May 6th - Two Electrical Upgrades for Homer

I am finishing up two electrical upgrades to Homer today. The first is the replacement of an added rear closet light. Homer has two closets and each closet has a light that automatically comes on when you open the door. The light in the rear closet is at the top of the opening. About a foot below the light is a shelf which blocks all the light from reaching the clothes hanging area where we really need the light 99% of the time. Here is a picture. Just above the star is the clothes hanging rod. It is even darker in the back of the closet.

To brighten up the closet a couple of years ago I installed a second closet light in the back down low to light up the lower area. The LED light I installed at that time ended up being way to dim so I have upgraded it. I made a light fixture using a piece of wood and three LED lights I took out of Marge when I upgraded her lights several years ago.  Being mounted low the new light fixture throws light below most of the clothes that hang in the closet. This allows light to get all the way to the front. Here is picture of the added light.

As you can see the new light really helps light up the largest part of the closet.  Next is a picture from the door opening with the added light on below. You can clearly see the difference in light below the shelf.  Big difference for no cost, just using items on hand.

 

The second electrical upgrade project today is installing new battery monitors. I blogged about this upgrade earlier. Here is a picture of the current battery monitor.

This analog readout is not reliable.  I don't know if the gauge or the switch is the problem. In any event it is old and time to go.  I opted to eliminate the switch and install two digital monitors, one for the chassis battery and one for the house batteries.  Here is a picture of the new ones installed in the old cutout.  

The meter on the right is closest to the cab so it is for the chassis battery which is in the engine compartment up front. The meter on the left is for the house batteries which are below the meters.  In the above picture the meters are turned off but they can toggle showing volts or percentage of charge in the batteries. Here are pictures.

I made the mounting plate for these meters from a piece of a Ouija Board that has been laying in my shop for twenty years. The board was made from a thin, very hard Masonite which worked quite well for this project. This is a big improvement and only cost $20.00 for the two meters.

Homer gets his new tires on Friday and then he will be ready to hit the road.  We are ready as well.