Not a skoolie

[oricha1984]

Originally Posted by joeblack5

At this moment working on a 3 gallon SS gray water tank for the sink that we can carry out and dump. As this is a Super Low Floor bus there is no storage under the bus.

Chris, yeah. Another reason is indeed a extended boon docking time. With a filter system for the shower water we can clean Mom and the kids with 2 gallons. Finding small qty of water along the road is pretty simple, may be collect the condense water of the AC , so I think we will be much less dependent on rv parks and such.

The infrastructure with large tanks, large water heaters does not excite me. I will need to read up on active coal filters and see id there is DIY equivalent.

later j

You can use the same principle of a pool system and adapt it to your project.
Collect water from surface and bottom.
Calculate the turn over rate for the water in the tank to be clean. Maybe a good idea to set up two tanks, so that the "dirty water" can go through the filtration system (it can take hours to clean it) before reused.
You could use the water from one tank in the morning, collect in dirty tank, and have it clean for the afternoon.
Definitely a cool project.


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[joeblack5]

Good news. Penndot approved our bus to motorhome conversion and send us a license plate and motorhome title. We are legal.

Later j

[tobeamiss]

Congratulations!

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[joeblack5]

thank you, it feels a lot better to drive around without the fear of being pulled over .

Later J

[Brewerbob]

Originally Posted by joeblack5

thank you, it feels a lot better to drive around without the fear of being pulled over .

Later J

You just don't know how to live then.

[joeblack5]

?? BB,...you mean you have no driver license and no insurance???

[Brewerbob]

I had insurance on my bus for the drive home. No tags, no temp tags, etc. Had one state trooper chase us down because the rear bus had no tail lights. He didn't even ask about tags, insurance or anything else. He just wanted me to take up the rear even tho I had a light out.

Replaced a fuse that fixed it but he was already long gone. He didn't wait to see that we listened.

[joeblack5]

A week went by. Not a whole lot of progress, Still a lot to do but we decided that on our oldest daughter's birthday we should give it a try and see what would happen.
Back to Bald Eagle lake.

School Bus Conversion Resources - joeblack5's Album: not a skoolie - Picture

S.he had not been on a beach for a long time, and her smile sure made me feel good.



School Bus Conversion Resources - joeblack5's Album: not a skoolie - Picture

Now on to the shower and solar project to make Dory self sustained.


later J

[Brewerbob]

Originally Posted by joeblack5

A week went by. Not a whole lot of progress, Still a lot to do but we decided that on our oldest daughter's birthday we should give it a try and see what would happen.

To hell with the progress. No point in leaving the wheels on the damn thing if you aren't going to use them!! Good job.

[cadillackid]

hey im *ALL* about actually getting out and enjoying the bus even while building it!!!

that kneeling wheelchair ramp sure makes it nice for mobility!!! way to go!! and Mom gets to go out and about more!! thatll keep her young!!
-Christopher

[joeblack5]

Thanks all, So far so good, Today we went for the final inspection and after some confusion about the lights we passed.
This bus has a multiplexed system and the brake lights work only when the bus is not on the parking brake, same for the backup lights. Not that that does not make sense , it was only a little confusion before we figured it out.
Anyhow , we got a sticker and we can move on.

later J

[joeblack5]

Found some galvanized unistrut 10 footers . will see if this weekend we can make some progress with solar.
Dory had space for 18 100 watt panels. We have a bunch of 20 year old BP/ Siemens panels that were rated 75 watt when new. I tested them and they are producing about 60 watts. Not to bad. See if we can get 12 mounted and observe if that is enough.

Later j

[Brewerbob]

Originally Posted by joeblack5

Found some galvanized unistrut 10 footers . will see if this weekend we can make some progress with solar.
Dory had space for 18 100 watt panels. We have a bunch of 20 year old BP/ Siemens panels that were rated 75 watt when new. I tested them and they are producing about 60 watts. Not to bad. See if we can get 12 mounted and observe if that is enough.

Later j

Free is good and if I had a bunch laying around I might use them but...

You do know that panels come rated as high as 350W per panel. 300s are easy to get. That's either a third of the panels needed on the roof or 3 times the system.

[joeblack5]

yes, I have new 300 watt panels on Elfie. paid $125 each for them.
For Dory the form factor work in favor of smaller panels. An added side benefit is that if you use them in parallel you have less losses in case of partial shading.
I also like redundancy. so more panels with several mppt controller is better then one big one. smaller mppt's are cheap.
later j

[Brewerbob]

I only have a panel and it was an amaozon special. I think it's 50W; I bought it as a battery charger which I don't think it does.

Anywho, are the 300W bigger? I was figuring roughly the same size but different wattage due to circa 1973.

I could probably use 10 of your $125 panels.

[joeblack5]

Evening good folks,
used this fine day to do some labor on Dory.
Had to adapt the drain section. looked for a ready made solution and could not find it in the large diameters.


School Bus Conversion Resources - joeblack5's Album: not a skoolie - Picture

The drain hose is from a dishwasher, and it drains right in front of the front wheel.

Bought a ss air tank to convert to electric water heater.
There is space for another one so i can expand and have redundancy at the same time. some more welding to do.



School Bus Conversion Resources - joeblack5's Album: not a skoolie - Picture


The counter top is hinged with a SS piano hinge so that there is easy access.



School Bus Conversion Resources - joeblack5's Album: not a skoolie - Picture

Tomorrow on to mounting some frames for the solar panels

[joeblack5]

We started pretty good with drilling some pilot holes in the roof and cutting the unistrut. Want to mount 4 additional panels on the hinged cover of the ac evaporator unit. The firt piece of unit
strut is up.

School Bus Conversion Resources - joeblack5's Album: not a skoolie - Picture

Dory can handle 4 panels over the full width and two rows of 4 in front of the roof ac unit.

School Bus Conversion Resources - joeblack5's Album: not a skoolie - Picture

so that is 8 panels de-rated to 60 watts each ( 19 yrs old)
and 4 panels on the evap unit. I will connect two in series ) 2x17=34 volt and then two set in parallel ( 7.5 amp), That combination will get it own 10 amp 24 volt mppt controller. For the front three strings that will be three mppt controllers.

Have to order some more SS hardware. Hope the next phase can start next Thursday.

School Bus Conversion Resources - joeblack5's Album: not a skoolie - Picture

Then it was time to park the bus at her normal spot again but I could not get her to move.
an Emergency Alarm indicator prevented throttle.
This is a multiplex bus and so I was put to the test. We had also removed some wiring and also the rear door air cylinders. I cursed myself for not having tested and tried after each cut wire.

After a couple of hours it turned out to be a shorted wire that set the alarm of. Bypassed that system then I had a door open alarm. At the same time the engine high idle stopped working and the disabled ramp became disabled. It became stress full because I though I had fried something. Another couple of hours later that turned out to be the door bypass switch that got bumped in the wiring clean up. The high idle did not work because I had the bus in D.
It was a stress full experience but I am happy that I was able to figure it out and gain some confidence.

Later J

[joeblack5]

Today more solar. Drilled more holes to fasten the unistrut. Each unistrut support is now fastened with 4 pieces of Stainless 3/8" all thread. Left it long enough so that i can mount a 1" piece of foam below the panels for more insulation if we feel we need it.

Anyhow the first 4 panel are up and wired. Tomorrow afternoon we will try another overnight camping trip. Next week another 8 panels and two more mppt charge controllers.

All the best for the people suffering from both the storms.

Later J

[cadillackid]

cool stuff!!! remember not to cover up the air intakes or the condensor fans for the Air-conditioners up there... yeah the Multiplex Network stuff can get tricky when it goes awry.. however you are learning it!! pretty soon you'll have it mastered!!
-Christopher

[joeblack5]

Ha ha Chris, Master?? the more I learn the more I realize how little i know. I have a very small niche company in aircraft turbine engine non destructive test equipment. Thought I was a reasonable good engineer but now I look back a little more and realize that I had a lot of luck being in the right place at the right time. Next time I go to GE aviation in Cincinnati we need to go out for a beer or so.

Later J