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Old 12-28-2010, 05:23 PM   #301
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Re: Hal The Van

Thanks Teeots. Like everything else on the van, it was definitely a learning experience.

In several previous posts I'd made passing reference to my rustproofing. Here's a quick post on the subject.

I've not made it a secret that Hal had some rust problems when acquired.


I've posted before about patching holes. When it comes to simple surface rust I've been using a rustproofing product called Rust Bullet. This company makes different products but I've only used the Automotive Formula which is silver in color.

The company website makes all kinds of claims. The only one I can personally verify is that once it gets on anything, you'll have a hell of a time getting it off. Especially skin. Anything that sticks like this stuff does must be doing something right.

I think it does a good job. In case you use it here's some things I've learned.

Read and follow all instructions. This product is not quite like anything I've used before.

Before you begin painting have a can of Xylene, Toluene, or MEK on hand. You will need it.

If you're only going to use part of a can have some plastic wrap handy. Use the plastic wrap to both displace the air above the unused portion left in the can and stop the top of the can from contacting the lid when you go to re-seal the can.


Without the plastic wrap the lid will fuse to the top of the can. To open it again you'll have to peel the lid off with pliers.


Buy cheap brushes. You can get good enough brushes from Harbor Freight for $.099. Use them a couple times and throw them away. Beside the effect this product has the brushes, to try to get them totally clean you'll spend more money on the solvent that what the brush cost.




Cover you skin as much as possible. Did I mention this stuff is hard to get off.
I put on this old jersey when painting with Rust Bullet. I'll turn the collar up and wear a ball cap.


I also tape the jersey to my gloves so it won't ride up and expose the skin on my arms.


As soon as you're done painting find a mirror and see if you have any rust proofing on your face. You'll need the solvent to get it off but the trick is to do it Right Away. Don't let it sit. Same thing with your glasses. Don't let it sit.

Besides using it to treat surface rust I also use Rust Bullet whenever I cut through metal on the van to help prevent rust from forming on the newly exposed edge.




Who am I kidding. If you've been following this van conversion you know I've gone just hog wild with this stuff on the underside of the van.








Once I started treating the areas with surface rust I found that I liked the look of it. It also made working under the van a little less onerous. Considering all the time I spend in the Undervan every little bit helps.

I have no way to prove it but I'd bet that having the wheel wells and bottom of the van silver colored helps reflect some of the radiant road heat in the summer. Especially when you compare it to the flat black of most vehicle undercoating.

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Old 12-29-2010, 04:30 AM   #302
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Re: Hal The Van

My first thought was, "I wonder how it compares to POR 15?" When I opened rust bullets page it said in independent lab tests rb outperformed por 15.

What quantity did you by/ would you buy if you had to do it again?

order page link here

http://www.rustbullet.com/ProductCart/p ... tegory=120
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Old 12-29-2010, 09:37 AM   #303
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Re: Hal The Van

Rust Bullet is pricy so I started with the ¼ Pint ($10.99) to test it out. I liked the way it worked so I next ordered 1 Quart ($44.99). Once I used that up I could have finished the treatment of just the areas with surface rust with one more quart but instead decided to get the "Go Hog Wild" 4 Quart Special ($156.99). I wouldn't consider buying it in the gallon size unless you were planning to use the whole can in only one or two applications.
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Old 12-30-2010, 06:32 PM   #304
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Re: Hal The Van

Coolest pizza cutter ever.
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Old 01-01-2011, 10:30 PM   #305
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Re: Hal The Van

Quote:
Coolest pizza cutter ever.
Found out the first time I washed it that it's sharp too.

Today's Fun Fact. 45 "clicks" on a Webasto dosing pump gives you approximately 3cc's of fuel.

1 click =~ 1/15 cc
1 gal =~ 3 785 cc
1 click =~ 1.76e -5 gal
1 gal kerosene = $3.50 (locally)
1 click =~ $0.00006

Next project is the LED upgrade of my Penthouse light. It's a florescent fixture that comes standard with the Penthouse top from Sportsmobile. You can see the light in this picture on the far end of the top before it was installed.


The light runs off the starting battery and other owners had reported concerns with the amount of power the fixture used. Because of this I was always leery of using it too much when boondocking. Decided to convert the light over to LED since I could get the same amount of light for less power.

A lot of other people have done a similar upgrade. I could have done it more simply but thought this was would be a good chance to mess around with some different led's.

I want the replacement leds to produce at least the same amount of light as the original florescent fixture so need some way to measure the light output. A photoresistor should work. A photoresistor is a type of semiconductor whose resistance decreases with increasing light intensity.


Hook a voltmeter across the photoresistor leads and place it on the resistance setting. The voltmeter reading won't give me an absolute value for what the light output is but I can use it as a relative value to compare florescent to led.


Stand the fixture on edge on my workbench and center it on this "line" where two planks meet.


18 inches from the light is the photoresistor centered on the same line.


The measurement from the photoresistor is expressed in ohms. The brighter the light the lower the value.


Here's what I'll be using as my power source. Two 6 volt golf cart batteries connected in series which then supplies 12 volts.


I'll be replacing the florescent light with this type of led. It's 75 white leds mounted on a ridged board that runs off 12 volts. It comes with a plastic tray that the board slides into for mounting. I bought it at DealExtreme for $10.28 which included shipping.


The good thing with buying from DealExtreme is the items are low priced. The bad thing is you're buying directly from China and it can take weeks for your items to arrive.


Here's the back of the led board. The 75 leds are actually 25 groups of 3 leds. Each group of leds has it's own resistor so the board could be separated between each grouping and wired directly to a 12 volts source. Since the board is 20 inches long it will have to be cut. Mark the board between two led groupings close to the middle.


Using a hacksaw carefully cut across the board.


After separating the board into two pieces, one piece will still have the power wires attached to it while the other piece will need wires soldered on.


Cut the mounting tray same length as the led board.


For testing use double sided tape to stick the two led boards to the back of the fixture. Flip the fixture back and forth to measure the light from each type of light.


The florescent light gives a reading of 3.2 ohms and the led is 2.8. The led reading is less than the florescent light's reading so the led is outputting more light.


Here's where I almost made a big mistake. The photoresistor is measuring the light directly in front of the fixture which is where the leds have an advantage since they are directional while the florescent light is more scattered. I also forgot to test with the diffuser in place.

Test again with the diffuser.




With the diffuser in front the florescent reading is 4.1 while the led is 4.0.

I also measured the amount of power both lights were using. The florescent is using 1.2 amps and the led 0.45 amps. Since the led is using less than half the amps as the florescent and recognizing the bias the photoresistor measurement has towards the leds I decided to add one more 10 inch segment of leds to the fixture.


The light output with the diffuser is 3.4 and power usage is now 0.69 amps.


continued -
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Old 01-02-2011, 05:27 PM   #306
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Re: Hal The Van

It's Alive!
Not completely done but here's the Webasto heater running in my van.



The temperature outside the van is 30 degrees.
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Old 01-02-2011, 05:38 PM   #307
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Re: Hal The Van

Very cool lighting project. SMB West hooks the flourescent fixtures in the penthouse up to the house battery system, not the starter battery. However, if you're referring to the back brake light, then you would be correct. If you decide to make that an LED please post what you do - I'm interested. Also, did you give any thought to using a light meter for measuring light output in candle power or lumens (not sure what the units of measure for that would be). You would still have diffusion differences, both in shape and output, but it may be small in comparison to light wave intensity.
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Old 01-03-2011, 08:01 PM   #308
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Re: Hal The Van

Thanks Joey2cool,
When SMB installed the lights there was only the starting battery to power them from. I could always move the power source over to the house batteries later on in the build. I'd thought about using a light meter but don't either own one or know anyone who does. That's why I came up with the photoresistor idea. As I'm typing this up it just occurred to me that my digital camera (like all of them) must have a light meter built in. I'll have to check the manual and see if there is anyway to get a reading directly from it.
Dave
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Old 01-06-2011, 10:34 PM   #309
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Re: Hal The Van

Light fixture upgrade continued :

Now that I've figured out what leds I'll be placing in the fixture, time to remove the old florescent light's wiring.


It's held in place by pop rivets.


Drill out the center of the rivet.


After a few of these, this is what your drill bit looks like.


With the florescent wiring gone I noticed the extra space within the light fixture. It got me to thinking and I decide to use that extra space to add some more leds.


Since I already had white light I thought I'd add some "Das Boot" lights. These will be like the red lights you see in just about every submarine movie that's not in black and white. They are so the crew can go from inside the sub to the outside without having their night vision ruined. Should work the same way for me when camping.

I'll be using a different type of led than the white ones I used before. Here is what they look like. It's a high powered "star type" led.


Since these leds are high power I'll only be using two of the red ones while I used 114 of the white leds.


One of these red leds will use 350 milliamps while a single white led only needs 20 milliamps. 1 amp = 1000 milliamps Along with extra light the led produces extra heat. So much extra heat that a separate heat sink is required. The data sheet reads that they are not to be run longer than 5 seconds without one.
The star board under the led, beside providing pads for soldering on wires, gives an attachment point for a heat sink.


I'll use silicone to mount the star boards onto the metal of the light fixture. It's more than large enough to act as a heat sink and safely dissipate the excess heat.

There's another consideration with high power leds. The voltage supplied by the van can vary by several volts. On the lower powered white leds it's not a problem. You can run them with just a resistor wired in series to limit the current so they don't burn out. For the high powered leds it's another matter. The led you see in the above picture and another one just like it I managed to burn out while doing this upgrade.

To safely power the red leds I'm using a small circuit board called a "constant current regulated led driver". This will keep a constant current flowing to the leds even if the input voltage changes.

Here's what a couple of the led regulator circuit boards look like.


The regulator board arrives with these metal pins used for plugging them into a light fixture.


Use a soldering iron to remove the pins and replace them with wires.


This regulator board will work with both AC and DC. Since it's being used for DC I could increase it's energy efficiency a small amount by bypassing these four diodes.

For size comparison that's a toothpick below them. I 'm not that good with a soldering iron so it will remain unchanged.

I need a way to secure the regulator board to the light fixture. Use a scrap piece of left over acrylic and cut out three small blocks then glue the two small ones onto the larger one.


The regulator board has small tabs on each side.


Use a hacksaw to cut grooves on each side of the acrylic holder to match those tabs.


Add some silicone then slide the board into place.




Clean off the metal surface of the light fixture along with the back of the led stars with alcohol.


Silicone everything into place then let it set up.


Wire the red leds to a small switch and mount through the side of the fixture opposite from the original power switch.




Test it out.


The red leds draw 0.16 amps. The photoresistor gives a read of 4.8 without the diffuser and 6.8 with it. So the red lights aren't as bright as the white leds or the original florescent light but they are still plenty bright and use a little more than a 1/10 as much power.

Next attach the white leds by putting dabs of silicone onto the back of the plastic trays that hold the led boards.


Put the led boards into the trays and secure them to the fixture.


The led boards would slide back in forth in the trays so secure in place with some more silicone. Let it all set overnight.


Wire it all together. The white leds are wired to the original switch for the florescent light. The two sets of leds light independent of each other.


Install back into the van.


My visibly bored supervisor for this project.


List of parts.
DealExtreme
12V 75-LED White Light Strip - $10.28 Used 1 and 1/2 of these.

300~350mA Constant Current Regulated LED Driver (12~16V Input) - $2.25

Mouser
Z Power LED, P4 Series, Red - 2 x $3.88

The small switch I had on hand. The 2 leds I burned out were from DealExtreme so they were cheaper than the Mouser ones.

I have a question. To hold the light fixture on edge I used a couple of these.


It's a rectangular steel "brick" that has "SUP-R-DIE" written on the side. I found them among my Dad's tools. Dad was a Tool and Die Maker. They're kind of handy. Any one know what they were specifically used for?
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Old 01-07-2011, 09:46 AM   #310
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Re: Hal The Van

That is a machinist's box parallel. Used for various setup, maching or measuring operations. Some are precision, some are cast and machined. Vary in size and shape. Here is one site for them:

http://www.auto-met.com/subtool/stcat/st_pg11b.html

You can clamp things to them to keep the parts square to a surface. Hard to describe and hard to live without.

Very handy. And I like the size of the ones you have.

Mike
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