Schoolie Conversion

[hayesfamily]

DUDE Your bus is awesome. Hope we get to be in the same campground one day. I love looking at bus conversions. 

[somewhereinusa]

In response to a private message about my heat, I'll answer here in case anyone else might like to see.

Since no one told me I couldn't do it this way. My boiler, hot water heater and 2 manifolds are 3/4 inch. The manifolds, supply/return are 1/2 inch out. There is a pump in each of the four heat loops that are controlled by the thermostats. All of the loops are1/2 pex. I routed the traces into 2 inch styrofoam, I think, on 3 1/2 inch centers. The spec for 1/2 pex calls for 4 inch but, I cheated a little. The pex is laying in the aluminum plates and the 3/4 floor is directly on top of that. The flooring is something I found in one of the RV surplus stores, 3/4 inch with some sort of plastic coating on both sides. I earlier posted a picture of the piping.

Here is after the floor was down.

In process of laying the tubing.

The manifolds, zone water pumps and relays.

This is the Espar boiler, green box on left. The system is built basically like a automotive cooling system with a tank, gray box in center and a catch can. With overflow, that could have been much smaller. The marine water heater is behind the boiler. This compartment is above the engine in the rear.

Since I had no idea how well, or if any of this would work. I also put a automotive type heater with blower in each zone. The driver compartment uses the original bus heater core as well as two smaller ones blowing on me. I am quite comfy down to about 10°. I haven't tested it any colder while driving. At below 0° sitting still, from a cold start I can get it nice and warm in about an hour at witch time I turn off all of the blowers and the floor will maintain.

D ick

 

[rsbilledwards]

Richard, Terrific, nice attention to detail. What voltage does the heat run on, pump and relay voltage? I like the the looks of the pump set up but think it could be done with one and 4 thermal wax zone valves which operate from the same voltage as the thermostats. Knowing what I learned from building the cabin and the floor height constraints I might encounter in the Panther, have me thinking, how do I.... I think 3/8 pex would work as well, reducing a little of the added height to the floor. Trick would be to find the appropriate pump. The manifolds  could be placed under the fridge. The aluminum panels I have seen for 1/2 inch, wonder if available for the 3/8. Did you cover the floor entirely with them. Over all how much additional height did it add to the floor. The top surface of the floor, what is it? Does it conduct pretty well, warm to the feet? Just thinking outside of this box, with an air to air heat exchanger a fan and solar it could possibly be turned into a cooler in the summer during the hottest part of the day...a cool floor. 

[richard5933]

Greetings from Wisconsin. Sorry I didn't find this thread earlier in the week.

Welcome to the forum - you'll find that there are actually still a good number of members with bus conversions. Some DIY, some professional. All amazing and unique in their own way. At the rally in Gillette I walked the entire grounds looking for all the bus conversions, amazed at all the work that went into them. Ours was converted on a brand new shell by Custom Coach in 1974 and has been lovingly used as a motor home since then. It's pretty much still the way it looked in '74.

Love the way you've got yours set up and hope to see it in person some day soon.

If you want to see ours you can look here:

 

[somewhereinusa]

26 minutes ago, rsbilledwards said:

Richard, Terrific, nice attention to detail. What voltage does the heat run on, pump and relay voltage? I like the the looks of the pump set up but think it could be done with one and 4 thermal wax zone valves which operate from the same voltage as the thermostats. Knowing what I learned from building the cabin and the floor height constraints I might encounter in the Panther, have me thinking, how do I.... I think 3/8 pex would work as well, reducing a little of the added height to the floor. Trick would be to find the appropriate pump. The manifolds  could be placed under the fridge. The aluminum panels I have seen for 1/2 inch, wonder if available for the 3/8. Did you cover the floor entirely with them. Over all how much additional height did it add to the floor. The top surface of the floor, what is it? Does it conduct pretty well, warm to the feet? Just thinking outside of this box, with an air to air heat exchanger a fan and solar it could possibly be turned into a cooler in the summer during the hottest part of the day...a cool floor. 

Well, some of my things are really inefficient. I bought the boiler and pumps new off of ebay for a VERY good price. But, they are 24V so I have to take 120VAC from the inverter and convert that to 24VDC for the heat. I don't know about 3/8 I've not seen the aluminum panels for that size. I used the aluminum in as many places I could get it. There are a few cold spots on the floor they are where there is no aluminum. The flooring is 3/4 plywood with a plastic coating on each side. Floor is warm in below 0° temps. The pex is laid into 2 inch styrofoam insulation and 3/4 plywood on top of that. I'm only 5' 8" and mumsywumsy is shorter, I still have plenty of headroom.

I've seen discussion of cooling that way before. Seems condensation might be a problem and may be more trouble to build for the cooling gained. I have mini split AC for that. Works quite well.

[somewhereinusa]

 

23 minutes ago, richard5933 said:

 

If you want to see ours you can look here:

 

Richard great looking coach, I like the older ones that were converted and hardly used.  I'm in Genoa City doing event photography 3 or for times during the summer. 

[richard5933]

15 hours ago, somewhereinusa said:

 

Richard great looking coach, I like the older ones that were converted and hardly used.  I'm in Genoa City doing event photography 3 or for times during the summer. 

Let me know when you're in the area next - it would be fun to have our own little mini rally.

[somewhereinusa]

Playing with walnut and my Shaper Origin.  Bad weather is starting to set in so I'm spending more time in the shop. I just finished some new LED light fixtures.

This is 43" long.

Detail of fixture.

Bracket detail.

Next project is a makeup mirror/station cabinet for DW out of walnut.

D ick

 

[jleamont]

I had to google the Shaper Origin to see what it is. That is one neat wood working tool! Wood working and Metal fabrication are two (besides camping) of my favorite hobbies. 

[somewhereinusa]

I'm having fun with it. The speaker grill on the first page of this post was done with it. I love working with walnut. The speaker grill started as a log in a back field. The wood for that one I sawed into a piece small enough to fit in my band saw with my chainsaw. I had to make a sled that would carry an 8 ft log to cut it into boards. The wood I have now was cut into boards for free at a local steam show. I got a lot of good wood out of what was left after the timber buyer got what they want. 

When did I ever have time to work for a living.   😎  As a cross country truck driver one year I only slept in the bed at home 39 nights. 

[desertdeals69]

Regarding instant hot water.

All I did on my first one 18 years ago was to put a tee at the faucet hot line which was the farthest from the hot water heater.  Had a valve then a mech temp gauge from my dark room, and a return line to the fresh water tank.  I would open the valve until the water reached 125 degrees then shut it off.  Had instant hot water at the shower and no wasted water or extra fill in the gray tank.  My current one is 12 volt solenoid and digital temp gauge.  Push the button until temp reads 125 degrees.

[somewhereinusa]

I love my Shaper Origin. I occasionally need a printed circuit board for some project or other. In the past I have etched them with acid. Messy and time consuming. I would draw the picture, print it with a printer, heat transfer that onto the board then dunk it in the acid solution which would eat the copper layer off. Then I would have to very carefully drill all of the holes.

With the SO I still have to draw it up. There was a bit of trial and error before I figured out cut settings. The last one, the top one in the above picture, took about ten minutes. This method puts the holes exactly in the right places. Accuracy is exceptional for a hand held tool. That board is less than an inch tall.

This is a few of the mistakes, as you can see I can even cut the piece out.

[manholt]

I don't suppose you worked for Radar Relay in your life?  I did,  in High School and I'm very familiar with the acid bath....We come a long way since 1958/59!   RR changed it's name to Teledyne when it went Public.

[somewhereinusa]

I just finished and installed a mirror/makeup cabinet for mumsywumsy. It features dimable LED lights using a hall effect switch to turn on the lights. It is also hinged since it's pretty close to the wall in driving position.

 

It's really hard to get a decent picture because of all the mirrors so, here's a video.

 

[manholt]

My Linda likes it.  The fact that it swivels out & the light is adjustable, is a plus!  😍

[jleamont]

That's beautiful and I love your thinking outside the box with this coach build!

I love building stuff like that, Its relaxing

[somewhereinusa]

After 4 years I finally have a shower door. 😎 It also serves as a night light.

[somewhereinusa]

This is all done and installed for testing except for actually hooking up the main relay. It has changed a bit since my first post. I've added a temperature sensor inside of each battery. It logs to a memory card and sends data to my phone via bluetooth. I was surprised to find that I can get the data from inside the house.:smile: Unfortunately, now that it's spring I can't test the cold weather part but, I did thoroughly bench test it.  

Overview of system.

1. Arduino Mega 
2. Voltage regulator
3. 9 DS18B20 temp sensors
4. Switchdoc labs INA3221 voltage sensor
5. 4 SS relays

Relay 1----Main Disconnect
Relay 2----Victron Charge controller
Relay 3----Cabin cooling fan
Relay 4----Battery heat

Temp sensor 1 Battery #1
Temp sensor 2 Battery #2
Temp sensor 3 Battery #3
Temp sensor 4 Battery #4
Temp sensor 5 Battery  #5
Temp sensor 6 Battery #6
Temp sensor 7 Cabin temp
Temp sensor 8 Battery heat temp
Temp sensor 9 Outside temp

Relay 1 disconnects battery bank from everything *
Relay 2 turns solar controller ON/OFF *
Relay 3 turns ON/OFF compartment cooling fan
Relay 4 turns ON/OFF battery heating
   *In all cases relay 1 turns on before relay 2 and relay 2           turns off before relay 1.

voltage < 9.5 open relay 1&2
voltage > 15  open relay 1&2
any batt temp 1-6 >  175° F open relay 1&2
any batt temp 1-6<   40° F  open relay  1&2
temp sensor 7>  90° F close relay 3
temp sensor 8<    45° F close relay 4
temp sensor 8>    50° F open  relay 4

Sends data via bluetooth to phone. 
Used real time clock to keep track of date and time.
Saves data to memory card. Every ten minutes. If something triggers relay 1 and 2 logs every 10 seconds.

Overall system.This is mounted on back side of bedroom wall. Everything on left side of picture.

The batteries on floor of same area.

Screenshot of data on phone.

Another view of the control panel.

[manholt]

That's ambitious and quite extraordinary!  For me it's overkill but I must say, you have done a great job of converting a school bus!  

Happy Quarantine!  😎

[wayne77590]

Wow! A work of admiration.

My saying.

It doesn't matter what you camp (RV) in, you're having just as much fun.

Would like to see you parked next to me some day.

[somewhereinusa]

Another step closer. My son came and helped to mount the solar panels. The original luggage rack was exactly the right width. It was two rails tall and with a little cutting and welding the top rail went forward to mount the front two panels.

I did repaint the roof after I took this photo.





1530W, still have to finish the wiring but, this is the part I couldn't do by myself.

__________________

[wayne77590]

So amazing. Thanks for sharing.

 

[somewhereinusa]

I'm pretty excited. I got everything wired and working yesterday. About noon I turned on the AC in the bedroom. At about 6PM the panels were still producing more than the AC was using. (Northern Indiana, slightly cloudy, some overcast). 
I left the AC on all night set on 75°. This is what the state of charge was this morning at 6AM

• 12,000 BTU inverter type mini-split
• 6 255W solar panels
• 6 138 Ah Valence LiFePo4 12V batteries
• Home built safety for battery shutdown along with Valence cell balencing

All of this started about a year ago when I saw an ad for some used Valence batteries. At that time I knew nothing about lithium batteries or solar. Rough cost $5000 including batteries, solar panels and Victron inverter/charger and solar controller.
 

[manholt]

Clever. Great job.  10 days of clouds and rain and your on generator, if your boon-docking.  Got a couple of friends that stay out for month's in the South West dessert.  Their both on this Forum..DD69 & Bill Edwards!  You might wan't to get on PM with them...they have been on Solar for years!

[somewhereinusa]

I just finished the control/information panel made of solid walnut. Monitors solar, LiFePo batteries, boiler control, as well as switches. 

Edited July 9, 2020 by somewhereinusa