Taking charge?

So here I am in the local Starbucks backing up my iPhone, pretending to listen to my own music, and writing this blog after a canceled sale for more of my reasonably priced stuff. I meant to look for nomad jobs on my laptop, but got the urge to backup my phone instead. Since I don’t have Wi-Fi at home, I need to do this regularly in case of anything catastrophic happening to it. I’m just not connected to it enough to rely on iCloud backup to do the job.

Anyway, in my other news, I successfully installed an additional 100-watt Renogy solar panel to help address my negative battery storage. The Alpicool fridge is taking up about five amps each time that the compressor runs to keep it cool. Additionally, its temperature fluctuation appears to be too wide. Before the addition, the system, even with the previous enhancement allowing the alternator to charge the house battery while I’m driving didn’t do enough. This could be, in part, because I’m not doing a lot of driving in recent weeks. As much as it pained me to spend the money, I took the plunge and purchased it along with a set of MC-4 “combiner” connectors in order to run both panels in parallel to the charge controller.

Overall, the process was rather easy. I positioned some alumimum mini-scalfolding between two ladders that I had from my house reno stint. It was almost like working on my patio.

I think that the hardest part was creating my own wires with some MC-4 connectors to bridge the gap between the second panel and the combiners. It saved me a bit of money not having to shell out extra money for pre-made wires. Even creating these, with the right crimp tool, wasn’t too bad.

The next hardest item was finding a position for the panel on my roof. For whatever reason, either aerodynamics or aesthetics, they created these dips and ribs everywhere, which makes it difficult to put the second panel on. I was able to put it on the back where the luggage rack would be. I was considering that for its actual purpose, but the wind resistance would probably have wreaked havoc with my MPG.

Other than that, it was easy-peasy. There was no configuration needed on the charge controller; just hook each panel into their respective negative or positive combiner connectors, and then connect the two already-established cables which run to the controller.

The difference in power was immediate. Now, my battery occassionally gets up to float status.

Well, I have to get back to obtaining more money, so have a great day. Thanks for reading.

Tired, Wired and Tires

Here I am, a week into willful unemployment. I’m starting to feel the delayed way to get my day going, but still have the motivation to get everything ready for my adventure to parts known and unknown. It’s also been about a week or so since I’ve taken any kratom. As a result, the old feelings of mental paralysis are starting to set in again. The best way that I can describe it is knowing the logical need to physically move forward to do what needs to be done, but not engaging my body to make it happen. Eventually, I psyche myself enough to make the physical movements.

It doesn’t just happen for anything that is fear-producing either, although my mind begs to differ. It’s just moving my legs to get into the shower. It’s standing up to get out of the car. I’m sure it’s psychological, but it does happen and is happening more frequently this week. I did notice that it wasn’t happening when I was taking kratom, even on a irregular basis. From the dosages and frequency that others have taken this medication, mine were extremely infrequent although the dosage frequency was slowly increasing. I suppose it does depend on why you’re taking it. For instance, taking it for chronic physical pain is a much different reason than taking it as needed for anxiety.

Does this mean that I want to continue taking kratom? I have gotten through 48 years of my life without it, but at the beginning it was working well for abating anxiety as well as providing motivation. Now, I’m not sure if it’s going to continue to do that. It’s like the benefit faded over time, but left the more negative traits. It would feel like I would be chasing what once was, which speaks for lots of other situations in life as well.

I have heard that changing the strain for a time, e.g., a green one for a red or a white, will curb negative traits as well as any problems with increasing dosages for beginning effects. I’m not sure if I want to go down that road either. While I don’t want to keep suffering, I don’t want to start worshipping at the alter of a substance, however legal.

At this point, I’m going to continue to not take it. I will start exercising more and going to the gym, since I’m paying for a membership already.

I remember after my second divorce, that I started doing P90X, which kicked my ass. I only did it for 30 days, but the results were incredible. I wonder if I can bring my laptop into the gym to try it again, or just take the book and do the moves there.

There is a physical test whereby if you fail, they don’t recommend the course. I passed it the first time, but failed it a number of years later when I wanted to try it again. I purchased the Power90 course as an alternative, but I didn’t stick with it. I’ll see what I can do this time.

Moving and Selling

In other news, I’ve sold my fridge, stove and dishwasher. I have so much more to sell before I go. I was selling my generator, but an incredibly pushy person caused me to delist it. He was wanting to be FB friends, wanted my phone number, asked for a much lower price, but was still indecisive. I just had to block him because I had a bad vibe from it. Perhaps I’ll repost it, but I just can’t deal with people like that.

My pickup, after I finally replaced the clutch hydraulic line, will not start. I charged the battery, but it will not even turn over, but has full battery. I’m suspecting there is a clutch switch that is the culprit. The connections are corroded, but I wonder if I can just bypasss it altogether. We’ll see what I can do, but if I can’t fix it, I’ll sell it as-is, but I will get much less if it doesn’t start.

Tires

Congratulations to my van. I finally broke down and bought new tires after not being able to find decent used ones in my size on FB Marketplace and elsewhere. I decided to buy them at Walmart because the online price was good at only $79 per tire. They are also heavy load tires, which may be beneficial.

The weird thing is that they couldn’t get the spare off of the rear rack as its square hole was hollowed out and allowed the bolt to spin. Since the bolt was rounded, nothing could be done to secure it. After trying a sawzall, a hammer and a chisel, I finally had to purchase a nut splitter to break it. I still have to follow it up with the sledgehammer and chisel, but it’s off.

The folks were nice though. They quickly swapped the four tires. I seriously don’t know why they couldn’t do crack the nut other than their stated “liability” reasons. What recourse would someone have if they weren’t mechanically inclined?

Other mods

I recently put up some thin plywood sheets over the rear side picture windows with reflectix between them. There is a gap of a couple of inches between the window and the reflectix. I only covered the top window, but left a reflectix flap to allow access to the small rectangular screened window on each side. With the semi-translucent blind sandwiched in the middle, you can’t immediately tell there is reflectix there.

The benefits are: more flat space to put things, no more fumbling with the reflectix to ensure no light escapes at night, and flap allows a screened breeze when I’m sleeping.

Well, this blog entry is pretty overfilled. I hope you appreciate the rambling. Thanks for reading.

The emptier kitchen

In two days of listing items to the FB Marketplace, I sold my stove and fridge. I also quit my job. I just missed three days over anxiety and another day to facilitate the fridge purchase. I’m just tired of waiting for things to settle down. Time is moving too quickly for me to just spend my time counting the hours waiting for the this-then-that.

I have been previously hemming and hawing about having the motivation to sell all this crap. Now, I have it.

The kitchen is emptier, but still looks lived in. I’m not devastated about it. I knew this was coming.

Also, I’ve nearly completed the clutch hydraulic line replacement in the pickup. I still have to bleed it though. Unfortunately, my battery is dead. Thus, I am charging it for a few hours after I refilled its reservoirs. We’ll see how it goes then.

I still have a lot of things to sell, but it’s been good so far.

Now that I no longer have a stove or fridge, I have moved my portable butane stove into the kitchen. I moved everything that I could into either the 12v fridge, the back freezer, or the trash. Much of this stuff I wasn’t planning to use. It was just taking up space.

The leaks

The work that I performed on the front glass seal a couple of weeks ago doesn’t appear to be keeping all of the water out. However, I now appear to see where it’s coming in as well as its path to beneath my dashboard. There is also a leak near my roof vent fan, it it appears to be after the fan towards the back. The fan’s location is where it is coming out. There is another leak toward the front where I previously performed a bondo repair on the roof. I’ll have to figure all of these out.

Fortunately, I placed a Zip-loc bag around the previously soaked circuit boards. Water did splash onto the bag, so it actually prevented a mechanical relapse.

Plans

I’ll be purchasing new tires for the van. It may also need brake work. Otherwise, it seems to run okay. It will need an oil change soon, so I’ll get to that.

Until I leave, I’m going to sell as much as I can, including the S10 pickup. Whatever I can’t sell, I can’t. I’m going to have to do something about Bailey, but it’s going to be hard no matter what I do. I will most likely be headed east to drop off lots of stuff (mostly tools and valuables).

From there, I’ll have to get another job.

The Van in Review

So, I received a message from WordPress that I’ve been blogging for a year today. Wow! So, I’ve been messing around with this van, and the house while still being married for that long. What has changed?

For whatever reason, the ordered list tags are not appearing in the web browser in Safari or the WordPress Reader. I’ll see if I can modify the underlying HTML later to make it show. It’s supposed to be a numbered list. UPDATE: The WordPress Reader was creating an OL tag for every list item, e.g., <ol>list item</ol>. It’s supposed to be: <ol><li>one list item</li><li>another list item</li></ol>. Now, the weird, huge opening quote before the list is another matter than I can’t seem to pin down other than I’m only using the block quote tag to enclose the list in a gray block.

The Van

Let’s start with the positives, including upgrades and maintenance:

1. Tune-up: plugs, wires, distributed cap, rotor, rechargeable air filter, MAP sensor.
2. Radiator flush and refill
3. Fixed vent selector that was due to a hard-to-find vacuum leak. Also, the previous owner routed the vacuum hoses incorrectly.
4. Replaced vacuum hoses and window-washer hoses to deliver the cleaning solution.
5. Rebuilt transmission.
6. Oil changes
7. Installed Fantastic Fan roof vent
8. Installed 100-watt solar system including fuse panel, charge controller, and 100aH AGM battery.
9. Removed captain chairs and bench/bed, which was really heavy.
10. Installed a full-size steel bed frame from IKEA along with PVC extensions for storage underneath.
11. Insulated the ceiling and sides of the fiberglass roof.
12. Repaired the fiberglass roof to prevent leaking.
13. Installed wood roof and sides.
14. Wired LED lights into the ceiling
15. Purchased a 12-volt Alpicool fridge along with a 12-volt hookup.
16. Installed some USB outlets for the cockpit as well as the living quarters.
17. Installed a new stereo that is capable of Bluetooth and USB.
18. Upgraded the charge controller when the old one wouldn’t clamp onto the wires anymore.
19. Rewired the house wiring to be neater and more logical.
20. Installed a table
21. Purchased a butane stove
22. Fixed a leak through the dash that was drenching a circuit board which was, in turn, preventing my transmission from shifting out of first gear, causing my speedometer to go crazy, and affect my braking.
23. Replaced interior cabin lights as most of them weren’t working.
24. Installed a dimmer switch for the LED ceiling lights.
25. Converted an IKEA Dioder light set from 120v to 12v. Wired directly into van.
26. Replaced front shocks
27. Purchased a portable toilet
28. Installed Reflectix for the windows.
29. Tinted rear, barn doors, and driver-side picture windows.
30. Installed a continuous-duty solenoid to assist in charging the house battery.

Wow! That’s a lot of changes. There’s a lot more to be done. Granted, there could have been a lot that should have been done, but apparently I’m an anxiety-ridden slacker. I haven’t even got tires yet.

Toilettes mobiles

Behold! The portable toilet! It’s a Dometic 970 2.6 gallon model. It’s rather compact, low-profile, but has enough room to sit comfortably. With this addition, I’ve started to think of my van more as an RV. It’s quite a far way away from being a full-fledged RV, but it is starting to feel more like one after this upgrade.

Truth be told, I’m not quite sure about it yet. I’ve filled the reservoir, pumped the pressure, added the deodorizer, and did my business, one and two, as the Count would do. It performed well for the business part. There is minimal smell while you’re doing the job, which is also taken away by the van’s (RV’s?) humongous roof vent. The worst part was when I opened the chute. The smell of the deodorizer is awful, but it’s only present for a second or two. While the device is in the van taking up space and not being used, it does not smell at all (yet).

The flush works well provided that you prime the pump before hitting the button. It doesn’t use batteries; relying on pressure and levers to perform the task.

Despite these positives, I’m still concerned about the next step of portable toilet’s poop life-cycle, which is dumping it when it’s full and refilling the top. I’m wondering about the inconvenience of that part in opposition to its convenience when I’m woken by my bladder’s incessant need to desperately deplete its contents at 3 AM.

To dump the tank, one has to detach the bottom from the top, unscrew the cap, swivel, open vent, and then release. Mask 😷 required? Probably.

I’ll report back.

Update

Here is the second part.

The Enemy Of Circuitry

I’m writing this while sitting at a rest stop one county away from my general area. I just wanted to test a few things with the van: shock absorbers, a repair, and extended use of the continuous-duty solenoid (CDS).

The front shocks are fine. I would like to have the rears installed, especially since I plan on either having a rear platform for storage or a rolling trailer. The air shocks will definitely come in handy for keeping the van level during travel.

The second item is the test of the CDS, which is also fine based on battery charge and voltage checks, although I’d ultimately like to see the voltage drop to indicate that they’re fully charged. My house battery was a bit low, I hadn’t been driving the van very much these last few days, and the torrential rain and cloudiness prevented much solar charging. The reason why I wasn’t driving was due to a larger problem.

My Dash is Leaking

There is a leak in my van when it rains really hard which causes water to infiltrate behind my dash and soak some of my electronics. It is negatively affecting my brakes, transmission shifting, ABS, and speedometer. It’s been so dry the last month or so that I hadn’t had a problem with it until the hourly drenching that started on Thursday night. I suspected something was going to be wrong, but I wanted to ignore my foreboding because of the associated anxiety it produces.

I wasn’t feeling well on Friday morning, so I called in sick. It turned out that I couldn’t go to work anyway because my van can’t get beyond first gear, my speedometer stopped working, and my brakes are occasionally quirky, in that it’s like ABS is enabling when I come to a stop, but I’m not hitting the brakes very hard.

It turns out that the culprit is a wet circuit board under my dash. As far as I can tell, based on a schematic, it controls the speed sensor and transmission. I’m suspecting that ABS uses data from this module as well. So I dried out the board and connectors, and it’s now running normally again.

Because it’s been so wet the last few days, I’ve haven’t been able to permanently address the issue. To prevent its reemergence while I’m parked, I had to tarp the driver’s side by affixing various clamps to the bumper and top gutter. It’s hard to do anything when it starts raining every few hours.

Residuals

Unfortunately, I’ve had to miss two days of work for this, followed by another two planned days off. Will I have a job when I come back on Tuesday? I don’t know. I did call in, but they have a weird point system for missed time. Previously good performance doesn’t seem to matter to them anyway. Despite good scores, they are only hyperfocusing on mistakes without any corresponding kudos for anything good. Thus, I’m not sure that I want to work for them anymore.

Besides, many of the people there just suck. They steal crap from your desk during your lunch break, including an entire set of headphones, so you can’t get back to work right away. What’s worse is that nobody says anything about it when you return even though somebody had to have witnessed it. When you complain about it, management acts like this is normal; that I should just put up with it. It’s an awful thought, but I can’t wait until this crap happens to them.

Nobody does any cleaning as the desk surfaces and computers are gross, but you’re not officially allowed to bring any of your own cleaning supplies to do so. There’s also the hygiene issue where despite multiple trash cans being within the building, people leave their trash stashed in open lockers and on the floor. Additionally, there’s a bedbug alert in one section. I’m increasingly becoming done with this place if they’re not done with me for stupid, administrative reasons.

I’m not sure what I’m going to do if I lose my job though. I may just quickly sell what I can and leave the state. There really is nothing else holding me here, especially based on other recent events I won’t disclose right now.

Continuous-duty Solenoid Project

I finally completed this project, mostly on Monday, but had a missing component that prevented me from finishing it until today. Overall, it wasn’t incredibly stress-inducing except for the end when the battery terminal would not accept any piggy-back connections to the positive battery terminal. Apparently, a side-post battery terminal bolt is only long enough for its own connection and nothing more. Thus, I had to purchase a battery-post extender from Amazon. It turns out that it was the perfect part to complete the project.

Battery post entender

On the flip side, there are a few items that I need to clean up now that it is working as desired. Since I didn’t have enough cable for the house battery ground, I had to temporarily move the battery closer in order to meet the shortage. Now that I know that it works, I can go purchase additional marine-grade cable and some extra crimp connectors to complete the job. For the record, if you plan to do this project, definitely invest in a lug-crimping tool. Mine crimped via sledgehammer. It worked perfectly.

Connection to activate solenoid

Continuous-duty solenoid

150-amp fuse between house battery and solenoid

This has created a more cramped living space. I’ve had to move my IKEA bench/table sideways across the back of the driver’s seat to make room for the battery. While some things are more accessible, it limits my open floor space.

Also, because of the summer heat, my fridge is using a lot more energy than I anticipated. It seems that the more sun I get to supply the solar panels, the more energy it used in order to maintain temperature. Twice, I’ve had to hook up my handy, dandy digital battery charger to top off the battery as it fell far below the minimum 50%. The 100-watt solar panel just wasn’t replenishing my use fast enough. It seems crazy because the only other use, besides the Fantastic Fan, was some LED lights for no more than 15 minutes, and an occasional charging of my phone. Both of those items don’t take more than three amp-hours.

Now, that this solution is in, merely driving to work will help keep it up. I may have degraded the house battery, but this may help it from suffering any further.

As mentioned in a previous posting, I would be remiss if I didn’t mention Cheap RV Living’s instructional video outlining the steps as well as the concept. I couldn’t have done it or had the idea without it.

Dry (and wash and rinse) Run

So, in a bit of forced boundary skirting, my clothes washer broke this week. It no longer performs a spin cycle; rendering my clothes sudsy and wet. I’m debating whether to actually expend some energy to fix it. It’s a top-loading, HE washer that has worked really well since I’ve had it. Unfortunately, its reliability has waned since I started using this so-called,”HE- compatible” laundry detergent over the past month. I can’t conclusively attributive it to the cause, but it’s the only thing that has changed. I’m a little pissed about it because I was planning to sell it. Now, I would have to fix it and possibly break even or lose money. Great.

Anyway, I decided to make a trip on a Friday night (when the moon is out, gonna head on over to the rinse and spout). The last time that I had to use a laundry mat, I was barely 21, and it was only for a short time. I’ve almost always had my own washer/dryer setup. However, I have to say that doing laundry in such an establishment is much faster than doing so at home. It would previously have been an all-day affair. It wasn’t too bad.

Ikea Dioder Hack

Ikea Dioder

Well, it turns out that these LED lights are 12-volt DC, but have an AC converter. In order to use it with the van’s house setup, I just had to snip off the AC converter, then plug the remaining wires directly to the system while observing the proper polarity. The written portion of the wire, in this case, was the positive connection. It’s very important that if you’re going to do this, that you don’t get the polarity wrong because you could fry the lights.

While I don’t have a final position for them yet, I think that I’m going to put them near the back of the van, since that part is a little darker than the rest of it. They will serve as good mood lighting. They also use less energy than the round but infinitely brighter ceiling LED lights.

Introduction

Previously published on Blogger on 2018-07-08

Why?

You may have been here. You may be on your second trip. For me, I don’t learn so easily and completely as I should. I haven’t worked out all of the details, but I’m essentially exchanging my unemployed, separated life in a huge home as well as an investment property to a nomad living in a van. I’m currently in the process of obtaining employment, selling my home, my investment property, as well as selling much of my stuff. I don’t know what’s going to happen to my pets. I have two dogs and two cats. I am hoping to take one cat, but the other big dog loves the van. She always wants to spend time in it. I don’t think that I could keep her in it without it being destroyed or spending a fortune on climate control so she’d survive. The cat would do better in these conditions, but some accommodations would have to be made to ensure his comfort.

Given my inability to pay my mortgage consistently, I bought a very cheap van in order to have a place to live. Currently, I’m not confident enough to think that I can resolve these problems on my own. I just want to be happy while avoiding stress.

After I purchased the van, I ran up the things that I would need in order to bring it up to drivability standards. It needs a lot of stuff, but that’s what you get by buying a van on the cheap.

The Van

It is a 1993 Chevy G20. I believe that they call it a Sportsvan, but I could be mistaken. It has the side suicide doors as opposed to the slide out door that you may see on other vans. It has a fiberglass top that is useful for getting into the van for seating, but I can’t stand up inside of it.

It is powered by a 5.7L V8 with Throttle Body Injection and a automatic transmission.

Projects

Thus far, I have the following projects going on:

Fantastic Fan

A Fantastic Fan is a ceiling fan/skylight. It exhausts air through the ceiling, although with the one that I purchased, the fan can reverse directions as well. I know that you could just wire a switch to reverse the direction of the DC motor, but it’s nice to have it built-in. It helps with lessening the condensation which can build by occupying a van for a number of house, particularly while you’re sleeping in it. It also helps keep the van cooler during warmer weather. I am also considering the addition of a portable, 12v dehumidifier as well. We’ll see how it goes.

I had installed installed it last week. It was a bit scary cutting through the van’s ceiling, but it got installed without issue. Putting back up the headliner is quite another issue. Perhaps if I had help?

Solar Power

Here is my current setup:

• 1 – 100 watt Renogy monocrystalline solar panel with mounting brackets.
• Renogy Wanderer 30 amp PWM charge controller
• Mighty Max AGM 12v 105aH battery
• BlueSea ATO fuse block
• BlueSea negative bus bar

Current power draws	Future draws
Fantastic Fan USB and 12v (cig) outputs (for charging phone, Kindle, etc.) Voltage monitor Interior side lights on right-hand side	12v fridge Interior lights Laptop Casio keyboard (convert to use 12v somehow) TV (convert to use 12v somehow) Sink pump

Climate control problem

Right now, the van has problems with its venting selector. When proper vacuum is applied, I only get vent air. When I remove the vacuum source, I only get defrost and floor air. This problem is the most frustrating and annoying because I have to take the entire dashboard apart in order to fix the problem. Also, the source is elusive because it’s most likely a vacuum leak. I’ve replaced a number of parts already, but haven’t been able to fix the problem yet.

The reason for this problem is that GM decided it would be good idea to use the engine’s vacuum as a way to open and close vents in the system, thereby changing the flow of air from floor to vent and elsewhere. Unfortunately, vacuum hoses don’t last forever. They become dislodged. They become brittle and leak. I’ll be able to fix this eventually.

Moving Forward

For my next blog post, expect to see some photos of some of the changes that I’m making as well as more of my mindset leading me in this transition. I hope you’ve enjoyed reading about it thus far.