Friday, April 10, 2020

Day 64, 65 - Sherman, TX - TT

Thursday (64) - This morning we ventured back to the Walmart in Sherman, TX. They had the signs limiting people inside the store and the queue lines were set up as well. There was an employee counting customers entering and leaving the store. But being a Thursday morning, it wasn’t crowded. There was also an employee at the entrance cleaning the shopping cart before offering it for you to use. They had pretty much everything we had on the shopping list except dried beans and oyster sauce. But the Asian food selection all over TX has been pretty poor. The only empty shelves I saw were frozen chicken and quick to prepare items such as mac and cheese. No shortage of unfrozen chicken. They even had a selection of tp!

I did pick up some rope to anchor the awning in light wind. Usually, I retract the awning whenever wind is in the forecast. Since I stake down the mat it was easy to tie the awning roller to the same stakes. I also picked up a three-step ladder so I can reach things on the outside such as the awning.



Friday (65) - Another nice, sunny day. A good day for some outdoor projects. The led light strip on the awning runs on 12VDC and I have been using a 120VAC brick to power it. That seemed a bit silly since there was plenty of 12VDC power. I cut the wire between the brick and the connector and added Anderson PowerPole connectors so I could still use the brick. I then tapped into the power for the front passenger side compartment light and added a pair of Anderson connectors. I had the PowerPole connectors lying around from when I installed the VHF/UHF radio into the truck last year. They are rated at 30amps so kind of overkill for an LED light strip.

The other was more task than a project. I emptied and flushed the black tank but this time with a stopwatch while flushing the tank out. With the water running into the tank on full, it took 11 minutes for the SeeLevel gauge to reach 91%. Then after draining, I did it again noting the percentage for around three minutes and six minutes. Three minutes was around 3% and six minutes was 28%. This matches my thoughts when I installed the sensors with the lower portion of the tank holding most of the volume. I repeated this three times to make sure my numbers were consistent. So when it reads 30%, we are around half full.

The things one does for entertainment when sheltering-in-place.

4 comments:

  1. Measuring drain time levels of the black tank....you may want to ratchet up the excitement level in your life, just a bit anyways.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Measuring fill time from the flush system. More consistent than drain...

      But not a lot to do. I thought about ordering some microprocessors but delivery time from Amazon Prime was in weeks...

      Delete
  2. Ahh...... what people with a science or engineering background do to productively fill in time. I applaud you of course but my wife would be rolling her eyes and sighing.... :-)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I ended up bringing a lot of tools with me and that included several Raspberry Pi microcomputers. I did need to pick up a selection of stranded wire at the local auto parts store. I ignore the eye rolls...

      Delete