bit. For steel I need a good drill bit. My old bit will still work for wood though.

The plan is to get a replacement drill bit tomorrow if the shop is open then to finish drilling the holes the same day. I want to have the barrel hangers all done before I go back to work on the 4th.

While I was looking at my angle bracket I measured it against the battery used for my ventilation system. The plan is to install that battery underneath the bus for which I will have to build a battery compartment. That's actually quite simple. Much simpler than I'd thought it might be. I might yet build a compartment to hold a lawnmower sized battery under the bus to use to charge my phone etc when I'm nit driving.

A day of disappointment

Today I had planned to work on my barrel hangers after the weather cleared up. Sadly that could not be done. The task needed to be completed was to drill holes. Nothing stunning, just lots and lots of holes. About 108 by my calculation and all to 5/16. That's where things went pear shaped.

As I share accommodation and borrow (but return) tools, I had originally a choice of two corded power drills and two battery drills plus my battery powered cordless screwdriver. Now the two battery powered drills died. One just won't charge and I don't know whether it is the battery or the charger. The other I don't know because somebody else used that one. For a long time I used one corded drill and somebody else used the other. I always returned what I used to the shed at the end of the day. Anyway, I went to the shed today and no drills were to be found nor was the other person that used them. Frustrating.

In the end, in order to ensure I can complete work on my bus, I headed to Walmart, having researched online and found Walmart's cheapest corded power drill was $25. Imagine my surprise when on the Walmart shelf, the drill I wanted was nowhere to be seen. There was a more expensive drill of the same brand though but my eye roamed the shelves and found a cheaper drill. Yes, cheaper and it was corded and not listed on the website. $18 will do me very nicely. If it doesn't last much longer than the time it takes to complete my bus, I can't say I'm particularly worried.

While in Walmart, the Christmas leftovers were on a 50% off sale. Out of curiosity, I bought an incandescent fake candle and an LED incandescent fake candle. The light emitted by them is little short of pathetic. They're not even as bright, combined, as a real candle.

Right now, as I sit in my bus, I have two led lanterns almost illuminating the desk where I'm writing this blog entry and further down the bus I have a single 40W bulb running off 120v fully illuminating the galley. Again, it seems that LED lighting is an example of the greens claiming it's possible to get 9 pints out of a gallon. I honestly do not find this LED lighting to be all that good. The LEDs are dazzling to look at but produce an insignificant amount of light. Indeed, I once heard an electronics technician not being very impressed as white LEDs use way too much power. As many of you know though, trying to find a decent LED lantern is harder than finding hens teeth. As for a real honest to goodness incandescent lantern - they seem to have gone right off the market.

So, I returned with my drill just after darkness had fallen, thus ending today on a mildly disappointing note.