Two things can happen....

I'm still very much unwell due to the latest whateveritis that I've caught. The first thing that can happen is that amidst a gnashing of teeth and a wailing from those that dislike me, I'll recover. The other is that amidst much merriment and rejoicing, I shuffle off this mortal coil. That being the case, I've left it a bit late to elicit promises from those that dislike me to dance on my grave and to arrange a burial at sea.

Needless to say, yesterday was a dead loss. Today however, I struggled out and did a few things. The first was that I started the bus engine for the first time in months. I'm happy to say it started immediately. Then I tried my right wiper to no avail. I know the wiper works so I'm going to suspect the switch. Thus I spent a massive $9.95 and ordered a brand new Thomas wiper switch.

Then I spent a good long time on my hands and knees wiring one of my new charge controllers. I set that to top up my 7AH batteries, one at a time. At the same time I thought about combining the output of the two sets of panels into a single battery but didn't proceed. I'm rethinking that and am pretty sure that I'd rather wait and put a long cable in, under the bus, linking the two sets of panels with charge controllers drawing off that combined power for their various purposes.

Right now I'm thinking of.

• My 5AH battery going to a charge controller that just maintains the battery as fully charged but a second connection from the battery bypassing the controller that goes straight to my door lock.
• My 10AH battery is insufficient for my upgraded extraction fan and building the new twin 7AH battery pack has an issue. I have the narrow spade connectors needed but am low on 18 gauge cable. I've ordered more off eBay.
• I'll put in two fans churning air around in the cabin. That'll make it feel a lot cooler. Currently that churning is going to be carried out by two 90mm CPU fans. One will be on the galley partition and one on the bedroom partition. As they use 24 gauge cable, I ordered some off eBay. I would buy elsewhere but the one horse town I live in has no decent shops. Those will be powered by my 10AH battery running off another charge controller.
• I'm going to have to put fuses on my solar panels in order to protect them from short circuits. At 20W for the back, a 2A fuse will do and at 15W for the front, a 1.5A fuse will do. 
• When it arrives I'll wire into the circuit a 12V cigarette lighter socket, correctly fused and with diode protection. That will be mounted on the outside of the vehicle in order that I can put up a mini wind turbine or external solar capacity.

I'm waiting for several things to arrive by donkey post from China plus a few from the USA. That in no way restricts the chance of retitling my motorhome sooner rather than later. 

When I connected the bus battery ready to start the bus, I saw a problem with my cabling. It is theoretically possible for the live connector to swivel to touch the negative. I will have to come up with a solution to that one, fast. If, of course, the short circuit were cut out of the system, I could just leave the battery connected. I suspect the short is to do with the non operational secondary speed sensor. That plus a steam and grease is a job for a mechanic as is getting the real horn button operational.

What a headache!

This week I've worked 4 ten hour days. It's not my usual line of work but what's new for my life in South Carolina. This week has been largely indoors but in a non air conditioned building. By the middle of the week I developed a headache - probably due to the heat. Today, it got worse.

I struggled up in the morning, battling my headache and fatigue then went after breakfast to the bus. When I went in, it was 77F but the temperature quickly rose to 88. I'd put white reflectors inside the windscreen and my extraction fan is definitely switched on. As the solar panel powering it is at the back and the sun was at the front, it wasn't running which makes a good case for pooling the output of my panels. As that would involve installing a new cable underneath, that will have to wait til the winter.

This weeks weather is going to be fairly brutal. I'm anticipating at least 100F temperatures in August. That's the kind of temperature when people start to drop dead walking across the road. I'm already feeling dehydrated with negative effects from the heat.

When my extraction fan cut in, it shifted air. The bus door was open and had been for a while. I felt that probably the barrier between warm and cooler air had shifted down the bus by about 15 feet. That was very welcome.

I grabbed a couple of diodes and some wire joiners to build a protection unit for my newest solar panel. The diodes will protect my investment from the ravages of reverse connections. That was about all I managed to do on the first trip into the bus. I did check my 120v sockets with a socket tester and they all came up as they should. I solved my earlier problem, it seems.

I headed into the house walking very unsteadily with a raging headache. There, I napped for a couple of hours. Feeling brighter after my nap I headed to the bus by which time the internal temperature had reached a ludicrous 104F. Clearly I'm going to have to make that extraction fan work longer and more often.

The new plan for the fan is to increase the battery size from 10AH to 14AH (Twin 7ah batteries) and put the output if the front panel into the fan battery using a second charge controller. Meanwhile, I'll wire the 5AH battery so that it operates my door lock. The 10AH battery will be reused as a fan battery. I'll bring two of my smaller CPU fans back into play to blow air about the cabin of the bus, from front to back. The first will be on the first partition and the second on the bedroom partition, each with individual controls.

The sum total of today's work was nothing much. After I put my two latest charge controllers in place and my diode protector, I'd got overwhelmed by the heat again. I had to retire indoors to cool down. I'd wanted to at least connect my charge controllers to the power.

My next task will be to ready the ammunition box containing my two 7AH batteries for use as a battery housing. I can buy a 22ah battery that would fit my 50 cal ammunition box but I have these batteries and will try to use them rather than forking out yet more money with no guarantees attached. Then it'll be a case of wiring the charge controllers.

I still have components on the way from China such as fuses and cable connectors. Sadly on eBay they sell trifling little quantities and send it on a pack mule that walks backwards. It can take weeks for stuff to arrive! Some things though are cheaper locally.

My priority is getting the ventilation sorted out. After that everything else can be done in its own sweet time. I might end up having to get a battery powered drill and taking the bus into the mountains to finish all the little projects.

A new strategy

I looked today at the stuff piled up in the bus - construction tools, supplies and leftovers. The bathroom wasn't too bad.

The cooler contains my mini shower. The rest is where it gets interesting. I bought way too many supplies from Radio Shack when they went bankrupt. Some of the stuff I can use. Some I have no current or foreseeable use for.

At one time I was interested in building little electronic things. Let's just call them toys because there's nothing in this world that's electronic that isn't some kind of toy. Satellites and soacecraft - just toys for boys with lots of money.  So, I have a pile of electronic components that get used very occasionally. At one time I was convinced LED lighting was the future of photography. I built an LED light panel that performed really well. When I showed it off, all the naysayers came out saying how it wouldn't last blah blah. In the end though I used it a few times, it wasn't worth the effort of putting it together. I find electronics to be generally unsatisfactory in general - no matter who makes them. So, I have a pile of electronic components. I'm not really sure what to do with them. I'm loath to throw them away because they cost money yet I'm unlikely to do anything meaningful with them so they sit taking up space as they have in several previous residences all the time growing in quantity.

The dining area is little better.

Here I have cables, wires, ideas for projects intended but never commenced. Sitting, looking at it all, I've been thinking of all the little jobs that need doing. I even played with one involving CPU fans blowing air from the front to the back of the bus.

The other side is equally bad.

You might well say that the situation was a little overwhelming. Clearly something had to give!

The decision was made... paint, electrical and small tools stay. Everything else was to go to storage. Progress was very slow and went vaguely along the lines of... trash goes in a cardboard box in the yard, PVC and aluminum get dumped in the yard as they won't decay and might be useful later. Tools went in the tool shed. Stuff that looked useful and the welder went into another storage location, including rods and spare steel.

I found myself some distraction tasks, feeling a little overwhelmed. The first was to test my two sizes of CPU fan. It transpired the bigger fan shifted apparently less air. Without unwrapping a reel of heavy cable, I could not install it in the bedroom as a permanent cool air flow. I see no reason why that should not be a future development, however.

Looking at the front of the bus, the grey paint had flaked badly on the drivers edge of the bonnet. I opened the bonnet (that's a hood to those not born fully comprehending the Queen's English). A few seconds scraping with a wire brush removed the loose flakes. Self etching enamel spray was applied and when that's dry, I'll use grey rustoleum.

Speaking of flaking paint, I sprayed some of the very expensive rubber mudguard spray on the inside of the front wheel arches. It has dried up and brushes off with a broom. Utterly useless stuff! I'll have to clean that off and spray with self priming black paint.

Yesterday I raised my two new convex mirrors as high as they will go. The left mirror would have been visible were it not for a Louisiana sticker that blocked my view of the mirror.

Well done, Louisiana, on making driving more hazardous! Fortunately, it was an out of date sticker that's totally redundant everywhere else including Rhode Island.

A few moments with a scraper removed the offending sticker. That's right, Louisiana officials, this bus has not held a valid Louisiana sticker for six whole years.

Meanwhile, in my tidying process I found several tools I forgot I had. Good job I didn't need them or I'd have ended up with multiples!

By the time I stopped work, one side was brought down to three boxes. One of papers that need to be gone through, one of various things that didn't need to go to storage, the shed or the trash and one of electrics. The other side will have to wait for another day.

I end the day with a mystery. One of my Radio Shack gel batteries seems to be playing the fool. The voltage climbs to 13.4v when the sun shines then drops back to 13.1v. Needless to say my fan comes on only at 13.5v. I'm thinking I probably bought a fried battery that somebody had returned to Radio Shack. There's no chance of a replacement or refund since Radio Shack is defunct.

My ammunition box will hold a 10x5x6 battery so perhaps I can look for a larger capacity replacement. I had only intended the solar stuff for ventilation but things seem to be growing. Who knows where it's going to go next!

86 to 97

Despite the best efforts of my extraction fan, the temperature inside the bus crept from 86 when I went in at midday to 97 by 2pm. The night had apparently been a cooler 72.

Thinking more about extra power for the battery pack, it seems I could put two charge controllers onto the battery with each being powered by different solar panels. As long as the controllers are set up with the same cut off voltage, all should be fine. That would eliminate for the moment, my need to put more cables under the bus. This little project is on hold for one important reason.

Today I'm trying to clear the cockpit. It has been pretty much of a pigsty for the last two years. When I finish a job at the end of the day, I dump everything in the cockpit and close the door. I don't put things neatly away. Thus I'm having quite a time. I'm putting stuff to be sorted later behind the drivers seat, putting trash in the black bag on the drivers seat, tools in the tool box and screws etc in a jar.

As a little break, I swept the aisle of the bus and had a huge pile of sand. There were also cardboard boxes and other litter to move. One would think that I'd not cleaned the bus ever before but it's not so!

Remaining on the bus after I've done with the construction will be just maintainence supplies. Nothing too spectacular. Just screwdrivers, wrenches etc. I have no need for the welder, angle grinder etc. As I've said before, the welder was not one of my brightest purchases. Sure - it gave me a lot of fun and taught me to weld but it's not something that has been as beneficial as it could have been.

One of the ideas that struck me today was to install a pair of fans. One in the galley and one in the bedroom, tied into the extraction fan circuit, blowing air toward the back of the bus. That might help circulation quite a bit. I'm not quite sure what's happening to the airflow as air is definitely being blown out. The heat seems to be remaining though. I do, after all, have several unemployed 12v CPU fans.

Cleaning the bus cockpit took several hours. It had been knee deep in junk and that, sadly, is not an exaggeration. Some of the tools went to the shed as did some supplies. A 120v lamp stand complete with its 40W bulb went to an old trailer, where I had to duck to avoid a dangling light fixture weighted down by a birds nest.

Eventually, though the cockpit needs a really good wipe down, one huge bag of trash made it successfully to a huge pile of trash bags dumped in a corner of the yard. Those might one day make it to the dump. Sadly, some of the stuff from the cockpit made it to the galley. Clearing the galley or at least one side is a job for another day.

Now that's an almost clean cockpit. Everything needs a very good wipe down, to be honest. A lot of the brown dust I swept away was from when I sanded the OSB during the construction phase of 2015.   There's definitely some black paint touchup needed and I'll have to get some purple cleaner onto the floor. Otherwise, it's not looking too bad.

A few days ago, if you recall, my two charge controllers arrived. One has obviously had a sharp impact on the protective screen. I didn't catch it when I opened the box so I can't claim it as shipping damage. Not to matter though. It's ugly but it'll work.

During my tidying I found one of the things I'd been seeking - the cable converter I built that will allow me to use standard 20A cords with my non standard electrical inlet. The reason for the non standard inlet is cost - standard inlets were $75 whereas mine was $7. Even accounting for the non standard connector I used, it still works out at about $15 or a fifth of the price for something with equal electrical capacity. The TT30 crowd are really getting ripped off.

Just now the extraction fan cut in and out with a four minute cycle. That's probably why it's not really cooling the place. I adjusted the settings slightly so that the solar cell cuts off at 14.4v, the fan starts at 13.4v and cuts off at 12.2v. I'll have to see how that affects cooling. It could well be that I need to rethink my battery setup. I'd been running the CPU fans off a 5AH battery. I'm on a 10AH battery right now. If I moved to my twin 7AH batteries then I'd have 14AH. It could well be that instead of using small batteries - remember I didn't want electrical or solar stuff - I'd be better with a bigger battery though how big, I'm not sure. Running for an hour, just my extraction fan will use 2.5AH as its 2.5 amps. It therefore puzzles me as to why my 10AH battery voltage drops so quickly given that it was new. More to think about...

I almost put my welder in the shed. The only reason I did not was just in case I want to make something for my little generator. I've been thinking of turning it into a vertical axis wind turbine very idly. That might involve welding some steel for the arm.

Well, despite I didn't achieve a whole lot, at least the bus cockpit is clean enough to wipe down. I'll have to get on with that and get on with screwing the top of the console down properly too.

A journey of a thousand leagues

As the Chinese proverb says, a journey of a thousand leagues starts with the first step. I feel like I have a journey of a thousand leagues in front of me. It's time to start moving construction detritus out of the bus - tools I'm not likely to use again in the bus, leftover parts etc.

There are still things I'd like to do. One of those is a plumbing system for freshwater from a standpipe. I wasn't going to bother initially but I can see it is an idea with merit. The next step to that is putting an instant hot water heater that can supply hot water to both handbasin and to shower.

The toilet is probably going to remain as it is. I cannot imagine anything more foul than having to transport a used sewer hose! Bags of human waste can be stored in a sealed container then quietly disposed of where possible - either in landfill or some other way.

I have had thoughts about a built in gas hob. Those are demonically expensive however. Installing would be a straightforward case of passing tubing through the floor, sealing and plopping a 20lb gas cylinder on the ground outside.

Extra green power could be readily provided by turning my mini generator (the one I derided) into a small wind turbine that can be set up outside. Even solar panels could be placed outside then packed away for transport.

Today I went onto the bus and it was 104F. Putting the thermometer outside got me a reading of 97F. It felt cooler because of the moving air. I'd already started work, cutting slots into a piece of sewer pipe then gluing an end cap on it and mosquito mesh around it. I started mounting brackets to hang it from, on the ceiling when thunder began to boom. Fortunately by the time it began to pour with rain, I'd pretty much completed putting my ventilation filter in place. That meant I could throw the power cable out of the back door to close the door and keep the rain out.

That's what the ventilation looks like as of now. It is complete but with the same caveat as everything else of until I come across a better idea. At the moment, there's not too much power but if I pool my front and back panels, the power available should double. Throw external panels into the mix and we are talking tons of power.

Underbody cabling is in the plans but it's a future upgrade. In the winter I might go underneath and put some more cables but only when I'm sure spiders, ants and other nasty insects have gone away for the season. I even saw some of South Carolina's scorpions yesterday!

Yesterday I mentioned my mirrors. I'd replaced two eroded mirrors with new. It is possible to replace the mirror glass. The bizarre thing is it's cheaper just to replace the entire mirror than the mirror glass. The manufacturer wanted $45 per mirror for two mirror glasses. I bought a pair of mirrors for $35 or less than half the cost of fixing what's there.

I do not like those long West Coast mirrors. They take up a lot of space for very little gain. The bottom mirror is the one I just added (there's one the other side). Because I had to lower the drivers seat in order to make accessing the pedals more comfortable, the bottom mirror needs to come up as much as possible. I'd like to replace the 16 inch west coast mirrors with an 8x8 scquare flat mirror then up the top, put another rectangular convex mirror aimed downward. The busboy mirrors really need to be replaced with Hawkeye mirrors. The trick is finding it all at sensible prices.

As I sit writing my blog, the interior temperature following the rainstorm is 91F. My desk fan is keeping me cool and the extraction fan is currently roaring away. A tissue held up to the induction filter did not remain in place until the tissue was wrapped 2/3 round the filter. That tells me that my filter is big enough that it's not reducing airflow. That's important!

The next stage of motorhome construction will be to remove all the leftover construction components. Fortunately I don't think I have a lot too much. I barked up the wrong tree more often than I'd have liked though. I could have totally avoided buying a welder by just riveting a panel on the side of the bus where the hillbilly hole had been located. Still, I fancied welding and did learn a new skill even though with all the welding projects undertaken and not used, I could have been done 6 months ahead of now.

My biggest regret is the materials unused or used on projects that were later abandoned as they represent money not spent wisely. My other regret is wasting my time on some of the Internet groups. Whenever I sought an answer, nobody knew and whenever I showed off my handiwork, it either had no comment or something negative. That, I can honestly say, hurt.

Another thing needing to be done is to sort out the retitling. The previous owners never retitled the bus as a motorhome, which they should have because that's how it had been constructed. That's now my task!

Definitely not feeling too good

I seem to have picked up a stomach thing. After a hard day at work, I returned home to find not one but two parcels waiting for me. The first turned out to be replacement convex mirrors. My existing convex mirrors had become abraded over the years, being plexiglass rather than glass. The second turned out to be a pair of charge controllers.

My existing mirrors had become somewhat hard to use due to their lack of clarity.

The lack of clarity isn't all that easy to photograph to be honest. If you look at the top of the mirror you'll see a fuzziness. That was much more pronounced while driving. The other mirror was just as bad.

Again, the bad portion is at the top. As the mirrors had offset ball mounts, it wasn't possible to simply rotate the mirror. eBay is, however, useful at times like this.

The new mirrors are heated. As I don't have mirror heating set up, I have simply wrapped the wires around the mirror mounts. If I go further and change my big west coast mirrors then I will probably go for a smaller flat mirror and possibly a second convex but oriented vertically. As can be seen, it's pretty good.

It took me longer to remove one mirror because the bolt was seized solid. In the end I had to use my angle grinder. The other mirror came free much more easily. I'd have liked to have got them off in a non destructive way but it is what it is.

My charge controllers were not installed today. That's a job for another day. They're slightly different from my main charge controller in that they don't seem to have a thermometer built in though I have not read the manual.

The plan is to use them for charging batteries designated for charging cellphones etc. This is a plan I have vaguely in mind. It's not something I'm going to leap on immediately so I might just use one to replace the not very good charge controller I have in the cockpit of the bus.

Today I ran my extraction fan briefly from the 10AH battery with the good charge controller at the back of the bus. I have a feeling the bad charge controller might have damaged the battery judging from the odd readings I was getting. I'll have to see how it all goes though. My next task will be to complete the intake for my ventilation system. That's a task for another day when I feel better.

9 degrees!

the highest temperature ever measured in my motorhome was 140F. That was before I painted the roof white and installed my CPU fan powered vents. The highest temperature ever recorded since then has probably been around 106F.

Currently the interior temperature is 100F as opposed to an outside temperature of just 91F. It actually feels cooler outside as the air is moving. The goal today was to increase the ventilation. That plan involved a trip to Lowes (hiss, spit). Incidentally, somebody wrote a blog comment asking me why I shop at Lowes when I don't like them. The answer is simple - my desire not to shop at Lowes is weaker than my desire not to drive an extra 14 miles to go to Tractor Supply or Home Depot. My withholding my money from Lowes is not going to make them increase their honesty level one little bit, it would, however mean a longer drive which would hit my pocketbook harder. Though I detest and deplore Lowes, I'm not prepared to suffer in order to avoid them.

I must admit I laugh at people that won't go to Walmart because everything is made in China. They go somewhere else and buy exactly the same product - still made in China but they pay more (and often peel the label off to prove it wasn't made in China). Long ago I learned not to hold others up to my standard of honesty as I was always disappointed. Today as I was checking out in Lowes, the checkout operator - a sweet young thing - totally missed scanning one item, putting it straight into my bag. Now, if I'd been dishonest, I'd have capitalized on that by paying and leaving the store. I'd not have been been able to shop there without blushing ever again and I'd have been as disreputable as Lowes. I pointed it out, much to her surprise and after she'd scanned it, paid my bill and walked away with a clean conscience. The item was only a couple of dollars but my conscience is worth far more!

The goal with my ventilation is to get the interior temperature of the bus to be the same as the exterior. It can never be lower without air conditioning which is something I won't be installing.

As Lowes didn't have any 3 inch sewer pipe, I scrounged around in the detritus in the back yard and found an 8 foot length. Various people have dumped stuff on the land from old card to dead microwaves. A good hunt usually turns up with usable materials.

Having returned with the booty from Lowes (hiss, spit), I set to work. In short order I'd cut and washed several sections of sewer pipe. The plan was to do as much with solid sewer pipe as possible but to use sections of my bilge hose to connect them to the pump. One piece I glued to the pump in the hope that it'll hold. The pump will be screwed to the ceiling. The back closet is after all just a closet with a useful emergency exit entry capability. It's not somewhere I'll be using on a regular basis now that my front door lock is operational.

The one fly in my ointment is that my plumbing cement had dried in the can. That wasn't helpful! If it were not for the heat and my wanting to get on with things, I'd have done what I usually do with useless junk. I'd have taken it out the back and shot it. Remember the DOA solar panel and the dead microwave plus numerous paint spray cans that refused to disgorge their content. I gather people do the same thing with useless politicians though I have yet to hear of anybody successfully ventilating the current pro Brexit British Prime Minister. One can only hope!

After cutting the sewer pipe in 90F and gluing various bits together, I ended up with a fairly solid looking system. I didn't actually finish what I was doing, however. Time escaped on me. The problem with working in heat is it slows me right down. Indeed, the thermometer on my charge controller read 41C when I was installing things. By the time I knocked off for the day, the ventilation system looked like this.

Needless to say, it's not complete. The filter stage is missing. That will entail a piece of plastic pipe with slots cut in the sides and mosquito mesh being glued all around it. That should let in way more air than my fan can suck. I'd been a bit puzzled how to attach the pipe to the ceiling when I found some black cable ties lying on the ground outside. They'd come from the battery compartment and had been left by the hillbilly owners. Goodness knows how many times I'd peed on them in the past! Anyway to cut a long story short, the plan is to fasten two steel strips to the ceiling with cable ties attached and hang the tube from two cable ties. The tube will be attached to the unit by another section of flexible hose.

Given that I'm blowing air out of two mosquito mesh covered vents, it should be much more efficient than before. My sole concern is whether two self drilling screws is sufficient to hang my fan or whether aluminum rivets might be a better option.

Tomorrow I have to go back to work. The weekend is coming though! Two days and I can complete my ventilation system. This should be the last word in ventilation!