Deliveries Part 2

I'm still waiting on the big green shed to deliver my shed and garden bits. Then I'll order another pile of stuff that simply won't fit in my car. 

I have received a few odds and ends these past two days - the circuit breakers that I'll use as simple isolation switches, the cheap PWM controller that comes with the solar panel that hasn't arrived yet (and will go in the spares drawer as it's not worth enough to put on eBay to sell), some decent gauge wire, and the basic LED light strips. 

The light strips needed some connectors attached. I've wired the socket/plug sets so I can have a pair running each side of the gable roof. Currently just seeing how warm their very flimsy little heatsink gets. I think we've passed 60C in the last 20 minutes. 

I'm disappointed that the panel hasn't arrived yet. Apparently the kit controller shipped from Melbourne but the panel from Sydney. More interesting was the fact that both were sent on Hunter Express, but the panel was dropped off by AusPost. Interesting. 

I've been procrastinating about batteries. I've found a local seller looking to move on a heap of 85AH batteries for around $70 each. Or, I could spend $200 on a 105AH new and potentially get a lot more life out of it. Even better if I shell out for two at once. 

I've also been debating how to build my distribution board. The shed walls themselves will not support the board and I want to have the batteries directly under it. 

I recalled that I had an old roller table frame floating around outside. One of the castors is broken, but I think I could grind the castor pins off and give it a flat surface. That would give me a pretty reasonable frame to sit some batteries on. Mount a 1.8m x 600 board on the back and I'll have a solid distribution wall with a frame for the batteries. Once the yellow tongue flooring is cut up, I should have some 800x600mm off cuts. That'll be more than enough to use as a top on the table frame for the batteries to sit on. I may create one of those off cuts in advance.....  I'd rather like to have this part rigged up and ready to cart over and start the process of wiring in the light circuits, the battery and the panel as soon as that shed goes up. 

Said frame was brushed back to remove some of the rust, then a coat of Rust Eater was applied before a prime and quick paint. There is a backing board on it that has seen better days but acts as something of a brace. When I'm feeling healthier, I'll strip that out and replace with a couple of pieces of aluminium tubing. At the same time I'll go about attacking it with the angle grinder. The feels like something I really should be doing outside and might require some attention on my part, so it can wait a few days. I'm also not particularly good with angle grinders....

I'm not recovering from this cold. Bizarrely, yesterday morning I felt pretty good. I had an optometrist appointment and picked some new glasses, and for the entire time I didn't even sniff. By the evening I was fairly average. Not much has improved since. 

Still, according to the tests, I don't appear to have the ol' 'rona virus yet. 

I have attempted to struggle through work today given it was meetings requiring negligible input on my behalf. Tomorrow may be a different issue. 

I haven't done a lot with the radios over the past couple of days. I think there's a couple of FT8s in the log. Not much seems to happen with I send SSTV. I know I'm getting out, but there doesn't seem to be any interest with I jump on. Possibly I need a little more time to persevere. The time I'd normally spend fiddling around with such things has been instead spent watching TV shows as I attempt to turn off the old grey matter for a while.