Linda got up at 6:45 AM to get a shower before Madeline woke up. She peeked in the bedroom at 7:30 and there was no Madeline to be seen! She pushed the door open a little farther and felt some resistance. She looked behind the door and there was Ms. M, playing hide and seek with Grandma Linda. 🙂 Madeline was not fully awake, however, and sat with Linda on the living room sofa and read stories for a while.
All of this was retold to me as I was up late last night working on yesterday’s blog post and did not get up this morning until 8 AM, just in time for breakfast. Breakfast was gluten-free toaster waffles with real maple syrup and mixed berries on the side (blackberries, blueberries, raspberries, and strawberries); simple but delicious.
After breakfast Linda took Madeline to the Brighton Mill Pond Imagination Station Playscape. They needed to return a book to the lending library and Linda wanted to make sure Ms. M had an active morning so she would be tired enough to lie down for her nap at 1 PM.
Bruce grouting the tiles in the hallway by the new bus refrigerator.
I got back to work on the grout immediately after breakfast. My goal was to be done by noon as it needed to cure, undisturbed, for 24 hours before we could clean it and resume working inside the bus. I picked up where I left off last night with the area in front of the refrigerator where the kitchen blends into the hallway. I was now out into the front half of the bus which is much more open than the hallway, bathroom, and bedroom. Also, most of the tiles in this area are full 16 inch squares so I thought I might be able to work faster. That was optimistic to say the least.
It was forecast to be hot today with a high near 90 degrees F and elevated relative humidity. I turned on the front and middle air-conditioners initially but eventually had to turn off the middle unit when I got to the point where I would no longer be able to reach it. I was a bit surprised that the front A-C alone kept the coach comfortable but we are approaching the autumnal Equinox so the transit of the sun is enough lower in the southern sky that the coach is in shade for most of the day.
It felt like I was moving right along but by noon it was obvious that this was going to be an all-day task so I stopped to have lunch. Linda served vegan hotdogs with pickle relish and onions and set out a large bunch of grapes. After lunch I resumed the grouting while Linda and Madeline watched a video. Madeline laid down for her nap right on schedule. Linda then took a few minutes to help me move the Aqua-Hot fan-coil heat exchangers so I could grout the area where they had been sitting on the floor. Linda cleaned up the kitchen and then had some well-deserved and needed quiet time.
I had a call from Butch around 1:30 PM. I was in the middle of applying grout and said I would call him back later. They left on Saturday for the southwest U.S. and were planning to spend this evening at a Walmart near Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. By 5:25 PM I had one small set of inter tile spaces to grout when Linda and Madeline came out to tell me that dinner was ready. I had just finished a section so I had already cleaned my tools. I put the lid back on the grout container and went inside to eat.
Dinner was mock chicken tenders (vegan), green beans, kale chips, sliced plums, and grapes. There was a little left over “gravy” (vegan) from last night so I had that on my chicken. Madeline helped make the kale chips and really liked them. As soon as I was done eating I excused myself from the table and went back to the bus.
I finished grouting the last four grout spaces and then cleaned up the tools and put them away. I also cleaned up the cockpit area of the bus which is where everything ended up as I worked my way out of the living area. I turned off the front A-C and locked the bus. While I did that Linda cleaned up the kitchen and then gathered up all of Madeline’s things.
When I was done with my chores I cleaned up and changed clothes. The three of us then loaded all of Madeline’s things into Linda’s car which has had the car seat in it all weekend. We closed up the house and headed for Ann Arbor. Linda drove so that I could return Butch’s phone call.
Butch had a possible issue with his house battery bank and wanted to discuss it. He bought eight AGM batteries last winter in Quartzsite, Arizona and finally installed them over the summer. They are 12V DC batteries and he has them in a series-parallel configuration to make a 24V DC battery pack with a 12V DC center tap. A 24V Magnum 4024 inverter/charger is connected to the +24V and DC ground and a Vanner Equalizer is connected to those same points and to the 12V center tap, which is where 12V DC loads, like the water pump, draw their power. In addition, Butch wired three LED display voltmeters to the battery pack; one for the lower 12V bank, one for the upper 12V bank, and one for the overall 24V bank.
His issue/concern was that the upper and lower 12V banks were not reading the same voltage. They were different by one volt, which is a lot, and the upper bank had the lower voltage, which I agreed was an odd situation. Without the Vanner Equalizer 12V loads would draw their energy from the lower 12 V bank and as the charge in that bank got depleted the voltage would drop. The Vanner Equalizer’s purpose in the system is to draw charge from the upper battery bank to make up for this depletion and keep the voltage the same, or equalized, on both banks. I presumed that all three voltmeters were accurate and that the Vanner was connected correctly, all of which would be easy enough to check.
After talking about all of this his plan was to temporarily disable the Vanner by removing its connection to battery ground and see what affect that had. He also thought the Vanner might have a circuit breaker and would check to see if it had tripped. I could not confirm or deny whether this would work. I have looked for information on how the Vanner does what it does and not found much although I have found circuit diagrams for other battery equalizers. My presumption is that it is a small inverter/charger, taking DC power from the upper 12V bank, creating some sort of AC waveform, and applying it to one side of a 1:1 transformer. The other side of the transformer sees the same AC waveform, converts it back to 12V DC, and applies it to the lower battery. The transformer is the key as it isolates the two banks relative to ground. I wrapped up the call a few minutes before we got to our destination.
We arrived at Brendan and Shawna’s house at 7:45 PM. They had pulled up just minutes before us and were unloading their car. They had not dropped Jorge at his home yet so we got to visit with him too. Madeline had me read her a book about what happens if you give a cat a cupcake. We stayed until 8:15 PM and offered to drive Jorge home as Brendan and Shawna had to get Madeline to bed and then eat something for dinner. Madeline got out the cupcakes she helped make and offered those for their evening meal. Tomorrow is a work day for her parents and she has to go to her new school. Jorge is also starting a new job as the wine department manager at the new Plum Market on the northeast side of Ann Arbor, so everyone needed their rest this evening.
We were going to stop at Meijer’s supermarket on the way home but encountered rain before we got to the Brighton exit. We stopped at the Shell station instead, filled up the gas tank, and bought two large decaf coffees at the Dunkin Donuts co-located with the station. Back at the house we each had a vegan cupcake and then sat quietly in the living room working on our iPads while enjoying our brew and the company of our cats. By 10 PM Linda was sleepy and went to bed. I was also tired but stayed up longer to finish this post. Scattered thunderstorms were forecast over a several hour period starting at 11:30 PM. That is when I turned off the light but they had not yet started. We could use a good soaking rain so I hope we get one overnight.
