Thursday 25 June, Holy Loch

Today was the day for shopping so, armed with Monsieur Le Stripes (our little old lady’s shopping trolley) and 2 back packs, off we trudged to the bus stop. Oh boy! Talk about hot! By the time we had done the shopping and got it all stowed, we were knackered. Having discovered that the fridge’s dedicated solar panel had stopped giving us amps, it needed a serious looking at. As with all elderly solar panels, glues various had given up the ghost and one of the flimsy, foil-like connections had parted. So, full dismantle off its polywood support panel, careful dismantle clean up of what was left of the foil ‘wires’ before some soldering of new wire into place and a voltage test in the blazing sunshine. 22.5 volts. That’ll do. More gluing and left to cure while we hopped back on the bus and into Dunoon for a nose around. We nearly managed an ice cream but, as we approached the shop, our return bus sidled up and opened its door invitingly. Hmm! Bus or ice cream? We took the bus. Nice and cool onboard.

Lovely dinner onboard, panel repair approaching completion, early night.

Woke up in the middle around midnight, thinking about the fridge. Call it a feeling in the water. Fridge was not cold enough. Checked the whole system and found the solar controller had switched it’s output (load) to ‘off. ‘ In the 11 years since I built the system it has never done that. Hmm! For the first time I did a ‘reset’ and it seemed to work ok. Even though I am deaf, and even though the fridge compressor is very quiet, I nodded off to the sound of it cutting in and out. This morning, imagine my surprise when it had turned the ‘load’ off again. Did a reset again and am not watching it like a hawk. Sods law states that if a fridge goes TU it will happen when it has been freshly filled with food.Read more