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sparr2015/07/25 continued
Later in the evening I went back out to work on the ambulance wiring a bit more. I started to match up the numbered wires for more of the switches and relays, as well as to manually short a bunch of the relay inputs to see what they would do. I found the wires leading to the front and rear signal lights (which were previously sequenced and red/blue, I expect). I found a wire leading back to a buzzer in the dash, which I expect there's a button somewhere in the box to trigger. I mapped out some of the behavior of the air/heat unit in the back. Speaking of which, I also took the front panel off the unit. The fan knob is a switch. The cool knob is a potentiometer. The hot knob is a mechanical gear that pulls a cable, which I am guessing opens/closes a baffle somewhere behind the unit. I can see a radiator/core behind a fan that's seized up, with pressure hose going into the back of the unit, so I'm guessing the engine and main A/C compressor have to be running to get the A/C in the back to work. The heat I'm unsure about, and a bunch of little grilles in the unit let air into the box from within its walls, which might be an outside vent of some sort (there's a pair of vents on the front outside of the box that I haven't found the inside parts of yet).
2015/07/26 Under the hood and mechanical bits
I took a bunch of photos under the hood today so that I could look up parts. Also, another instance of it being very reticent to start while cold, but starting just fine once warmed up.
There's a Shumacher "fully automatic onboard battery charger maintainer" bolted to the side of one of the battery holders. It's disconnected from the ground, but I can trivially reconnect it. I'll probably plug it in and try it at some point. It turns 0.4A of 120VAC into 1.5A of 12VDC (probably actually 14V, to charge a 12V-nominal battery). Not the world's most efficient charger, and ridiculously slow for what is currently a 100AH battery. However, there's something to be said for being able to maintain a charge at all for a vehicle that might be parked for weeks or months at a time.
The batteries are Optima SC34A, which look like they are about $220 new. While tracing cables last night I ran the batteries out again, in just an hour or so mostly with just the overhead dome lights on in the box. The previous run-out took less than 8 hours having the headlights on. I am pretty sure that both batteries are shot, running out as fast as they are. I'm gonna drag them to a shop to get them put on a heavy duty battery tester, but I'm assuming now that I'll need new batteries. The current ones are smaller than the largest it can take, so I'm looking into putting higher capacity batteries under the hood and keeping all the power centralized, rather than keeping low capacity starting batteries under the hood and segregating the box power like a full size RV might.
There's a Leece Neville "Silicon Transistor Voltage Regulator" that regulates *something* to 14V, but I'm not sure what. I'll have to trace some wires to see what it's hooked up to. There's another Leece Neville component with much less useful labeling right next to it. I'll post pictures of that one when I'm ready to do a big "identify this bit" photo set.
The box doors want to be kept open by sticking metal prongs into rubber grippers. The rubber bits are long past their prime and have little grip left, and one of the metal prongs is missing. I need to figure out what those are called so I can order replacements, or just include them on my list of stuff to grab at a junk yard on my trip.
The PAR46 floodlights on the outside of the box and the same size spotlights on the dash will cost about $15 to replace the dead ones, or $130 *each* to upgrade to LEDs in that form factor. I think I'll be sticking with incandescents on those until I can work out a good way to fit an alternative form factor in there (like the $20 E27 BR30 floodlamps I put on my back porch a couple of years ago).
In addition to this investigation, I also ordered a few things today. I'm getting a 40qt peltier-based cooler, which can do ambient-minus-40F. If I keep the box ventilated or A/C'd to ~75F during the day then the cooler can keep our perishable food in the 30s. I ordered ten 13-LED ba15d lamps to replace a bunch of the interior lights. Each one is 1.2W and there are six dome lamps in the box, so I'm hoping 7.2W of LEDs will be sufficient interior lighting. If not, I'll keep them for other areas and get a set of 2.4W lamps in a similar form factor. I got an oscillating fan, for nap time in the box when it's cool but sunny and still outside. I got some 1AWG jumper cables, since my 8AWG cables are mostly just a heating coil when I try to use them. I ordered some liquid that's supposed to make the squeaky non-friction parts of my brakes squeak less. And finally I got a kettle and a small crock pot, for making food on the road.
Standing between me and installing all of those appliances is finding some high-current cigarette lighter outlets to mount somewhere in the box. I'm shopping for those. I'd love to find 4 in one unit, but I'll take them separate and mount them to a panel if I have to. More news to come once some parts start to arrive or I do more wire following.
Later in the evening I went back out to work on the ambulance wiring a bit more. I started to match up the numbered wires for more of the switches and relays, as well as to manually short a bunch of the relay inputs to see what they would do. I found the wires leading to the front and rear signal lights (which were previously sequenced and red/blue, I expect). I found a wire leading back to a buzzer in the dash, which I expect there's a button somewhere in the box to trigger. I mapped out some of the behavior of the air/heat unit in the back. Speaking of which, I also took the front panel off the unit. The fan knob is a switch. The cool knob is a potentiometer. The hot knob is a mechanical gear that pulls a cable, which I am guessing opens/closes a baffle somewhere behind the unit. I can see a radiator/core behind a fan that's seized up, with pressure hose going into the back of the unit, so I'm guessing the engine and main A/C compressor have to be running to get the A/C in the back to work. The heat I'm unsure about, and a bunch of little grilles in the unit let air into the box from within its walls, which might be an outside vent of some sort (there's a pair of vents on the front outside of the box that I haven't found the inside parts of yet).
2015/07/26 Under the hood and mechanical bits
I took a bunch of photos under the hood today so that I could look up parts. Also, another instance of it being very reticent to start while cold, but starting just fine once warmed up.
There's a Shumacher "fully automatic onboard battery charger maintainer" bolted to the side of one of the battery holders. It's disconnected from the ground, but I can trivially reconnect it. I'll probably plug it in and try it at some point. It turns 0.4A of 120VAC into 1.5A of 12VDC (probably actually 14V, to charge a 12V-nominal battery). Not the world's most efficient charger, and ridiculously slow for what is currently a 100AH battery. However, there's something to be said for being able to maintain a charge at all for a vehicle that might be parked for weeks or months at a time.
The batteries are Optima SC34A, which look like they are about $220 new. While tracing cables last night I ran the batteries out again, in just an hour or so mostly with just the overhead dome lights on in the box. The previous run-out took less than 8 hours having the headlights on. I am pretty sure that both batteries are shot, running out as fast as they are. I'm gonna drag them to a shop to get them put on a heavy duty battery tester, but I'm assuming now that I'll need new batteries. The current ones are smaller than the largest it can take, so I'm looking into putting higher capacity batteries under the hood and keeping all the power centralized, rather than keeping low capacity starting batteries under the hood and segregating the box power like a full size RV might.
There's a Leece Neville "Silicon Transistor Voltage Regulator" that regulates *something* to 14V, but I'm not sure what. I'll have to trace some wires to see what it's hooked up to. There's another Leece Neville component with much less useful labeling right next to it. I'll post pictures of that one when I'm ready to do a big "identify this bit" photo set.
The box doors want to be kept open by sticking metal prongs into rubber grippers. The rubber bits are long past their prime and have little grip left, and one of the metal prongs is missing. I need to figure out what those are called so I can order replacements, or just include them on my list of stuff to grab at a junk yard on my trip.
The PAR46 floodlights on the outside of the box and the same size spotlights on the dash will cost about $15 to replace the dead ones, or $130 *each* to upgrade to LEDs in that form factor. I think I'll be sticking with incandescents on those until I can work out a good way to fit an alternative form factor in there (like the $20 E27 BR30 floodlamps I put on my back porch a couple of years ago).
In addition to this investigation, I also ordered a few things today. I'm getting a 40qt peltier-based cooler, which can do ambient-minus-40F. If I keep the box ventilated or A/C'd to ~75F during the day then the cooler can keep our perishable food in the 30s. I ordered ten 13-LED ba15d lamps to replace a bunch of the interior lights. Each one is 1.2W and there are six dome lamps in the box, so I'm hoping 7.2W of LEDs will be sufficient interior lighting. If not, I'll keep them for other areas and get a set of 2.4W lamps in a similar form factor. I got an oscillating fan, for nap time in the box when it's cool but sunny and still outside. I got some 1AWG jumper cables, since my 8AWG cables are mostly just a heating coil when I try to use them. I ordered some liquid that's supposed to make the squeaky non-friction parts of my brakes squeak less. And finally I got a kettle and a small crock pot, for making food on the road.
Standing between me and installing all of those appliances is finding some high-current cigarette lighter outlets to mount somewhere in the box. I'm shopping for those. I'd love to find 4 in one unit, but I'll take them separate and mount them to a panel if I have to. More news to come once some parts start to arrive or I do more wire following.