When I walked out to the van this morning, I saw one truck unloading what appeared (in the dark) to be one of those wide deck mowers – most commonly used on football fields and large grassy areas. I remember thinking that it was a bit overkill for the amount of grass at work. All of the grass is segmented by concrete walkways. Later though (say around 10am) I was noticing a lot of equipment noises, which I attributed to groundskeepers and their oversized machinery. Eventually, I realized more was going on and started looking around. The machine has something to do with smoothing pavement. More equipment had arrived and they were tearing up the pavement in front of the van. Around 10:30, I relocated to another side of the building.
Since then, I have not been able to catch more than a few minutes of sleep. I don't know if it's from the added traffic at my new location or just the act of having to wake up again so early.
On the bright side, I hooked up the inverter to the battery and ran the Vornado. From 12:45 till 14:15, it ran on full speed. When I first turn it on, the battery's voltage reading goes from 12.9 to 12.5 within seconds. The display also shows 10 Watts to start the fan, and then remains at 0 thereafter. The voltage charge has remained at 12.5. If I turn the fan off, it jumps back up to 12.8. If I turn the fan to low, voltage moves to 12.6.
Even more importantly, the fan runs at full speed off of the inverter. At full speed, I felt fairly comfortable today running just the fan. Today makes the first day that I remained comfortably in the van without running the generator/air conditioner.
I returned to the van around 14:50 and turned the fan back on. At one point, I also let it power my laptop (which was at 80% battery). Running the fan and the laptop reported first 30 Watts, then it dropped to 20 Watts. I'm assuming the inverter displays wattage in 10 Watt increments. I probably ran the laptop for about 40 minutes while it did some file copying operations. The fan ran from 15:50 till 17:20 at which point, the voltage read 12.3.
Total fan/inverter run-time = 12:45 till 17:20, - 25 minutes (4hrs), During that time, the voltage went from 12.5 to 12.4 "under load". I believe the fan by itself could run for 2 of my normal days on one charge, but two batteries would get me through the long week. However, running the laptop would drain the battery that much quicker.
I had a few ideas:
Battery bank underneath van, with an access panel to them from inside - this would take the form of a recessed compartment.
Bed frame could be made out of angle iron rather easily, using either bolts or welded. Bolts/pins can operate as the hinge mechanism.
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