Thank God I'm not a millennial!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

At least 4 inches of rain fell today

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

New destination

For a long time I had destination signs in my front window on the bus for a laugh. I had for the longest time: "Fort Leavenworth Death Row Express". Then I had "Fort Leavenworth Prison Choir". They were inserted into a plastic sign holder that I'd had for donkey's years. Time for a change!

A few days ago I bought some note-card in 8.5x11 which will be excellent for the lazer printer. The new plan is to print off a few dozen humorous destinations and to use the same plastic holder but this time, glue magnets to it so that it doesn't slide about. The problem with the previous signs is they were paper and just folded and crumpled. I think the card will last longer. 

I didn't do a lot today. It was hot again and about the only thing I can do is to install my new CPU fan. That will involve filling the old holes I'd drilled with rivets. Of course my riveter is being disobedient. Combine that with the fact that I need to get some drywall screws in order to complete attaching the cable ducting to the wall and you can see I have plenty to buy. Just when I thought I'd bought everything and didn't need anything more!

I repurposed the mount I'd made for the old (big) CPU fan and simply ignored the fact it was longer than needed. It's not that important. The important thing is that the smaller CPU fan shifts far more air, far faster than the bigger fan.

While I was drilling the new holes to mount the smaller fan, I noticed the cooling fan from the drill was blowing the fan. That had me thinking about wind generators. My big thing about wind generators is that they are universally huge. The blades are gigantic and not guarded and they generate very little power if any in the usual low wind speeds. Seeing the concentrated air having an effect on the CPU blades made me wonder instead about using my old battery fans to generate power. Rather than having a propeller and a tail I could have a cone around the fan to concentrate the wind and have it on a boom. That way a small 12V fan and a plastic bucket or similar could be used to amplify the wind and turn a worthless 12v motor into a useful generator.

That's about all I did today. I'll have next week to buy myself some half inch cable wrap, blue female spade connectors and some drywall screws. Other than that I think I probably have everything I need. I still have to wipe down my welder and my welding helmet with disinfecting wipes. They've been out of the rat house and stored in vehicles where the heat must surely kill any remaining bacteria. I did pull a wheelchair out at the same time - that I left in the sun for a day where the heat and ultraviolet should kill what washing with Lysol didn't.

100F or 38C is not funny!

Today it's not just hot, it's beyond hot. I had aspirations toward installing the final battery cabling under the bus but aside from the weather being a little too warm, I found that while I have the cables, the cable wrap I have is not big enough. The quarter inch wrap is way to small. The three eights wrap is on the small side too but while I could use it, I didn't have enough to complete the task.

My 10A self-resetting breaker still has not arrived from China though my battery connectors have arrived. I'd rather get the whole length of the cable in cable wrap before I go under the bus and while I'm there I want to replace some of the battery connectors currently in use anyway. Not being able to do everything underneath was a deterrent to commencing. 

I finally figured out a way to put cable ties on the cables where the underbody rib is directly over chassis members or the differential. Both of those mean I cannot use my handy Harbor Freight power drill or my handy Harbor Freight battery drill (for which I bought a new battery the other day). It's really simple - I bought an air wrench when I thought I was going to have to work on a pickup truck that had rusty bolts. I realize now that if I put a socket the same size as the hex head as my self-drilling screws, I can use the air wrench as though it were a power driver.

Meanwhile, I bought a toggle switch the other day. I'd intended to use that with the new USB socket I installed in the bus - you remember - the one when I had the accident and snapped the turn signal switch, forcing me to buy and install a new turn signal switch?

I opened the console and found I'd already put a switch in there. The wires from the USB device were hard wired to the power rail though so they will always be on. I moved a wire to the switch, installing a female spade connector and finding out that I was totally out of blue connectors. Never mind, I doubled the wire back and used a yellow. That worked!

In this picture you can see the control console. There are seven switches that Carpenter never installed. From top left to bottom right...

• Sockets - powers some USB sockets to the left of the console.
• CB - powers the CB to the right of the console.
• NAV - powers the new USB socket which in turn powers my GPS speedometer and an as-yet-to-be-obtained GPS navigation unit.
• REV - powers the reversing horn.
• Camera - powers all 3 of the cameras and both of the C-DVR units in order to record everything happening in front or behind.
• MON - powers the monitor so I can see what the reversing cameras can see.
• Horn - currently powers the bus horn. I do intend to find out what's wrong with the horn circuit and remedy it so that I can sound the horn by pressing the horn button on the steering wheel.

As you may have noticed (which was rather astute of you) the labels for the new switches are stick-on labels with sharpie on them. While I could go out and beg or buy a label maker, I really, really don't see the point. Everything I do on this bus is done for me. I have such rotten luck selling anything that I have no doubt that when I have no use for the bus any more I'll be totally unable to sell it and will likely end up giving it to a farmer to use as a chicken house. Thus there is little point in putting fancy (and expensive) features in that might make it salable. The other thing is that I see so many people trying to sell their conversions after a few years (and even see one moldering in a secondhand car merchant's field) the market is probably flooded.

Add to the flooded market all those people that have bought ready-converted buses or spent a small fortune on having them converted. They will be wanting to sell after a few short years. Those will have all the fancy bits that mine does not. They will be selling them for pennies on the dollar. Then throw insurance into the matter. It's almost impossible to get comprehensive insurance not just on a DIY schoolbus conversion but on one that's not been done by (the agent told me) a major company (one that makes motorhomes as a business). So small redneck companies out in the hills stand no chance - whether they make one or a hundred a year - of producing anything insurable. 

It thus makes no sense to spend a ton on a conversion. Better to do it all yourself and have the challenges of doing it and know how to do it again if something goes wrong - somebody steals your bus or it gets written off in a wreck. 

I've been thinking of welding a steel sheet over the lower window in the back door. As the trailer in which they have been stored has a major rat problem, I went to get my welder today. The welder is usable - it just needs to be wiped down after being left in the sun for a while. The helmet - the same. The leathers are probably so well impregnated with rat pee and rat poo that I'll just condemn them. I suspected I might have to so I bought more gloves when I was at Harbor Freight, the other day.

Not having air brakes on the bus means I have no handy air tank to use for power tools. I have been investigating all kinds of ideas. One that looked feasible is to use a tyre inflater to pressurize a 5 gallon portable air tank. If that was mounted under the bus and the inflater powered by solar battery power or from the alternator when the bus was running, that would allow me a wide array of options. It's an idea I'm playing with. For the moment I'll probably use somebody else's air compressor and tank.

I measured the aperture on the back window at 31 5/8" by 15 5/8". With steel sheet cut to that size and held in place with some welding magnets that I bought at Harbor Freight, I could weld the steel flush with the rest of the door, leaving the original window intact and in place.  There was a slight hiccup to the plan though - the steel on the side of the cooker has folds in it where they're unwelcome. Thus it might end up being a case of having to weld two pieces of steel together before welding the steel into place. That would be quite unwelcome but all is not lost. Appliances here fall like flies so there's bound to be another soon.

Meanwhile, Harbor Freight has elected to stop selling the good welding rods. Now they sell a different brand (at a higher price) and don't sell 1/16th rods any more. To do this welding I can't use a 6013 rod as it doesn't adhere to galvanized steel. I would prefer not to use 6011 as it spatters badly even though it is for galvanized steel. I would like to use 7014 as it does the same job as the 6011 but doesn't spatter.

I have tried 3/32nd and 1/8th rods on my welder and it really does not perform well with either. I'm not about to buy a new welder with the little welding that I have left to do on the bus project. I'd rather hunt for rods and have to order online. I went to Lowes and looked but had the usual run around and had to talk to 5 members of staff, none of whom knew anything about welding (despite selling welding equipment), all of whom waved a pack of 1/16th 6013 rods at me. Eventually they rang somebody and told me they couldn't get them. Sounds like they need a different attitude and a different supplier.

Next I went to AirGas where I met a very pleasant fellow who knew exactly what he was talking about. He had a ton of rods and explained that a 7018 is a 7014 that can be used also for overhead welding. Sadly, he had no 1/16th rods but enthused about how smoothly 7018 rods went on.

Checking online, Tractor Supply is alleged to have 7014 rods in 1/16th but we all know how accurate company websites are, don't we? I must remind my readers of the debacle by the car spares store. They said online that I could order a turn signal switch to be paid for and picked up in store. I did just that and never heard another peep from them other than when I rang I spoke to somebody claiming to be the Store Manager who really didn't sound capable of managing a used diaper.

So, I might just have to order online for the welding rods I need. That kinda quashes advancement over the weekend. Of the projects underway...

• The roof vent - I have the bits - I just need a cooler day.
• The underbody wiring - I need to go out to get half inch cable wrap and blue female spade connectors. I'm also waiting for my self-resetting 10A breaker to arrive.
• The controller for the fans. I'm holding off on that right now. I have another box on the way and want to wire the solar input via a switch into place before I work more on the fan controller. I want to test whether I can just run off all existing panels while they're connected to my charge controller or whether I'll need to put a smoothing capacitor in somewhere.
• The bathroom fan. That arrived. I just need to get down to installing it. I'll have to make new brackets to mount it. I just never thought of doing it today.

I think everything else is done. I did think about the air tank a bit further and somebody suggested getting an engine powered air pump. The problem there is secondhand they're about $500. That's pretty costly. Of course, if I was to do that then I'd want really decent air tanks and that would lead me toward installing air brakes.

Honestly, if I get the four or five current project done, I'll regard the bus as being complete. While I could add a 120v AC unit by installing a window AC unit under the floor, ducted to blow into the cabin, I think my fan ventilation is superior. Needless to say though that when I get the last cabling into place I will probably install another Harbor Freight battery but in the battery compartment. When it comes time to replace all three then I might just put a single 100AH battery in the battery compartment alongside the driving batteries.

Real, running water on demand!

It may not look much but this is actual running water. After running the cable under the bus yesterday to the bathroom, it's now up, under the sink and at the pump. I sat there on the toilet with my knee pressed against the pump button for quite a few seconds, in awe of what I've just created. It wasn't fun installing the cables under the sink as I had to drill holes and put screws in, blind. It was a time that I wished I was as small as a Barbie doll.

Heaven knows why my phone decided not to focus on this one but the bottom left fuse is a 1A ATO/ATC fuse and that powers my handbasin water pump. That fuse place had been empty forever! The fuse 2nd down on the left powers my bathroom fan - whenever my bathroom fan arrives from China.

Things I'm currently waiting for:
a 10A self-resetting breaker (delivery date June 11 - July 23). That could be a while and I might end up getting one in a car parts store locally if they have any.
A pack of 5 power connectors. (delivery date May 24 - June 3). It's not forever but as I can't find anything locally, it'll have to do.

I started work on putting some brackets onto my purple box. That just wasn't destined to happen today! I drilled two holes but they were to small and needed to be enlarged. Whoops - one hole got a little too big but I did find a washer to put on the inside for the rivet. Did I say I was riveting? Clearly I didn't inform the riveter that it was expected to work.

The first rivet broke off short before even completing its mission, leaving me with a mess to deal with. That, I'll resolve with my angle grinder. I'll just cut the core and grind the head down then redo the rivet.

Meanwhile I tried to rivet the other side. This hole was the right size for the rivet but again the riveter had trouble. It has managed to bend the shaft of the rivet and refused to grasp it in order to finish tightening the rivet and to break the shaft off.

I've had trouble with riveters and angle grinders but not this problem with a riveter. Bearing in mind I'm using aluminium rivets with steel cores, this is quite pathetic! I had to rebuild one riveter after it jammed on me. That was quite interesting as I'd never dismantled one before. This one is simpler and I'm wondering whether a squirt of oil might help it work better.

Having had three near disasters I decided to call it a day. I'm taking the hint that today the universe is telling me not to work on construction for the day. Generally I find once I go beyond 3 problems everything turns into a nightmare. It certainly doesn't help that it's 100F today (38C).

Smaller advances than desired

The running water demonstration of a few weeks ago used a battery pack under the sink. Right now my mission is to power the shower pump directly from my house batteries. Saturday being my day of doing little, I've not achieved as much as I would have liked. In my defence, it has been rather warm. The temperature inside the bus with the ventillation fans off rose to 41C or around 104F. Outside the temperature according to the online weather service was 98F though they said on the radio that it was actually 1 degree cooler than the maximum recorded of 101F.

The first thing I did was to complete installing the turn signal switch. That, I'd started the day it had arrived, which was a few days ago. I couldn't complete it then because I had to lie on the floor and that day I was wearing my work clothes.

This last few days my schedule has been way less hectic. Normally I'm out of the house at 5AM after a 4AM alarm. Then I drive a school bus from 5:30AM (or sometimes a shade earlier) until 8:15AM. Then I am out again on the first middle-day run which starts at 10:20AM and ends at 12:00PM then I'm out again on my second middle-day run which starts at 12:00PM and ends at 1:15PM. Then it's a hasty lunch before I'm out again from 1:45PM til 5PM. Every other day I have to drive after the morning run to another depot in order to get fuel. The fuel truck only comes every 3 days so I have to refuel in between since the fuel tank holds but 60 gallons and my daily run is 200+ miles.

Anyway, since term is now coming to an end, the elementary children don't ride. That reduces my midday runs to one and reduces the load significantly on my other journeys. That led to one very light day when I came home and managed to get some work done on the bus. It was for another reason though that I came home that day.

My car refused to start in the morning so I borrowed a pickup truck. I came home after the morning run to return the pickup and to fix my car. Well, the car fix was easy enough - the battery clip was loose on one terminal - clearly it had worked loose since Walmart had installed the battery in December 2015. Then I had to fix the pickup because it didn't want to start! With a few minutes remaining I started installing the turn signal switch.

Switching turn signal switches was pretty easy. I just had two screws to undo. The old switch had no rubber boot around the paddle. The new one does but it moves readily, and that allowed me to access the screws to fasten it in place readily enough. Then it was the connectors. They had a locking flap that could easily be lifted and the old connectors pulled out of the bus connectors and the new connectors pushed in. It was all unidirectional. Very easy and straightforward save for having to lie on the floor in the heat to do it. I dare say a mechanic would have charged a hundred dollars to do what took me probably an hour (because I had to work out how it all worked). Testing came next and it tested perfectly.

The horn button when pressed made a satisfying sound from a relay somewhere. The hillbilly horn that had been wired without a fuse, blew the new fuse I'd installed. I'm not sure what's happening there. I have it in mind to find out what is wrong with the original horn circuit that the hillbillies tapped into. My betting is that it was the old turn signal setup because some of those connections were quite loose.

I went under the bus to complete running the cable for the handbasin pump. That went well enough though I did break a drill bit making the hole in the floor for the cable to enter underneath the hand basin. By the time I finished for the day I hadn't quite connected everything but what needs to be done can be done inside the bus.

The photograph of the waste barrel is because one of my regular readers wanted to know how I'd secured my waste barrels. What can be seen here is chains that will hold 560lbs per length, chain couplers that will hold 400lbs and turnbuckles that will hold 130lbs. The barrel is 15 gallon and will weigh 128lbs when chock full. As can be seen, the barrel can never be fully emptied nor probably fully filled. I'll regard it as a 12 gallon barrel to be on the safe side. The bolts holding the chain terminals are 5/16th inch and capable of suspending 1,200lbs. I'm pretty confident that my barrels are secure!

The downpipe in the background is from the sink to the barrel. The pipe in the foreground is a water inlet and at the bottom is a pressure reducer. Though my plumbing should be fine for standard pressures I wanted to be very sure and use low pressure.

During the week I thought about my solar-powered extraction fan idea. I'll keep on with that but what I will also do is to install wiring to the battery compartment so that if needed I can put a 3rd battery or a bigger battery in the battery compartment. I bought the cabling the other day but as I need another 10A breaker and a battery connector, I have to wait as I had to order both. I have a feeling that might be a more profitable route.

I still have yet to install the cables into the battery compartment for the solar charger in order to keep the driving batteries topped up. I might change out the charge controller that's located at the front of the bus in order to do that. I just have little faith in the cheapest of the PWM controllers. All solar controllers are made in China. I did briefly consider MPPT controllers but couldn't see any real advantage over PWM other than something largely theoretical.

The roof vent still awaits installing. I still have to put my fuse box in the control console and connect all my switches to that. That'll be a job for another day. The new USB power supply works but isn't currently switched. I have a switch. Again, I have to get inside the console to work on that. There are a lot of little jobs remaining to be done though running the battery cables will be the biggest task. I looked at the flat mirrors on the sides and see that in order to get them pointing straight back it's just a case of adjusting the top connector a bit. Right now they point down a little.

The temperature inside was warmer than it was last year. The insulating properties of the elastometric paint I put on the roof last year must have faded a little. It was definitely hot inside. Maybe not as hot as before though. With adequate ventilation I would imagine that the inside will be the same as outside if not cooler. I'm not going to install AC though.

I'm still chasing real RV style insurance. At the moment that's not looking too promising. I keep coming across insurers who won't insure because it's not converted by a big-name company. That tells me that all the people that buy RV conversions from non big-name companies are going to run into the same issues. Mind, to be honest I've seen so many horrendous home-made and redneck chop shop bus conversions that I see why the insurers are like this.

This is an RV conversion I saw not long ago. It looks as though it's way over the legal height limit. It looks terribly unstable and I would be scared to turn corners in it.  It just looks totally unsafe.

Small advances with direct solar power of the extraction fans

Today I worked more on the project I was working on yesterday, namely the solar powering of my ventilation fans. The short end of the story for those with minimal attention spans is everything worked as predicted. The stages of getting there and testing took quite a while though.

When I'm working on electrics I tend to use a voltmeter. I've tried several different voltmeters but this one from Walmart seems to be working and seems to keep on working. I had one from Lowes or Home Depot about 12 years ago and that just seemed to die - the needle wouldn't move on the scale. It stuck half way! I've tried one or two digital multi-meters and they seem to be the worst - they either break very quickly, giving erratic readings or the batteries die quickly. Needless to say those that take the most expensive batteries die the fastest. This one has a single AAA battery inside (and a small glass fuse).

When I'm soldering I often find that a small electric soldering iron just won't do what's needed. Thus I tend to turn to a butane torch. It's really good for soldering and for shrink-wrap insulation sleeves. I think this was another Walmart purchase. I did have one from Harbor Freight but it didn't work after having been in storage in my old storage unit. 

So, using the torch and my meter, I put Anderson connectors on the cutoff cords that I'd been using for my solar panels. Now I have two extension cords. I used them today when I was testing my directly solar powered fans. They worked perfectly. Putting Anderson connectors on is problematic. They come as two connectors, connected by two wires. One wire is red, the other white. The problem there is that when they're cut apart to be used, the red wire is positive on one connector and negative on the other. Thus the color of the cables has to be ignored and a meter must be used every time to check for polarity.

I tested the setup with a single solar panel and a single fan. That worked really well. Next I introduced the second panel (using the Y connector I built some months ago) and the second fan. The control unit worked just as well as I'd hoped and turned the fans off when the voltage was too low. It was possible to hear the fans going on and off.

Interestingly as the sun was pretty well overhead, the best position for my panels seemed to be flat on the ground. I'd not thought of laying them flat. I'd always heard they should be at an angle. Mind, all my other panels are vertical. They seem to work pretty darned well.

I had an afterthought as I was adding a fuse to the incoming power line that I should try putting the panels optimally but connected via the front solar input. That would give me a test sample to see whether I do indeed need to install my newly made purple box with the low voltage cutout switch. I didn't have time today but I'll try it next weekend. It might be that placed optimally the solar input from the front, going through the charge controller might be sufficient to power the fans. If not then I can just continue on the way I am. If it turns out I don't need my fancy voltage limited then it will simplify my wiring no end and I shall rejoice. I can just put a simple switch and a small switch box.

Walking in the yard not far from the bus I spotted this cactus growing wild - as they do in my locale. It served to remind me of my late mother who so loved cacti. She passed away in October 2016. She wasn't just a lover of cacti - she was pretty much an expert as she was on wildlife.