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06-04-2018, 11:32 AM
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#21
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Bus Crazy
Join Date: May 2017
Location: Athens, TN
Posts: 1,574
Year: 1999
Coachwork: Amtran
Chassis: International RE
Engine: International T444e
Rated Cap: 76
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Quote:
Originally Posted by kazetsukai
I''ll give it a shot tomorrow before I install the second one.
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The bus isn't level, the window is on the elevated side of the bus. Water isn't really intruding even where I thought it would (not even reaching the drain holes).
I guess I need to test blowing on this with a leaf blower while spraying it to simulate the window at-speed, but so far no leaks.
I removed the original windows out of desperation, really. Nothing I did stopped them from leaking, I'd always have some drizzle here and there. But, after removing them all? Its been pouring all this morning... I'd expect at minimum the skylight or something to leak- nope. Bone dry.
All this effort is starting to pay off. With the windows sealed off and the new skylight in, its slowly starting to feel like home in here. I can't wait to see the walls finished.
On another note, due to the aforementioned coolant leaks I had to rip up part of the unfinished floor and replace the plywood. When the window bays were uncovered some animal sneaked in here as well... had to clean up after it. The new plywood , the framing of the vent and the cleanup of the landslide in the back- all have my kitchen starting to take shape. Really exciting stuff.
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06-04-2018, 02:44 PM
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#22
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Bus Nut
Join Date: Jan 2018
Location: Brevard County, FL
Posts: 911
Year: 1990
Coachwork: Bluebird
Chassis: Ford
Engine: 6.6 New Holland Diesel
Rated Cap: 60 kids, 10 window
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Are you going to use gas struts to raise the side panels up?
__________________
Nick
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06-04-2018, 03:06 PM
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#23
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Bus Crazy
Join Date: May 2017
Location: Athens, TN
Posts: 1,574
Year: 1999
Coachwork: Amtran
Chassis: International RE
Engine: International T444e
Rated Cap: 76
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Ninjakitty
Are you going to use gas struts to raise the side panels up?
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It would be kind of cool, if I could do it cost effectively.
There's the issue of air, and powering an onboard compressor.
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06-04-2018, 03:20 PM
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#24
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Bus Crazy
Join Date: May 2016
Location: Grayson County, VA
Posts: 1,428
Year: 1996
Coachwork: Amtran
Chassis: International
Engine: DT466
Rated Cap: 65
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Quote:
Originally Posted by kazetsukai
It would be kind of cool, if I could do it cost effectively.
There's the issue of air, and powering an onboard compressor.
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Think "Auto Parts". Gas struts, like you find on a hatchback, are about 20 bucks at Autozone.
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06-04-2018, 03:22 PM
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#25
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Bus Nut
Join Date: Jan 2018
Location: Brevard County, FL
Posts: 911
Year: 1990
Coachwork: Bluebird
Chassis: Ford
Engine: 6.6 New Holland Diesel
Rated Cap: 60 kids, 10 window
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Gas struts are like the things that raise your trunk lid. No air or compressor needed.
Pic is from Home Depot app. I think the mounts can be found on Amazon or at HD online
__________________
Nick
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06-04-2018, 03:23 PM
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#26
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Bus Nut
Join Date: Jan 2018
Location: Brevard County, FL
Posts: 911
Year: 1990
Coachwork: Bluebird
Chassis: Ford
Engine: 6.6 New Holland Diesel
Rated Cap: 60 kids, 10 window
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You would just need a latch or two to keep them down
__________________
Nick
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06-04-2018, 03:27 PM
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#27
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Bus Crazy
Join Date: May 2017
Location: Athens, TN
Posts: 1,574
Year: 1999
Coachwork: Amtran
Chassis: International RE
Engine: International T444e
Rated Cap: 76
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Ninjakitty
Gas struts are like the things that raise your trunk lid. No air or compressor needed.
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Oooh. See, I have an air door which I'm going to delete, and there's a little piston I was thinking of using for the job.
Maybe put four of these on the "outside", and the air piston in the middle would do it...
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06-04-2018, 03:32 PM
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#28
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Bus Crazy
Join Date: May 2016
Location: Grayson County, VA
Posts: 1,428
Year: 1996
Coachwork: Amtran
Chassis: International
Engine: DT466
Rated Cap: 65
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Quote:
Originally Posted by kazetsukai
Oooh. See, I have an air door which I'm going to delete, and there's a little piston I was thinking of using for the job.
Maybe put four of these on the "outside", and the air piston in the middle would do it...
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I'm trying to figure out a way to repurpose the air-door piston and use it as a security device.....maybe put a giant boxing glove on the end? I haven't worked out the details....just spitballin' here.
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06-04-2018, 05:47 PM
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#29
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Bus Crazy
Join Date: May 2017
Location: Athens, TN
Posts: 1,574
Year: 1999
Coachwork: Amtran
Chassis: International RE
Engine: International T444e
Rated Cap: 76
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Someone was interested in my replacement heaters/coolant loop, so here's some of the details.
Starting from the rear of the bus, underneath the kitchen countertop:
Here you can see the heater core (bottom right). The middle dark metal area is engine access I have to ensure remains accessible once the framing is in, thus the plywood is open in the middle. Bottom middle, air intake for the heater blower.
Closer look at the blower, there you can see the 1st rear electrical subpanel. 2nd panel in the compartment itself, I still need to install.
Cover off, you can see the blower motor and some of the coolant lines, as well as the blower wiring.
Conversion down from 1" to 5/8" coolant line. Brass fittings, bulletproof.
Closeup of the DC subpanel. Triple relays are the blower controls- - One relay on: Blower on LOW
- Two relays on: Blower on MEDIUM
- Three relays on: Blower on HIGH
DC subpanel leads back to the main DC panel, along with the coolant lines and the blower control wire (white).
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06-04-2018, 05:58 PM
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#30
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Bus Crazy
Join Date: May 2017
Location: Athens, TN
Posts: 1,574
Year: 1999
Coachwork: Amtran
Chassis: International RE
Engine: International T444e
Rated Cap: 76
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Part two:
Coolant + electrical continue forward after the rear wheel well towards the bathroom.
In the bathroom, there's a cavity that goes under the floor where the emergency exit is, hose + wiring follow this path.
Coolant hose exits the bathroom underneath the main electrical cabinet and goes into two blowers: a smaller one facing in towards the bathroom and a full-size one facing the hallway.
The DC subpanel lead goes up and into the main panel, the rear blower control wire goes up to the relay controller.
Coolant hoses continue past the mid-section blowers along with a lead going to the front DC subpanel.
Coolant lines go forward of the wheel well, into the floor next to the driver seat. The front subpanel wire goes all the way forward, through the wall past the pedals.
Opposite the driver the front DC subpanel is mounted, and the defroster blower mounted into the floor facing up to the defroster distribution block.
Like I said in another thread, I went down from 1" coolant lines to 5/8" coolant lines, and these move an absurd amount of heat when going full tilt. I have a few more tweaks to this setup to make, but its mostly final.
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06-05-2019, 06:36 PM
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#31
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Bus Crazy
Join Date: May 2017
Location: Athens, TN
Posts: 1,574
Year: 1999
Coachwork: Amtran
Chassis: International RE
Engine: International T444e
Rated Cap: 76
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I wanted to get in some updates in on this page since I'm about 3 months out from completion.
First, outside- all the windows are out, replaced by RV windows, primarily on the passenger side. The frontmost RV window is mirrored on the driver side, but in the rear on the driver's side I added shed windows.
All LEDs now outside- headlights and signals. I also added markers that flash with the turns.
The entrance is still raw compared to the cabin area right behind it. I have to seal it all up and cover the floors.. We just painted the door, finally. The cabin is done top to bottom with shiplap board. I stained the bottom dark, I did clear poly on the ceiling, clear poly on the upper walls, and stained all walls perpendicular to the length of the bus with a slightly more reddish color to make them distinct from the cabin walls. Around the windows, I went with the same dark stain as the bottom.
Going back, we've kept an open floor for the most part. Our bedroom is just forward of the first wall- California King murphy bed is going there. Installed fold-out butcher block desks for work on the passenger-side wall. I have some plans for that big, open wall.
You can see conduit running along where the curvature of the ceiling begins- this made running all the light wires and button wires easy. All of the outlets run along the floor- I sistered that "lip" where the seats mounted using a 2x4, and made a 2x4 channel going front-to-back on both walls where I could easily run all my 110V, outlet boxes, coolant lines, and signal cables.
At the very end you're right outside of my walk-through shower, facing the kitchen.
Speaking of kitchen... as you pass through the shower you see the shed windows I used in the rear right over where I'm about to place my sink. Facing the back you see the large area for my counter top. Past the reachable space, I may add plants to take advantage of the window a bit. The top window will most likely be covered, deep shelving placed above.
Returning towards the front you see the section for my laundry area, I'll install a combo unit there. Its wired for 220V, but I'm not sure I can run an electric dryer... yet. It'll probably be propane regardless of my ambitions as the draw for electric dryers are insane. Going further forward, you see the bathroom. The toilet will likely be facing the seat, a vanity /storage over where the seat currently sits. I'll have a proper door for privacy.
In the ceiling throughout the bus are little 12V LED puck lights. Warm colored, very bright. They run forward of the bathroom to the electrical cabinet, right in the middle of the bus. Not the worst idea, not the greatest, either. It has its advantages, and its disadvantages.
Above the cabinet is the glands where the solar enters the cabin, and the current solar (6x100W + 1x 280W panels) is mounted to the roof on Unistrut/superstrut. I want to add at least another 1000W in panels, and soon.
I have an inspection to attempt changing the bus title over to RV/motorhome next week which I'm as ready for now as I'll be. After that, if I fail I'll focus on the problems there. Otherwise, I'll build out the kitchen as fast as possible, hoping to get enough done to take the bus for a trial run up to the White Mountains in a month or two. There, we'll live off-grid for a week, and come back to iron out the bugs before gearing up to move in full time.
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06-07-2019, 11:43 AM
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#32
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Bus Crazy
Join Date: May 2017
Location: Athens, TN
Posts: 1,574
Year: 1999
Coachwork: Amtran
Chassis: International RE
Engine: International T444e
Rated Cap: 76
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Some stills of the electrical panel while I was at it on another thread.
Overall
220V/110V AC and 24V/12V DC panels
Looking up at the positive bus bar showing how it distributes to the DC panels, inverter, and charger.
Shot of the 24V DC meters.
A look at my panels.
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06-07-2019, 11:53 AM
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#33
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Bus Nut
Join Date: Jun 2018
Location: Claremont, NH
Posts: 482
Year: 2003
Coachwork: Bluebird
Chassis: International 3800
Engine: DT466E (195hp, 520tq)
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Lookin' good there!
__________________
Dave
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06-08-2019, 05:01 PM
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#34
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Bus Crazy
Join Date: May 2017
Location: Athens, TN
Posts: 1,574
Year: 1999
Coachwork: Amtran
Chassis: International RE
Engine: International T444e
Rated Cap: 76
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Today we installed a second butcher block desk. Now have two of them side by side, enough for 3 or 4 people to work on laptops.
I'm thinking overhead storage shelves above those windows- any reasons not to? Power supplies, maybe an outlet or two, maybe wired ethernet, routers, hard drives, office stuff. The conduit on the passenger side wall is barely used, so I have the room to run extra stuff there.
I'm also starting on wiring up all the lighting, which involves the automation stuff. Two Arduino MEGAs, two Raspberry Pi 3s, and two sainsmart 16 channel relay modules. Remote on/off control of up to 32 DC devices.
Its all mounted on DIN rail in the box.... I'm going to have to drill a big hole and add a computer fan to it. None of the stuff I'm putting in gets very hot on its own, but should still get circulation.
I tried using Raspberry Pis directly, I even had a nifty webapp at one point where I could control the door:
Which was later expanded to control all the blowers in the vehicle, but I eventually had to build the real electrical cabinet and all that went away. Plus I was having reliability issues with their SD cards, so I'm going to replace them with something that supports eMMC or better yet, onboard persistent storage. Maybe something like an Intel NUC if it makes sense. It made it easier to develop for, using the Arduinos as well.
I'll likely computerize the doors and blowers again once the core control mechanism is bulletproof.
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06-08-2019, 05:04 PM
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#35
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Bus Geek
Join Date: Dec 2017
Location: Dawsonville, Ga.
Posts: 10,482
Year: 1999
Coachwork: Genesis
Chassis: International
Engine: DT466/3060
Rated Cap: 77
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You need to ditch that fish eye lens.
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06-08-2019, 05:08 PM
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#36
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Bus Crazy
Join Date: May 2017
Location: Athens, TN
Posts: 1,574
Year: 1999
Coachwork: Amtran
Chassis: International RE
Engine: International T444e
Rated Cap: 76
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Quote:
Originally Posted by o1marc
You need to ditch that fish eye lens.
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I need to find a good one to put on the DSLR... my phone camera doesn't let me get "the full picture" and is pretty crappy overall, and this sony action cam really doesn't do certain shots well.
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06-09-2019, 08:48 AM
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#37
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Skoolie
Join Date: Nov 2018
Location: Tucson, AZ
Posts: 105
Year: 1997
Coachwork: Blue Bird
Chassis: TC 1000
Engine: 5.9/AT
Rated Cap: 2 adults, 2 dogs
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Quote:
Originally Posted by o1marc
you need to ditch that fish eye lens.
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yes please!
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06-09-2019, 09:23 AM
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#38
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Bus Crazy
Join Date: Oct 2017
Location: E Central Tejas
Posts: 2,094
Year: 1998
Coachwork: Thomas
Chassis: IH 3800, 8 window
Engine: T444E w/ Spicer 5-speed MT
Rated Cap: I prefer broad-brims hats
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*phew!*
Here I thought my astigmatism took a turn for the worse...
__________________
Those who say that it cannot be done should not interrupt the people doing it.
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06-09-2019, 09:33 AM
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#39
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Bus Nut
Join Date: Dec 2014
Location: Birmingham Al
Posts: 602
Year: 2003
Coachwork: Blue Bird
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cool Pi engineering, been waiting on something like this in a skoolie - good job!
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06-10-2019, 02:16 PM
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#40
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Bus Crazy
Join Date: May 2017
Location: Athens, TN
Posts: 1,574
Year: 1999
Coachwork: Amtran
Chassis: International RE
Engine: International T444e
Rated Cap: 76
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Quote:
Originally Posted by dredman
cool Pi engineering, been waiting on something like this in a skoolie - good job!
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Just ran into a roadblock... you need inline resistors to sense buttons with the Arduino/Pi pinouts. I'm just going to have the Pi read from a DIY joystick interface for the time being (all it requires is the button connection), what a pain in the behind.
Unless... someone knows of a clean way to wire these resistors inline at the button. I don't want breadboards everywhere in my control box.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B06XCTT1J
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