I threw myself under the bus and survived!

It was pretty bloody cold today. Thus I didn’t spend long under there. I waited until 4pm which was about the warmest part of the day. After 4 there was only an hour or so before sunset so not really much time to do anything major.

Going outside I checked the ground to see if it was dry after the massive rainstorm we’d had the previous night. I was met by a sight that I hoped not to see. I’d forgotten to bring in my 7AH battery and 5W solar panel. Checking the battery it was on 11V which it shouldn’t have been as last time I checked, it was on 12V. Having said that I’ve had plenty problems with that battery anyway. It might well be a junk battery. The solar panel seemed to have survived though. It’s not encapsulated with the cells just covered in cellophane. So, while I worked on the underbus stuff, I left the battery charging off the solar cell and drying out.

I spent most of my time securing cabling underneath the bus. I now have several cable runs. I’ve tried to keep the runs on the outside of the chassis rails before the back wheels and in the center after the back wheels. This is so that before the back wheels, there’s as little as possible that can become tangled or caught by anything and possibly snag on the brake lines. This bus has hydraulic brakes not air brakes and that means that a broken brake line is a major problem. With air brakes, it just means the bus isn’t going anywhere.

 It took an age to get the last cable run into place. Then it was time to drill through the floor. The floor covering above the steel floor is covered with wood. That’s easy to work with. The steel is somewhat harder. In fact you could say it has an iron constitution. Drills are expensive but the cheap way of getting through steel is to drill a smaller hole and enlarge it. These are my hole enlargers. They work pretty well and I think I’ve only had one of them break on me during the entire bus construction project.

I got the cables to the hole and passed the wires through then found the sheath wouldn’t cooperate. That meant pushing the wires back out, enlarging the hole and then going underneath to push it all through. This time it all fitted perfectly. I didn’t have time today to seal the conduits with silicone caulk but I have to go underneath again to connect the battery cables to the battery. I’m leaving that til last.

One the cables were inside the bus they were secured to the wall using Harbor Freight cable clamps and self-drilling screws. Oh boy, I’ve used a ton of sef-drilling screws! After dismantling the mess the hillbillies made of their conversion which used non-stainless crosspoint self drillers, I used stainless hexagon head self-drillers and it has made life much easier.

So, by the end of the day all the 12v cables are in place inside the bus. I still have one trip to make underneath to seal and to attach the battery clips. Other than than the work is all inside and can be done in sleet, snow or pouring rain. The three cable runs have to be run up the side of the bus, across the back to the charge controller and the fuse box. One pair of cables has to go to the solar input. Other than that, it’s all power lines for my lighting and so on.

Speaking of lighting, I’d been looking into ways of attaching my G4 bulb holders then I realized I could probably glue them to the steel brackets I intend to use. Similarly I found a sheet of plexiglass that I’d left in the yard. That could produce a pretty good diffuser without my having to spend any more money.

Online I found there is something called cold solder and it’s used to repair connections on rear-window demisters. I’ve a mind to get some to make the connections on my two remaining flat panels. They might be worthwhile after all! Fortunately I can take things out of my trash can as well as put them in.

Yesterday I tidied the front yard a bit by removing a load of the detritus from bus construction. That was actually easier than it sounds. I’d had a pile of trash in two plastic bins and it had been there for quite a while. I’m talking a year and more. I emptied them on the garbage pile and took what remained of them back to reuse as I have yet more trash to collect and dump. I say what remains as they were plastic and the plastic had done what plastic does best - turned brittle and cracked.

Tomorrow might be a shopping day. Given that I normally drive 150 miles a day for myself and work combined, it’s been nice not actually driving since the work holiday started on the 21st. In the last 7 days I’ve not driven 1,000+ miles and that’s nice.

After the 12V is completed - this can be done in small sections, I’ll have to put a water inlet. Then a water heater, facets and plumb the water heater to the shower. I have to modify the ventilation system slightly and install a lock on the battery compartment and on the fuel door. At some point I want to retitle the bus as a motorhome too.

A chilly December day

Today I had planned to go under the bus. As the morning was somewhat chilly, I ended up sweeping the bus, eliminating quite a pile of sand. That just seems to come onboard on my shoes. I have no idea why. The best method of removing it seems to be a broom. At work, various drivers use blowers to remove the sand but I look at the cost. $100 for a decent blower versus $1 for a decent broom. No contest!

Overnight I had considered putting a handrail up the stairwell and pulled out a couple of promising candidates. After adding a close-to 90 degrees extra piece onto my workbench that would facilitate my building a handrail, I decided I’m not ready for a handrail yet. It’s one of those things that would be a nice idea but isn’t essential and comes with logistical issues I just don’t feel the urge to overcome today.

Meanwhile I put the 7AH battery out with the 5W solar panel today to try to top it up some more. Interestingly, in my experimentation yesterday, I discovered that the cigarette lighter socket plug that fits my solar panel has the polarity wrong. Good job I checked that! That makes my plans to put a plugin solar panel follow more the path I’d previously considered. As I wasn’t sure of the polarity I’d decided to put the solar output through a rectifier. Now I know that’s exactly what I need to do so there’s no way around a rectifier.

Eventually I tired of procrastinating and realized that as the weather wasn’t going to reach a balmy 70F so I pulled out a sweater and put it on. Then I went to work under the bus. The first order of the day was to complete my power cable setup. That took hardly any time at all and even boring the hole in the floor for it was pretty quick.

Passing the power cable through the floor, it joined my other cables. I’ll sort them all out later. The next hole has to go three inches to the right of the rightmost cable. Then I’ll have all my cable runs installed. And yes, that is a Christmas tree. It hasn’t been used for several years due to a very non-Christmassy feeling in the area.

Under the bus the cabling is bringing to look quite respectable. There you see four cable runs. I cannot imagine there will be any more. I think that’s about it. Once the current cable run which was just four cable clips away from going through the floor is done, that’ll be almost it for the underbus 12V stuff.

I would have finished the cable runs but aside from my drill complaining bitterly about the cold and that it’s puny little Harbor Freight battery was going flat, the daylight was rapidly receding. Indeed after being summoned into the main dwelling house for a few minutes, I returned to find the daylight had gone and I was left to pick up all my tools in the dark. I wasn’t alone though - a feral black cat eyed my every move with great suspicion.

Looking under the bus earlier I’d found when I’d put the one run from the bedroom on, I’d just looped it loosely without fastening it but had looped it incorrectly. I had to pull it out and re-loop it around the frame and chassis. That didn’t take many moments though. While I was in front of the rear wheels I noted that there was plenty space to install fresh water tanks and sewage tanks if I so wished. That was rather heartening.

Inside I looked at the handbasin and pondered a water inlet that instead of feeding the handbasin just ended in a faucet under the handbasin that allowed me to fill my 5 gallon jugs. That would be quite easy to do. It’s not what I want which is an instant water heater but it could be a step along the road.

I shall be so glad when I don’t need to go under the bus to work on it. I’m getting more than a little tired of breathing mold, bacteria and eating sand. I’m tired of sand in my hair, sand down the back of my neck and grubby fingernails. Even as I sit writing this, sand falls from my hair and I’ve been in the big dwelling for the past hour!

V380 security camera review

Those with memories longer than most politicians and more accurate than most Presidents will doubtless recall that for several months I tried to obtain a cheap WiFi webcam. In the end after two sellers on eBay cost me 4 months by selling the camera then failing to deliver I got it on Amazon for about the price the eBay sellers were advertising.

The good.

• It works.
• The picture quality on standard quality while not stellar is pretty good.
• It pans and tilts.
• There’s a microphone and a speaker for two way conversations.
• It does not use very much power.
• The software is usable.
• It does not need connection to the internet nor to a router as it has its own network.
• It can also be connected to a router.

The bus photo is one taken using the stills function. It can also record video clips. I haven’t tried it in darkness but the daylight imaging seems pretty good. It’s also possible to set up all kids of alerts

I set the camera up, connected to a 5W solar panel and a 7AH battery. The battery also had a voltmeter attached. Over about an hour of usage the battery voltage rose from 12/12.2V to 12.1/12.3V. Clearly the camera did use less power than my 5W panel produces.

The bad.

• Network connectivity on local mode (Tablet connecting directly to the camer) was appalling.
• The software is hard to use.
• There are no real instructions how to use the camera nor the software and the software is non intuitive.
• The camera is not weatherproof.
• The camera is not auto-tracking.
• Wireless range is very limited. 30 feet is about the range limit.
• The video catches up after panning and tilting has been completed - at longer ranges.

At closer range the camera does work better. I have not tried connecting it to a router nor to a phone as the app wants too many permissions and since the software is Chinese, untrustworthy. There’s just too much extra work involved in blocking all the ports it could use.

It’s fun to hear my own voice coming from the camera speaker a second or two after I speak. The speech is unrecognizable as mine but still it’s fun. It’s amusing also when after announcing in a tinny female Chinese voice “System Starting” then “Network Starting” it announces in a very proud tone “Connection Established”. That’s even funnier when it has just set up a network to which nothing is connected yet.

Conclusion.

The problems in getting the camera were a pretty good indication of its worth. It was a problem to get. eBay had to refund me twice after two sellers failed to supply while my money was held hostage for two months on each occasion. 

In use the camera was slow and clunky lacking many performance tweaks that could easily have been made. The software was appalling to use and to set up. The radio range is too short to be useful. Whether it would work better as a corded camera is unknown as this was not tested.

It’s a fun toy to play with but I cannot imagine anybody being satisfied with it. Far better to use a corded webcam or a straightforward motion activated standalone camera. This is probably more aimed at the children’s market for children to put outside their tree house in order to see if their parents are coming.

Why you shouldn’t use a charge controller!

Everywhere, the solar enthusiasts all say “Thou shalt use a charge controller” then all the parrots come out and repeat this. At the first hint of a problem with one where it’s clearly from China more parrots come out “should not have bought one from China” while neglecting the fact that all the circuits for every charge controller available in the USA is actually made in China.

The problem with these funky charge controllers is they’re all designed to be used in static installations, not in vehicles. Thus, they need the battery to be connected via two wires, the appliances to be connected by two wires and the solar panels to be connected via two wires. What a Royal pain in the rump that is! In a vehicle the body can be used as a common wire (usually the negative wire) in order to save a ton on expensive electrical wires and a ton of time on installation.

The charge controllers all claim to have “algorithms” or some such total fiction. The fact is with a solar panel, you connect it to the battery and it puts power into the battery as long as the sun is shining brightly enough that there’s more power from the panel than in the battery. A simple diode stops the battery blowing power into the solar panel to blow it up when the charge from the panel gets too low.

At the moment because I don’t currently have the right stuff to do this without one of those ludicrous charge controllers I’m having to play by the perverted rules of the Chinese. I’ve tried using the body as the ground and connecting the battery ground and the appliance ground to the body but the charge controller is not happy about it. I keep seeing a warning symbol. I can’t wait to get rid of that junk charge controller. None of the others I have are any different. They’re all equally awful.

What is needed to get round all this nonsense is two separate units. Firstly an overcharge controller such as the one used on a car battery. Secondly a simple battery protector that switches the power off when the voltage gets too low. The overcharge controller seems also to be called a voltage regulator. The battery protector seems to be called a low voltage disconnect.

For the moment I’m putting in two battery cables and they will go straight to the charge controller. I’ll have to make the body negative from the charge controller appliance negative and put the positive through the wiring. It’s a massive and heinous problem due totally to the idiotic way in which these cheap-ass all-in-one units are made. Eventually I’ll go with two separate units and strip out or retask my excess cable.

I spent a few minutes or more like 30 squeezing my twin battery cables into some of Harbor Freight’s cable wrap. I’ve probably got way more than I can ever hope to use but at the very least it’s something toward progress on the bus. Can I say now just how much I detest rolling around in the dirt, underneath my bus? I do it but only because it has got to be done. In fact this whole bus building thing is driven by the goal, not by the process.

By the time the daylight ran away, I had two bundles of cables almost completely installed. One goes from the battery to the charge controller (or will when I drill a hole in the floor and pass it through. That needs connections made to the battery that I shan’t make til I’m ready to power everything. The other is a set of cables I’d started to install weeks ago and hadn’t had time to complete. I’d needed to extend the one pair of cables and so today I extended them and popped most of it in cable wrap. I ran out of wrap, sadly. I’ll have to see about getting more later.

Admiring the well hung!

Today I decided to install my battery cage. While I was at it, I installed the battery too. It wasn’t plain sailing though. When I put the cage in place, the nicely pre-drilled holes didn’t line up with the corresponding holes - they did (mostly) but enough didn’t that I had to get the power drill out to rework some of the holes fractionally. I can only guess that welding the battery cage to the suspension bars must have warped the bars slightly. Next time I’ll save myself a ton of effort and just weld straight to the bus. All this welding I’ve been doing lately has shown me I can get nice-looking welds as long as I stick to 1/16th welding rods and use a lot of them, making several passes and puddling as required.

As can be seen in this photo, the battery fits nicely into my cage and is secured by two turnbuckles and two link extenders together with the cross bar I made yesterday. Those with really sharp eyes (the picture looks dark on my tablet so I can only imagine what it looks like on some of the lower-quality screens) will see I’ve installed a self-resetting circuit breaker above the near end of the battery. At that point the battery quit in my power drill so I pretty much knocked off work under the bus. Having said that - I’ve achieved great things today.

Speaking of problems, one bolt wouldn’t go fully into place. I’m not too worried about that because each bolt will support more weight than the 30lbs of the combined cage and battery. It’s held by 7 bolts. I might return to the strange bolt at some future point. For the moment, it’s secure and I want to see how well the battery fares attached behind the rear wheels.

Not feeling like rolling about under the bus further, I pulled out one of my 3 LED light panels and tried to prime the contacts with solder for easier soldering later. One contact took solder but the other just burned away in a fraction of a second. I’d already expressed doubts about those panels, if you recall. Also, if you recall, I don’t get much luck with electronics anyway. Well, at least they weren’t expensive. I’ll just throw the other two in the trash together with this one. They’re not solderable and not worth any more time nor effort - especially when I have some G4 sockets already and G4 bulbs on the way.

Yesterday I mentioned a socket I found buried in the sand, It was almost unrecognizable because of the rust. I’ve had it sitting in a small container of plain household distilled white malt vinegar for the last week or so. Look at how the rust has just dropped off. Probably another week and I’ll take it out of the vinegar, rinse and dry it then give it a quick coat of varnish. Then it’ll be usable.

Monday and Tuesday it’s supposed to be dry but low 50s so it’ll be chilly. Those sound likely days for heading under the bus to complete some if not all of my 12v underbus wiring. The in-the-bus wiring can be done pretty much any time. I don’t even need daylight to do that.

Looking online, there is some stuff called cold solder that can be used to solder things l/ike my light panels. I just don’t feel it’s worthwhile though. I could go on forever trying to “rescue” hopeless items. My drawer is full of useless electronics that I’ve acquired over the years. Things that were supposed to do one thing well and which failed even to do that. Mail order and ebay clothes are on a par with electronics. If it’s not tried on in the store then the size given probably isn’t right and usually it’s not worth the time nor money to send the thing back for a refund.

At this point let me remind you of my RCA 16GB tablet. I paid $50 for a brand new tablet covered for a year by the manufacturer’s warranty. While it worked, it was a pretty good little tablet. The trouble was the charging port was flimsy and became loose within 3 months, causing the tablet not to charge no matter how careful one was. Contacting the manufacturer it seemed I had to pay $10 - $15 to send the thing back. Then they wouldn’t send me my nice purple one back, fixed. Instead they’d send me a used black tablet. Hearing that I wrote it off as “never ever buy anything from RCA again”.  That’s taking the Mickey out of the customer! I’m usually pretty careful about not buying electronic garbage because every dollar thrown away on trash is two dollars I have to spend on something decent. Years ago somebody put it very succinctly - over the years people will pay the price of a Porsche without ever owning one. So - electronics - BAH!

As an aside, I’m sitting writing this in my bus, illuminated by my cheapo LED lanterns that I sprayed with frosting spray. While the lanterns still are not very bright, the light is much more pleasant to work by. I am not dazzled nor blinded and I can see roughly where things are. I can’t wait to get the full 12V system up and running though - with the G4 lighting. The advantage with the G4 is I can change the power usage by simply changing the bulb. Thus if I need a lower level of light in the bathroom then I can do it!

For the next two days (Christmas Eve and Christmas Day) it’s going to be raining. I’m unlikely to do anything on those days. Having said that, Christmas has officially been postponed to New Year’s here due to everybody still being sick.

I’ve been thinking a lot about those G4 bulb holders. I want to put a lampshade on them and a mounting. In the end I concluded that a simple L bracket from the hardware store would work as a mount. I could fasten that to the wall and mount the bulb holder on the end of the bracket. A lampshade would be trickier so I started by hunting on eBay and Amazon. Nothing leapt out save for the high prices. Then I had a sudden brainwave. Those cheap plastic shot glasses from the dollar store, sprayed with frosting spray should work just fine as lampshades. I can just bolt them onto the bracket and if they get broken then so what? They’re also dirt cheap and as some have noted - I like cheap.

As you can see - it’s a very simple little thing. I bought a pack of 5 for next to nothing. That’ll give me a single light over the desk in the bedroom, a single light over the toilet and a single light over the cooking area in the kitchen with two left over. I’ll definitely have a lampshade over the lights in the kitchen and the bedroom. The bathroom I’m not so sure about. That just might not be worth bothering about. Unless you’re Uncle Jessie who reads the Bible while sitting on the toilet every Sunday (and sometimes the whole bible judging by the time he spends there) then a lampshade is not really necessary.

Now you’ve heard me complain about the pitiful light from my LED lanterns then you hear about my only lighting some areas. You must be scratching your head! Well, the fact is I like adequate lighting where I’m working. I don’t need it in unimportant areas. Those lanterns don’t produce enough light for anything. I’m just waiting on the post for my G4 bulbs.

Finishing the batterybox.

Today being another fine day and another work free day (the children are on holiday so I don’t have a school bus run to make), I worked more on my battery holder. First order of the day was to put a final coat of white paint on my holder then while that was drying to weld the other end onto my securing bracket.

I was down to my last 6011 1/16th welding rods but they lasted and I not only completed the welding but tideied up the mess made by my 3/32 rods. My arc welder is very good but it only gets on well with 1/16th welding rods. Anything ticker just becomes a blobby mess.

I’ve just ground the blobbiness of my top welds into flatness as they will be sitting on top of the battery and my aim is as with the underside to be as gentle on the battery as possible. I know batteries are tough but it still pays to be gentle. Now some have asked me why I’m not supporting the middle of the battery. The answer there is I don’t feel on a battery that small that it’s necessary and if the battery does leak then I’d rather it leaked onto the road than inside a container and corroded my container.

The plan today is to install the self-resetting breaker on my battery box and to complete the construction. There is a plan to secure the battery using the bracket I’ve just welded and primed. After that I’ll try to install the battery housing under the bus and try to secure the battery in place. That’ll leave me open to install the wiring.

Out of curiosity I put the cage I’ve built onto my scales and it seems to weigh a shade under 10lbs. The battery (which according to the spec sheet weighs 20lbs) also weighed 20lbs so I know the scales are right. For fun I put my original battery base onto the scales and that also came in at 10lbs. That base would have needed extra steel and would therefore have probably come in at around 30lbs or maybe more.

The bolts I’m using to secure the cage to the ribs are 5/16th grade 8. Now I’m not 100% sure what the grade 8 means but according to a data sheet I pulled up, each bolt has a tension capability of 8050lbs and a shear capability of 6980lbs. Combined, the 8 bolts should be able to hold 64,400lbs or over twice the fully laden (27,500lbs) weight of my bus. I don’t think my battery is going to drop off anytime soon. The weakest points are the ribs (which hold the body to the chassis) and the welds on my cage (which aren’t going to break anytime soon). The maths says this is going to work.

My concern about the heavier cage was more related to my ability to lift the blessed thing and support it while bolting it in place. I may be superhuman but I’m not a weightlifter and these days my flying capabilities are limited to downwards flying (with gravity assist).

As usual, I then got side-tracked. I have been aware through this whole project how I need a better work bench and so on. I found some steel angle that would be ideal for the task and set about welding it together to be a workbench. 

I had nothing but problems. I used 6011 rods that will weld galvanized steel and will cut through paint but I only had 3/32 rods remaining so the end result was a very difficult welding session in which I managed to make one weld hold and the work moved when I was welding. Thus, the end result was nothing as I have to cut the weld off and start again. It’s looking like I need to head to the store to buy more welding rods!

The plan with the bench is that since all the steel is pre-cut (from an old abandoned project) to build a two legged bench (the welds will be sufficient for that) about 4 feet long and about waist high. I don’t need to cut any steel at all. It’s all been done before. It’s not going to be massively strong but it’ll be sufficient for most needs. I won’t put an actual top on it though I could quite easily weld some steel from one of the abandoned appliances to make a flat top. The advantage of the open structure is things can be clamped to it using ordinary G clamps.

After a while I remembered I had some 1/16 7014 rods. Letting those linger would burn off any paint or zinc so I retrieved them and had a go. By the time darkness fell with its usual thud, I’d completed a functioning work bench. That left me with another problem. Because the bench is much neater and takes up less space than the two saw horses I had been using, the detritus of 3 years working on my bus is now visible. I’ll have to clean the yard up some.

I never got as far as installing the breaker on my battery holder nor the holes in the now painted battery bracket. I didn’t even get anything done as far as my side project of putting wires onto one of the LED panels. There’s always tomorrow though. I fully expect I’ll be working on the bus even on Christmas Day!

I need a cleaning woman!

Sadly I don’t have a cleaning woman. I have to do it all myself! Fortunately I went shopping yesterday. I needed some small grinding stones to clean up the excess welds on my battery holder. Thus I went to the usual places. Mann Tools didn’t have a small grinding stone that fits a pistol drill and couldn’t imagine one that small nor a drill that could go at 5,000RPM. I think they’re used to those battery powered toy drills. They’re good for woodwork but that’s about it!

Next I went to Dillans but again, they didn’t have any small grinding stone nor could they imagine any. I did buy some at Harbor Freight last time but I’ll be blessed if I can find them! Then Habitat For Humanity but their tool selection was dismal this time. After that, Lowes (hiss, spit) was across the road. They had some but today I just couldn’t get them to perform all that well. Just in case, I also visited Ace Hardware where they had a multi pack of different sizes and shapes of pistol drill grindstone. I bought a pack.

Putting the Ace Hardware grinding bits to work achieved the aim of trimming down my oversized welds. Those would allow the battery to sit flat on the base I made. Sadly my side welds were too bulbous but as my angle-grinder fitted nicely, I ground them down much faster. Trying the battery found that it was a perfect fit.

I took a quick break. The bathroom called! It seems that I still have some kiddie germs and it’ll probably take a kiddie free week to be rid of them. This is the problem when you drive schoolbusses or work with children. Half of it is my fault because I’ve been lax on spraying the work bus down with disinfectant before each journey. I just plain forget.

So the next stage would have been installing my new breaker but for some reason I decided that painting was the order of the day. Out came a can of white spray paint purchased in Ace Hardware. It’s their own brand but paint is paint when it comes to enamel topcoat.

Meanwhile, as I walked by my bus the other day, I saw a stone that looked a bit too regular in shape. Picking it up proved it to be rusty metal. Tapping it on my outdoor workbench got the sand and grit out of it. It turned out to be a socket from a socket set. Not having any actual derusting solution, I popped it into the bottom of a coke can that I cut in half for the task and covered it with vinegar (ordinary white distilled malt vinegar). Three days later, the rust is literally falling off that socket, forming a sediment in the bottom of my container. It’s possible even to see the engraving on the socket. A few more days and I’ll whip it out of the vinegar, rinse and dry it then sray it with some protective paint. Sockets are always worth having - especially when they’re free! The vinegar trick saved me from dragging out a compressor and sugar (I sugar blast) just to clean one small item.

Some while ago, I ordered (without thinking of the replacement issue) three LED light panels. They arrived today. In a word, they’re bright. Unpleasant to view, in fact. I can see many uses for them but won’t be employing them in the bus anytime soon. I might, however, put them into a DIY LED lantern. It’d have to run off 12v however, which means it’s unlikely to be constructed this millennium but never say never!

At night, trying the light panels again, one single panel lit the bedroom very brightly. Though I said “never” - purely because replacement will be so uncertain - I really do feel I want to employ them somehow. A minor advantage of the G4 lights is that different power lights can be used. The biggest advantage is that as LED bulbs seem to do nothing but fail, they can be replaced with halogen or something else worthwhile.

I had planned to do more today but after part-welding a top bracket to put on top of my battery to secure it to the bottom, I was called away on a mission.

You are looking at the top bracket upside down. The two pieces that sit toward opposite ends rest on top of the battery with the vertical portions on the outsides of the battery. Thus, the bracket cannot slip. A second factor is that as the horizontal portion of the two pieces sit on top of the battery there is - if you will - a bridge or an air gap between them. This allows the battery to vent through the pressure strip that runs the length of the battery.

The plan tomorrow is to complete what I started today. To put a final topcoat on my white battery hanger and to complete and paint my top bracket - including drilling the holes. I also have to mount my self-resetting breaker on the side of the battery cage. That will ensure that in the event of a short circuit the battery is protected. A solid-state self-resetting circuit breaker would be more advantageous but thus far I’ve not seen one.

The G4 bulb mounts are easily mountable on a standard L bracket. That means I can attach them easily to my partitions. I’ve had my eye out looking idly for lamp shades for them. Having said that with something that produces next to no heat, a simple clear plastic tube could be used - the kind posters often come in. Spray it with frosting spray and trim it to length and there’s a lampshade.

If tomorrow goes as planned, I might even be able to complete fastening my underbus cables and even bolt the battery holder in place. I’m not going to rush that though - I want the paint fully cured. That can take a couple of weeks. I’d like to make a good start on the 12v battery cable though. By the end of December I want my solar 12v system done and I’d like to start thinking about a water inlet.