Let me tell you how I write a blog. I currently have ten story stubs being written. A few of them are cans I keep kicking down the road. I work on them from time to time but I might never get them ready for the publish button. The rest are the chronological story of van building. The net effect being the blog usually lags about two weeks behind the actual construction. That last post though, the one about the whole “caught at the workshop” story, was current. I had things I needed to say and felt I needed to say them right away. That being out of sync along with a couple of weeks of reeling from the whole adventure, I wasn’t getting much van work done and even less writing. We are now returning to the two weeks prior and the buildup of details that got me there.
I now return you to your regularly scheduled broadcast…
Since we last talked I have started regularly spending nights off grid in the van. Really everything has been working great, except I need to change the cycle time on the furnace. As it is, it gets fairly cool before the furnace kicks on. Then it warms up nice when it runs, but the “off-time” is a wee bit too long. Sadly I don’t have the tiny screwdriver required to make such an adjustment in the van and of course I always forget when I am at the shop. Ah well, it will get fixed eventually.
 |
| Blown fuse on the left compared to a new one. |
This morning is the first time I have tried to make coffee using the inverter after the arrival of the ANL fuses. The fuse blew immediately. A little research this afternoon gave me the reason why. I didn’t see it in the installation instructions but in the sales literature on their web site. Big, red, printed inside a box. "
Use a 200 amp fuse less than eighteen inches from the inverter." …Great. :-( Back to Amazon to order more ANL fuses. I had misunderstood. I can still use these 50amp fuses between the engine and the house batteries. Just not from the batteries to the inverter. Not a total waste. The main problem really is how long it takes from the time I order until I have the fuses in hand.
I am also somewhat limited right now because I don't have a real good way to charge the batteries up. I don't have the wire run from the engine alternator back to the house batteries, nor do I have any solar charging yet. So mostly I am just using the 110v experimentally.
Where I park at work might be troubling for most people, but it is a place I love. I am a train fan. Have been since youth. I remember laying in bed at night trying to sleep. (This is back before I discovered I am not an insomniac :-) ) Over the span of an hour or two I would hear the two freight trains of the night, whistling through the intersection to the north of us and to the south. A beautiful lonely sound as it echoed on the plaines. Two years ago I was in the process of building the HO scale train layout of my dreams. Thats when my work location status changed and upended our lives. That project is pretty much dead. Where I park the van now though makes up for that just a little bit. Outside the rear window of the van, maybe a hundred feet away is the first set of rails in a five lane freight corridor of my city. My answer to how often the trains pass by my window would not be that dissimilar to that of Elwood Blues, “So often you don’t even notice”.
When I posted a few days back on Facebook I got some feedback about the furnace install I got jumped by a guy who said I was using the wrong type of fittings. He said gas should only be run with flare fittings, I used a mix of flare and mostly compression fittings. I always get worried, hearing stuff like that so I did a little checking into it. I asked around and got some feedback from the van building community. What I got was this:
Flare fittings are more susceptible to torque or vibration in the joined pipes. Flare fittings require skill and practice to install correctly. Good quality compression fitting can withstand as much or more pressure than the joined tubing. Installing compressions requires 2 wrenches and a cutter. Compression fittings should not be disassembled for installation. Push tubing into the fitting until it stops against the sholder in the fitting. Tighten the nut nut finger tight and then one and three quarter turns with the wrench. That is it. Compression fittings can be broken and remade many times. Compression fittings are supposed to extrude some of the tubing to form a strong mechanical connection.
So, there you have it. I have two people, I have two opinions. I guess I will just have to hope for the best. If I get a leak at some point I will consider changing it out. For the moment I will keep using what I have installed.
 |
The newly purchased roof rack laying on
the floor of the van. |
Today on my regular Craigslist scan a roof rack showed up for $75. Holy shit cool! What I really wanted to buy was a three frame Weather Guard rack. I didn’t need the three frames for strength, but I thought they might vibrate less in the wind once I have the solar panels mounted. This Craigslist find today is a two frame rack. So not totally what I wanted. When I questioned the seller about the hardware he said it might be missing some nuts and bolts. When I told him where I would be coming from, a distance of 45, mostly city miles he told me he would knock the price down to $50 to give me the money to buy new hardware. Ok, sold. New I was looking at $575.
So now with the roof rack, this week I need to purchase the ceiling fan. I need to get that mounted in place so the following week (or so) I will order the solar panels and charge controller.
Let me close with a Living on the Stealth public service announcement. Don’t buy this tool. I’d like to return it. Actually, to be more truthful, what I would *like* to do is go there at night and throw it through their window. I am going to *settle* for returning it. I thought it would work fine for turning out some of the bolts on the new roof rack. I should have bought a vicegrip, but it was twice the money. You had to push a button to open the jaws wider to accommodate the edge of the carriage bolt. But then as you tried to position the wrench in place, its jaws would ratchet closed and the wrench couldn’t open wide enough to grip the head. Eventually I got one bolt off so I was able to go back into the big box to buy a complete set of stainless steel fastening bolts. $47. Still a good deal on the roof rack.
No comments:
Post a Comment