Battery hanger completed.

After a hearty breakfast of American delicacies about which my waistline is already complaining, I looked at the weather. The forecast for the week is fine - if you’re a duck! It seems to be cold and wet. There’s a 30% chance of rain for today which I hoped would not materialize.

Anyway, I got out there as soon as the temperature picked up. It was so cold even the pit bull didn’t want to go outside! Fortunately as I’d done all the hard work before, it was just a case of completing the welding and adding a couple of places where a battery clamp could be attached. From looking at the way car batteries are secured, there seems to be some kind of metal bracket holding down the battery and secured to two loops on the battery compartment base via what looks like two J hooks with a threaded portion at the top with a wing nut. I should be able to pick up the J hooks easily enough. I think I’ve seen them advertised. If not then I’m pretty sure I can rig up something similar. The top bracket isn’t hard to fabricate either.

After struggling with my 3/32 welding rods I eventually gave up on them and went for my 1/16th rods. What a difference! They were so easy to use. I had to use twice or three times the quantity and my welds look a bit blobby as a result but they’re good welds. After finishing the last weld I picked up my completed construction and dropped it on the ground. It went thud. If it had gone thud-ding then I’d have known there was something not properly welded.

I’d have liked to have cleaned up the welds a little but couldn’t find my small grindstones - I have some that fit in my pistol drill. No matter - I don’t think the roughnesses will have any effect on seating the battery.

The problem with my Harbor Freight 70A welder is that it’s underpowered for 3/32 rods. I should have paid a little extra and had the 90A welder instead. That would have made all the difference. Having said that, for my purposes, I really don’t need anything massive. My welds don’t have to look pretty - they just have to function. Similarly, the least I spend the better given the fact I have to earn every penny I spend. It’s not like I have a sugar daddy out there.

My Harbor Freight protective gear is pretty darned good. I went cheap the first time around with a non-adjustable welding helmet. While it worked well enough in full sunlight (as long as there was no light behind me), it really didn’t help all that much. I was welding blind. I’d advise anybody to use the Harbor Freight stuff.

One of the things I’m very glad I bought is my digital infrared thermometer. Mine tops out at about 250F and just says “Hi” rather than giving me the actual temperature of the work. That’s perfectly fine though. I could have bought a thermometer that went to 1,000F but really there wasn’t much point. There’s precious little difference between welded steel that’s at 997F and 200F. Touching either is going to burn pretty badly. There just wasn’t much point in knowing any temperature over 100F because if it’s over 100F I’m certainly not going to be touching it with my bare hands!

A few minutes after I’d welded all but the battery clamp terminations onto my battery holder, I used my digital thermometer. You can see it at the bottom left of the photo of the welded work.

As you can see, it says 157F. That’s just a little too hot for me to want to touch to be honest. I waited a good while before I touched it. That was when I did the drop test. It made a lovely thud sound. Now my original battery holder made from the old bed frame from way heavier steel was far heavier than my complete construction!

I’ve made my hanger to be suspended from eight 5/16 bolts. I figure since the battery is 20LBs and my holder is probably 10LBs then that’s 30LBs. Even if my holder weighed as much as the battery and the whole lot weighed 40LBs - which I assure you it does not - then each bolt would have to support 5LBs or in a good shock scenario, 15LBs. I’m good!

With the weather holding off, I hunted amidst my paints to find something to put on the bare steel to prevent it rusting. Clearly I’d used my rust-killing primer so I found the next best thing - a couple of cans of self-etching primer. I sprayed the whole thing with primer. Then when the top side of the primer had mostly dried (it is warmer today) I picked it up (using a plastic bag since some patches were still wet), turned it over and sprayed the rest of it with self-etching primer. I sat it on a spare piece of steel sheet while I did so.

Meanwhile I looked at my one-way valves for my air vents. They’re a really tight fit in my 4 inch tubing. I’m pretty sure I’ll have to cut the reducers out of my tubing. Fortunately I have a 4 inch hole saw so wiggling that around inside my vent tube should enlarge it enough to make my valves slide in easily.

After the paint dried or rather the primer dried, I pulled out a can of Rustoleum white spray paint. It sprayed a little then refused to spray any more - despite the can still being full. That’s pretty much my experience with spray cans, to be honest, they just don’t work half the time. The only reason I use them is because even so, it’s cheaper than using disposable paintbrushes. In the end I found another can of paint. Not a color I wanted but it’ll do as a middle-coat. I’d like to put white on it because white shows up rust well. Right now though, purple is the color. Knowing the way things go - it’s probably going to stay purple too!

The home-made battery cage

Today I continued on work from where I left off last time I did some welding. I’d been ill a few times in the intervening period which hasn’t helped with construction speed but seeing as my original completion goal had been January of 2015, I’m not that worried.

The day started with a bit of welding. I put the fourth side on the battery base and then got myself a doughnut and a cup of coffee. I’d had to wait til midday to start on account of how cold it is these days. The working day in winter is pretty short!

As can be seen. The battery fits perfectly. The base is built to be slightly bigger than the actual battery in order to facilitate easy removal and installation. There is no bottom to the center of the base in order to facilitate drainage and because the battery should be strong enough without support in the middle, given that the battery weighs but 20LBs. If the battery fails then I’ll just get a UL1 sized LiOn battery instead. All I need do is to adjust the parameters on my charge controller for lithium batteries to work well.

The next stage was to build the top - this is the piece that will bolt to the underside of the ribs. There happen to be two sets of open channel close together behind the back wheels. This is an area where the battery is liable to be bounced a bit so I’ll build it and hope it all works. If not then I can move it forward though I’m not keen on doing welding in front of the wheels. I have nightmares about things dropping off even though it’s unlikely. Too many people have put doubts into my own head about my own skills. Heck, I bet if I mentioned I drive school busses that they’d find some reason why I shouldn’t drive them or why I’m bad at it or can’t cope with the problems of driving challenging busses.

As an aside in the past two weeks I’ve driven 7 different busses each with its own issues. Two had very sensitive brakes that had two modes - full on or none. One had a steering wheel with 8 inches of slop in it. One had a maximum speed of 44mph or 1mph slower than is permitted on the interstate yet that bus had to use the interstate so I was the slowest vehicle around. One had very vague brakes that needed the pedal to the floor before they’d really work. Another had so little power that acelleration was very gradual. Think in terms of 60 seconds to get from zero to 45mph. Then there’re the different types of bus - type B, type C and type D. My normal bus is a type B but I drive anything I’m given. Oh yes and one had a terrible turning circle that had me pausing until oncoming traffic had passed before I could complete my turn! So yes... I can drive even the most challenging busses.

Spot the silly mistake! I welded the edges the wrong way around which means I have a little bit of a challenge coming up when it comes to attaching the bottom to the top! Fortunately I accept challenges and will spank this one soundly. The central bar is just there to hold the two parallel bars apart in order to make construction of the rest easier. It also allows me to take just the top under the bus in order to fit it properly. That means for marking where the holes for the bolt holes will go and drilling the holes in the underside of the ribs.

Ideally I’d have liked to have done the remains of my underbody wiring today but I think building my battery cage is probably going to take the whole day. (As the astute will realise, I’m blogging as I work). 

Eventually after taking until dusk, I managed to get most of the battery cage together. Remaining to do are several welds - the battery holder is just tacked on by a single weld at the moment. I’d been underneath and drilled mounting holes so the cage and battery will be suspended from (currently) eight 5/16 bolts. At a rough guess I’d say my holder weighs 10lbs though it could be about 5lbs. That means the whole caboodle weighs 30lbs. Even if it weighed 40lbs (which it doesn’t) then each bolt has to support 5lbs or 15lbs with a lot of downward force applied. I’d say that it’ll hold nicely.

That’s what it looked like at the time the daylight hopped on the train and escaped. The next stage is to complete the welds and to add a couple of tie-downs so the battery can be secured into its cage. I’ll also bolt my 30A resetting breaker to the cage so that the battery will be protected in the event of overload. I might add a non-resetting breaker or even just say stuff it and put a non-resetting breaker anyway.

I didn’t get the time to do any more wiring under the bus but if today had been twice as long then I might have had time. Too many coffee breaks and doughnuts slowed me down a bit. In fact I was asked today if I was a policeman - such is my love of pizza and doughnuts and coffee!

The light is cold

A few days ago I test sprayed one of my three cheap LED lanterns with frosting spray. The picture below is a comparison between frosted and unfrosted. I think you’ll agree the frosted lantern is far easier on the eyes.

 In spraying several things became apparent. First that not very much spray is actually needed. The cap of the spray can is almost impossible to remove unless you whack it with a wrench like I did. Now it won’t stay on but that’s what duct tape is for! Finally and most importantly the spray needs at least 59F ambient temperature or the frosting effect doesn’t happen.

 I can’t remember how much money changed hands for this spray. It wasn’t free (unfortunately) but though it hasn’t got tremendous application, it’s a useful thing to have.

 Here’s a lineup of my three cheap lanterns, all sprayed. No light hotspots visible! Notice how evenly the light is applied and how easy it is to look at the lanterns. It was pure discomfort to Use and view them before.

This is a very deceiving image. While I did take that using solely the light from my three lanterns - No flash and no other lighting - it really was quite dim in there. You can see that by the way the light doesn’t throw much further than the bedroom. The bathroom looks dingy and the kitchen beyond the white double doors looks quite sepulchral.

I have, on order, some G4 bulb holders, just in care I want to put 12v G4 LED light bulbs and three flat LED 1000 lumen, 10W light strips. I don’t expect the light strips to be much good but thought I’d try them. The G4 mounts will also take standard G4 bulbs so I can use trustworthy illumination if needed.

Workday improvements.

Today is a workday but as I had to go to Walmart to get a prepaid card for my smartphone, I did a little extra shopping. First off was the Post Office where I had to wait for them to open. I’d arrived at 08:50, neglecting to remember that as my day starts at 05:40 that everybody else lags behind a little. Needless to say I sent my dad his Christmas card. A little late but as I had the flu last week, I didn’t want to risk sending flu virus to him.

Next stop was Lowes (hiss, spit) where I got some frosting spray. That was intended for use with one of my lanterns and possibly all of my lanterns if it works well enough. I sprayed one as a test subject. If that works then I have three others that also need frosting spray. Then those nasty bare LED lantern things might be usable.

As you can see, the frosting spray has had a definite effect. It’s meant for glass but it should work on plastic. I’ll just have to see how effective it is later today or perhaps tomorrow.

Meanwhile, while I was in Lowes (hiss, spit) I found a flapper draft stopper for a 4 inch pipe. My exhaust vents are 4 inch pipe. Well, they had one and I found it in the plumbing section. I needed two but there was only one. Spotting a stray shop worker, I pounced on him before anybody else did and he led me straight to the only other one in the store. Now I have two. I’ll likely have to do quite a bit of work both on them and to my ducting in order to get it all to work but that’ll be well worthwhile if it works as intended. Not only should it work as a draft blocker but it should also stop critters quite successfully.

It was pricy for something that I’ll need to modify but at $7 it is probably worth its weight in gold. I’ll have to trim the flat plate from around the edges in order to insert it into my ducting but that’s not a major problem. I’ll probably have to cut the inserts out of my tubing if I glued them in last time. I might not have glued them but that’s not a problem. I’ve cut stuff out before and sanded the inside of tubing. Worst case scenario, I have to redo my vent ducting totally. Not a major problem!

I forgot and left my 12v battery charging on my solar panel all day yesterday and left it out all night too. I remembered when I was in the shower last night (I shower at night because out here in the countryside, freezing temperatures can mean no water in the morning). Taking it off charge after I returned home from my morning schoolbus run, the battery voltage was 12.9v so I set it to use charging my tablet.

The voltage keeps flickering 11.8, 11.7, 12.1, 12.2 but it’s charging my tablet. I get better out of charging my tablet in the bus because the solar array is connected to the battery. So, having removed this battery from the 5W solar panel, I put my other identical battery to charge from the solar panel. This time I’ll probably leave it a couple of day since the initial voltage was 11v.

I really need to get cracking on doing more welding, wiring and plumbing but don’t want to get involved in dirty stuff before work. That’s a job for the weekend! Incidentally the high this weekend is 51F (11C). That’s pretty chilly for any underbus work.

While I was out, I had a look at some plumbing stuff. I decided I’ll probably use Pex piping for all my fresh water but secured with jubilee clips as opposed to Pex clamps. Various people full of horseshit have told me jubilee clips won’t work but there’s no reason given that stands up to scrutiny. I suspect most that say that are embarrassed because they bought the expensive Pex tool and don’t like others to be getting one over on them by doing things just as well but more cheaply. I am in no way ready to do any plumbing yet.

And Walmart - I totally forgot to go there! My Straight Talk phone was at the end of its month and needed more credit. I’d tried logging on last night to do it online and been through “your password is wrong, reset your password” which I duly did, followed by “password reset. Enter password. Password is wrong. Reset password”. It was a vicious cycle! Anyway since I totally forgot to buy a phone card I had a last ditch attempt this morning after work. After having reset my password at least three times, an old password found in my inbox from January actually worked! So, my phone got paid. I don’t think 2GB of data plus unlimited talk/text is bad value at $39 after tax.

This evening I might test my newly frosted lantern. Even if it doesn’t turn out to be as good for illumination (which it wasn’t anyway) I might just spray the others purely in order to get rid of the glare of those nasty bare LEDs (which was the whole point of the spray anyway). In general I’m not greatly impressed by the vast majority of this artificial lighting stuff. Out of curiosity I measured outside (nice bright cloudless day with a hazy sun) at 50,000 lux. Indoors I measured 58 lux. I have no ideal how accurate my phone’s lux meter is but I’ll hazard a guess that it’s not very. Mind, light measurement is a tricky thing anyway - where do you measure from? That’s a perennial issue for photographers.

The continuing adventures of the 5W panel.

As I happened to be out today performing the heinous act of shopping in Walmart, I availed myself of the opportunity to purchase a tea-light lantern. This will be used as a benchmark for all my future lighting. It takes one tealight and will thus produce one Candela of lighting. In terms of Lux, this is 1.19 lux. In Lumens this is 12.56.

I could heartily wish manufacturers would grade all their lighting in candela - it makes far more sense than lumens or lux, both of which measure things other than illumination. Lumens measures brightness (which is worthless without illumination) and lux just measures the light falling on a particular area. I could put a laser in a box and call it a light and say “oh yeah, this produces 20,000 lumens” but the fact that those 20,000 lumens illuminate only an area the size of a pinhead pretty much defeats the purpose.

I know my candle will produce 1 candela or 12.56 lumens. Doing a quick and worthless calculation, my whooptie-do-dah GE lantern that allegedly produces 350 lumens thus produces as much light as 27 candles. That really does not sound that great! Interestingly, hurricane lamps powered by kerosine can produce more light. A standard domestic unit with a 3/8 inch wick produces 4 candela. A bigger one with a 2.5 inch wick, as used in stores would produce 300 Candela. Now, interestingly I was in Walmart and measured the lux at about 300. In the kitchen in the trailer here, I measured it at 130 lux.

As I don’t currently possess a tea-light, I’ll have to hold off on my investigation as to the brightness of my tea-light lantern. Suffice to say, when I used to travel a lot, I used always to carry tea-lights and a tea-light lantern because it worked out at lighter and better value than a flashlight and batteries. One tea-light provides up to 3 hours of usable, consistent light. I don’t want to use anything flammable in my bus as a matter of routine though. I have fire extinguishers - I just don’t want to have to use them.

Another project today was to try out my 5w solar panel on my 7AH battery. Placing the battery on the hood of the bus and slipping a volt meter into it, I measured the resting voltage of the battery at a shade over 12.1v. In fact the meter kept flipping between 12.1v and 12.2v.

It was a matter of seconds to undo the battery clips and clip on my solar panel, placing the whole lot in the sun. It was placed in situ at about 1:45pm so it’ll be interesting to see how much if any the voltage has risen after an hour or two. I’d imagine since it’s a bright day and that I aligned the panel pretty well straight at the sun that my 5w or 0.4A of power will raise the voltage to 12.3v. A few days and I’m sure the battery would read 12.8v (full). My installed solar panels will be of lower efficiency than stated because they’re fixed in place and not angled correctly at the sun. They do, however, provide plenty power.

The ultimate plan is to link in a 50W portable panel on an extension cord that I can link to my existing solar system. That is one that I can angle straight at the sun. That should provide approximately 3A of power or enough to keep one of my fans running constantly or, buffering, my two fans running 50% of the time. One hour on, one hour off. I wouldn’t want to put a bigger panel on the ground where somebody could steal it. A 50W panel would cost probably about $50-$80. I did see a couple listed at $18 on ebay but given that one was from Sri Lanka and one from Spain, both with vegetation that looked distinctly similar and more Russian then I’d say they’re scams. A look on Amazon proved their cheapest 50W panel was by Renology and was $56 which confirmed my suspicions about the ebay listings being fraudulent. We know the procedure - long quoted shipping periods which gives the crooks 30 days to grab the money and run before anybody suspects anything, leaving ebay out of pocket and everybody pretty much fuming at the waste of time. I had that happen twice when I was buying my IP security camera!

The goal of my small battery plus my 5W panel is to produce something that can be an independent power source for my camera or for cell phone charging. Pretty much it’s a fun little side project that I’m having fun with. I’m certain there will be plenty naysayers out there like always with disparaging comments. In fact that’s pretty much the kind of thing that was one of the topics of one of the work meetings the other day - people that create a toxic work environment. I’d been going to contribute to the fare for the Christmas festivities at work and to participate but having encountered some of the toxic people the other day, I’m having second thoughts about contributing and attending. I certainly didn’t join the Secret Santa thing because I’d rather buy my own stuff.

Eventually, I whipped out the angle-iron that I’d bought a week or so back and cut it with my angle grinder. Then I whipped out my welder and my new Vulcan weding rods. There’s a difference! I’d only been using the older Harbor Freight rods and been struggling. These Vulcan rods sizzled their way to success very quickly and easily. I’m wondering if half my welding issues were related to poorer quality rods.

Now the theory is that should be pretty darned close to 90 degrees and flat. Only time and addition of the other members will tell. (Blogging as I work). The aim is to produce a new, lighter battery base than I made out of the older bed frame steel. Many times I tried to recycle what the hillbillies had used but their choice of materials was so poor that the vast majority of their stuff could not be recycled. Steel angle that was ludicrously heavy, electrics that were woefully underpowered and woodwork that while well made was not of substantial quality. It was as though they’d had the idea, had no idea what materials were appropriate and no idea how to put it all together.

Shortly after that I ran into the usual problem with a weld not sticking and rods not performing. That was compounded by the steel I’d been clamping things to deciding to wobble and fall off its perch. Major cussing ensued for several minutes as everything conspired to confound and frustrate. If the neighbors 200 yards away aren’t now blushing, I’d be very surprised!

The solution to my dilemma was pretty straightforward. Rather than relying upon wobbly supports, I decided to weld my supports together so they won’t wobble. that’ll give me another issue when it comes time to take the supports apart but as they’re not made of steel destined for use in the bus, right now I just don’t care!

At one point, I was even looking to find my thinner rods and had a good hunt but still couldn’t find them. I know I have a ton of welding rods in the bus but they’re being elusive today. Perhaps another day will prove more fruitful.

Anyway, having welded my workbench together more securely I recommenced work on the battery base. Within a few minutes I had achieved my aim and had three portions securely welded together. I’ll need to work more on one of the welds and I’ll have some angle grinding to do but it’s definitely getting there.

I’ll have to trim and weld on the 4th side another day and then try the battery for fit. Currently it’s about an eighth bigger in width than need be. That will facilitate snug installation of the battery.

Meanwhile I had completely forgotten about my battery that was busily charging from my 5W solar panel. Checking the voltage it had crept up to 12.4V. That’s not too bad. I figure a full day of sunshine should see that maxed out at 12.8v. I have no idea when it went dark but it was plenty dark when I put it inside the bus at 6pm.

I’m still quite favorably impressed by the Vulcan welding rods, despite my issues earlier with starting and maintaining an arc. Part of the problem is the rods are so long and harder to handle than my previous rods. I suspect I’ll have to use pliers or something to hold the rod closer to the end. Mind, tightening the sloppy jaws on my rod holder would go a long way too!








lolc.

39F and raining!

It probably doesn’t look like it in the photo but that ground is sodden. It has been raining for almost 24 hours and the temperature did not rise much above the 39F I measured inside my bus earlier. This is a day for thinking and not for working. Certainly I could plug the bus in and get my little fan heater going to make it cosy enough to do some work. It’s not light enough to do so though.

Speaking of light, I loaded a lux meter onto my phone yesterday. Today I recorded the light in the kitchen by which it is comfortable to read at 136lux and daylight outside on a cloudy cold day at 8,600 lux. Inside my bus I put two of my LED lanterns onto full power and held the meter up. When the naked LED shines directly on the meter from 3 inches I got 60 lux. From 3 feet away, zero. That should tell you how tremendously pathetic these LED lanterns are! I have a GE lantern that professes 350 lumens but I had my doubts.

Using the same lux meter, with the meter pressed up against the diffused glass I measured 500 lux. Moving the meter away two feet yielded 10 lux. I didn’t bother recording zero at 3 feet. So basically, these LED lanterns are children’s toys. They’re good enough to see large objects faintly or to see your way to the bathroom but that’s it. My measure of light is whether I can read a book, comfortably. None of these lanterns afford that luxury. Whether putting some white, reflective card inside the glass to reflect the light in a single direction would help, I don’t know.

This whole LED illumination thing seems to be smoke and mirrors. If you remember, when the idiots decided to do away with the good old incandescent bulb about 20 years ago, a 7W forescent was alleged to be as bright as a 100W incandescent. It most certainly was not and everybody had to go to 13W and even then the light was lacking a certain substance. Now they’re playing the same game saying that woefully underpowered LEDs are as bright as the 100W bulbs we cannot now obtain. Of course, they are not!

Somewhere I read that 1200 lumens is about equivalent to a 100W bulb. I’m unconvinced but out of curiosity I paid $5 and ordered 3 LED panels from China that claim 1000 lumen output. I’ll bet my bottom dollar that 1000 lumens will be a total disappointment. Having said that, if they do in fact work then I’ll get some of that plastic fluorescent tube diffusing plastic from Lowes (hiss, spit) and put them up as mini fluorescents. As I said though, I have my doubts about them.

One alternative to the miserable 12V lighting would be to put in 120V lighting. That’s not quite as daft as it sounds. If I put in 120V bulbs (incidentally a 40W incandescent lights the inside of the galley nicely) then a 60W equivalent LED bulb would consume 8.5W at 120V. If I were to put an inverter to convert 12V to 120V then that 8.5W would probably be about 2A of 12V power. Quite a power hog but then I never was fool enough to believe LED lighting was going to save any power.

One of the thoughts I’d had yesterday was to spray the nasty unshielded LED lanterns with the white fogging spray I had on my windows before I put tint and blinds up. That stuff was pretty good though patchy. Several coats correctly applied would likely reduce the horrible glare from the unshielded LEDs. Having seen though, how poor those lanterns are, the point of doing so has evaporated.

I keep meaning to do a comparison between these laughable LED lanterns and a simple candle lantern. Indeed, back in my dad’s place I have an old oil hurricane lantern. That produced a decent quantity of light. Not quite enough to read comfortably by but I have a feeling it was way better than what the rather pitiful LED lanterns produce.

Years ago I used to cycle about 8,000 miles annually. Where I used to live, there was a cyclepath from just outside my home to the center of the city. It made sense to cycle because it would take 45 minutes to cycle at zero cost versus 35 minutes by bus or 25 minutes by car (then spend 20 minutes trying to find a free parking space). That meant cycling through a valley that had trees forming an archway over the cyclepath. It was so dark that on a cloudy night it was not possible even to see the path. Thus after trying many different cycle lamps and finding all to be insufficient, I got myself a dynamo light from a dynamo set and put a 6V gel battery on it. That worked wonderfully and illuminated my path for 50 yards. Whether I’d be able to get the 12v version of the 6v krypton bulb I don’t know. I’m sure that would provide me with far more light than any of these LED contrivances.

Eventually I tested my GE lantern and found that was better than the no-name Chinese lanterns from Big Lots but even so, not by much. At 3 feet it was zero lux but at 2 feet it was 6 lux. That light level truly drops off rapidly! I get very much the feeling that unless I can get some form of incandescent lighting in here then I might as well stick with these horrible LED lantern abominations. It’s just too easy to follow the technology path. You do remember the technology path? First you buy something truly despicable then you buy something truly worthless then you buy something half-assed then you buy something that’s just not good enough then eventually after a few more iterations of not good enough you end up with something barely passable.

In a past life I worked for Barnes & Noble where I sold their ridiculous Nook device. The first edition was pure and utter junk. I remember the manager threatening to fire me for calling it half-assed junk. Thy worked out how to palm them off on the unsuspecting public though. Then there was a second edition then came the half -assed Nook Color where the thing just went bananas in even low levels of humidity. Eventually they cycled through a few more iterations before doing what they should have done in the first place and jacking it in and rebadging somebody else’s tablet. Technology always follows that path and it’s never ever a good idea to be in during the first decade of a device’s existence. LED lighting has been around for maybe 7 years. It’s still not a mature field. Maybe by 2020 it will be mature.

If you recall, I ordered LED lights. I also ordered some G4 bulb bases. The thought is that if the LED lights turn out to be as abysmal as I expect then I can simply install my G4 bulb bases and put krypton, xenon or halogen bulbs in the system. Three bulb bases will see my bus fully illuminated.

Meanwhile those of you with memories will recall that I glued a USB/fag-lighter socket to the top of a battery. Well, the glue did finally set. Though it was wet and cold today so I didn’t do anything with it, I can work on the setup over the next few days. There is a half-baked plan to combine my 5W solar panel with my security camera and that battery setup. Who knows - it might even work. If I end up junkingthe battery - who cares - I have another identical battery and no particular use for either.

Another dreary day!

The old refrain still applies - I’d like to have done this today but...

As work ended at about 1pm for me today, the schools having a half day and my day thus being truncated into two driving sessions with a two hour gap in the middle, that meant the rest of my day was free. Had the weather been cooperative and had I not got the remains of something akin to flu then I’d have been working more intensively on the bus. Last weekend as you might have guessed was a dead loss wiped out by the flu.

So, over the last week or two some small new things have arrived. None are in any way spectacular. I still have to get under the bus to complete attaching and soldering some connections on the wire from the bedroom to the back of the bus. I now have the cables for my battery and still have to weld the battery mount together. I have a clearer idea of how it’s all going to fit together now though.

Today I was going to butcher my .50 cal ammunition box to make it into a battery holder for my two 7AH batteries. I started gathering bits to put into it - a fuse holder, a switch, a USB charger and a 12V socket plus a voltmeter when my brain suddenly screamed how much would this unit cost when completed. I have no idea but I’m sure it would be fairly expensive in parts.

It was then that I realized that as this is something I’d probably want to leave outside to charge from a separate solar panel, it would make sense to be as simple and cheap as possible. I located my 12V and USB unit that I bought from Walmart and decided after that I didn’t much like as it had a 12v power socket and that I wanted everything in my bus running off batteries to be USB (aside from my fans and possibly potential lights).

Thus I simply glued the socket to the top of the battery and added spade clips to the ends of the cables. Switching is a simple matter of removing the clip from the terminal. Recharging is simple too. Remember my old 5W solar panel? That has crocodile clips that will clip nicely onto the battery terminals.

That’s an earlier incarnation of my panel - used to run some PCB fans as an experiment. The whole benefit is that if I leave the battery with the USB/12V connector glued on top outside, nobody is likely to steal it because it looks to rednecky DIY. Similarly that little solar panel is pretty inexpensive.

A fuse would have been nice but I’m unlikely to overtax the battery by using it for USB devices. The 12V socket is handy for my 12V socket mounting voltmeter. This is all light, cheap and easy to use and replace. The plan is to use it to power my new 12V remote camera (that arrived a week or two back).

I thought about working on the internal wiring for the bus but decided against as the portable battery thing sounded a more fun immediate reject. The idea is to put the small panel to charge the battery over a few days then to check the battery voltage. I’ll then put the camera onto the battery and see how the voltage drops over say 24 hours. Maybe it’ll all work together nicely as a security system. I don’t know. It’s a thought and I want to play with it.

The weather over the next month does not look good for working under the bus. It’s cold and sometimes wet. I’ll have to wrap up warm and roll underneath one dry day - possibly during the Christmas holidays. I want this project done so I can start using my bus for fun trips etc. I’ve already learned how to drive a bus and can fling longer, heavier busses around the roads like they were mere toys. I can drive them all - busses with sloppy steering, sloppy brakes and hardly any acceleration or power as well as busses that work perfectly. That’s the miracle I achieve most days at work!

One by one my goals are coming to fruition. I got my bus. I built my bus into a home. I’m finishing up the solar electrics right now then the code lock to the door before adding instant hot water and a water inlet. I’ll have to find a new faucet for my sink since the old one has vanished somewhere. It would even be at the bottom of the bathtub that lies forgotten in the yard. The bathtub I stripped out of the old conversion.

The beauty of being where I am is that nothing is ever truly thrown away. It’s dumped in a pile in the yard and then when bits of it are needed or it is needed, it’s usually possible to rescue and revive it. There’s plenty sheet steel from old fridges, old washing machines etc. Sometimes things just don’t seem to have an immediate use such as the old solar panel that I bought off ebay that didn’t work but as the guy said keep it and refunded me, that just got used for target practice. Old microwaves don’t have anything in them worth keeping either. Sure, the transformers and the capacitors might be worth salving but the steel is so thin that it’s not really worth contemplating doing anything with it.

Where I worked in the summer, one person found an old microwave that was going to be thrown out, took it home and found it didn’t work so they took it to a scrap merchant and got something like a dollar for it. It was a far bigger microwave than any of those. Was it worthwhile? Not really. The price of steel is so low that it makes more economic sense to put things out the back and let them rest into the ground than to take them to sell. Dumping them in an official tip isn’t even an option as that’d cost money that could be spent on better things while these things dumped on the land here are harming nobody.

As the glue is still setting on the top of my little battery pack, there’s not really a load of point in trying to get it working. Each time I tried, the glue moved and the charger connectors moved. I’ve got them just where I want them right now. The instructions even say 24 hours till cured and 72 hours til maximum strength. At least I found a use for one of my four small batterie!