Adventures in connex modding!

I mentioned up-post adding a fan to the chicken coop; took a couple pics.
This helps the birds to cool down at night, what with the heat we've been having. I'm also noodling an addition to the coop to give them a bit more room.

This is the same type fan I'll be adding to the connex.

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I wish I had asked about a man door-
Did you order from Upstate?
I'm also contemplating a "deck" for the other big door, one that I can roll the generator out onto in order to run it.

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CFS out of Spartanburg. They’re just down the road from us.
I’ve got some passive vents to install already. I’m thinking about an awning or lean-to for the man door side. I guess I should wait until it gets delivered to start making plans. Lol.

CHRIS
 
Once I get going on adding a man door, I already have a welder in mind. Unless I get my welder squared away first.
Not yet though [emoji2].

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I have that fan in our cabin. What switch did you use?

Got a text from Home Depot my door is in. Hope to get time in the next few weeks to install it


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Ventamatic Duostat, about $60. Works great, so far. My other thought was to just run a dehumidifier but I ended up moving my workshop into the first 15'. Maybe I should have put an ac unit in it?

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Well I got my steel door today. F! That thing is heavy!! Going to put a coat of paint on it before I take it up to install


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I've only done some organization in mine; been working on a different coop and tearing down the old pumphouse today. New coop is mostly ready, just need to finish tearing down the pumphouse because that's where it's going to sit!

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CFS out of Spartanburg. They’re just down the road from us.
I’ve got some passive vents to install already. I’m thinking about an awning or lean-to for the man door side. I guess I should wait until it gets delivered to start making plans. Lol.

CHRIS

You can come practice with the lean to on mine :)
 
Here we go. This was on delivery day. I had some friends that do asphalt come out and level off a pad and drop some gravel for it. They did a good job and cut in some drainage. The driver dropped it right in the middle of where the pad was.
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The container is a 40 footer high cube. It isn't perfect but it is solid with no obvious holes or anything in it. I had it painted and the one door installed.

My shitbox project parked beside the container box project. lol.
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I had the inside painted in some expensive Sherwin Williams white on Friday. The painter dude showed up with a generator and sprayer and knocked the whole thing out in maybe an hour. I told him that I should have put some obstacles in there for him. :)
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Yesterday I installed some more passive vents on it. There were 4 of them at the high corners. Two were taped up and sealed. I opened them up and installed some more high on the people door side and low on the other long wall. I'm hoping for cross ventilation.

Next up is getting this solar system working. I'm new to the whole solar thing and started with a Renogy 200w kit from Amazon. I welded up this roof rack for the panels and am working on my power rack for the inside now. I need to get some DC lighting in there at some point before I fill it up with junk.
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I also ordered an RV awning for over the man door. 8' deep by 20' long. Of course they shipped the wrong one and it has to be exchanged. I was hoping to get it installed this weekend. Good news is that I cut back my work hours to 20 a week and will have more spare time to work on projects like this. :)

CHRIS
 
I want a roof top deck now! I should have paid more attention to my carpenter friend when he was remodeling our house. lol.

CHRIS

Right!!!?!? I need more info about this solar set up. I would like led lights in the hay barn. I’m thinking I could run them off a few batteries and 2 panels.
 
I want a roof top deck now! I should have paid more attention to my carpenter friend when he was remodeling our house. lol.

CHRIS
When you do the rooftop deck. Weld a grid frame and screw to that. I watched a guy screw and seal to the container. Uuuhhh. Yeah no seal
 
Right!!!?!? I need more info about this solar set up. I would like led lights in the hay barn. I’m thinking I could run them off a few batteries and 2 panels.

I had a couple of the harbor freight solar sets laying around so I put one of them on top of mine and add 2 6-volt golf cart batteries. The set came with 2 goofy florescent light that might keep s person from tripping but thats about it. I happen to at HF today and the have a 24 ft set of string lights:
https://www.harborfreight.com/24-ft...g-lights-63483.html?_br_psugg_q=string+lights

I had already got in some 12 volt bulbs:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07TKQCB7L/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o07_s01?ie=UTF8&psc=1

So next trip up I am going to find a way to hang them down the middle and wire them into a switch at the side of my man door.
 
I had a couple of the harbor freight solar sets laying around so I put one of them on top of mine and add 2 6-volt golf cart batteries. The set came with 2 goofy florescent light that might keep s person from tripping but thats about it. I happen to at HF today and the have a 24 ft set of string lights:
https://www.harborfreight.com/24-ft...g-lights-63483.html?_br_psugg_q=string+lights

I had already got in some 12 volt bulbs:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07TKQCB7L/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o07_s01?ie=UTF8&psc=1

So next trip up I am going to find a way to hang them down the middle and wire them into a switch at the side of my man door.
Seems like a solid plan. Let us know how that all works out.
I went ahead and ordered some light strips last night. I've got it all worked out in my head, I just need to actually make it happen. ha!

CHRIS
 
I started on my wee charge controller board tonight. I laser cut a sheet of board to fit an old IT rack I had. I pre-cut the holes for the charge controller and cut out openings behind it for cooling. I also etched in grid squares to help with alignment. The other components were laid out and I drilled the mounting holes for them.
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Top left is the charge controller. Below it are three circuit breakers. Top right is a fusible distribution block. Below it are two larger distribution blocks.
Wiring will start soon.

CHRIS
 
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I started on my wee charge controller board tonight. I laser cut a sheet of board to fit an old IT rack I had. I pre-cut the holes for the charge controller and cut out openings behind it for cooling. I also etched in grid squares to help with alignment. The other components were laid out and I drilled the mounting holes for them.
IPY1ZPT.jpg

Top left is the charge controller. Below it are three circuit breakers. Top right is a fusible distribution block. Below it are two larger distribution blocks.
Wiring will start soon.

CHRIS
Some people have all the cool toys :p
 
Charge controller and batteries are done. I am able to run 12v circuits off of the distribution blocks and I have room to add a biggish inverter down the road if I feel that I need one. The IT rack was lag bolted to the floor in one of the corners. Solar panel wiring will go through the steel skin in that corner...somewhere. Still undecided if I'll go through the wall or the ceiling. That's all I have to hook up to have the "solar system" completed. The rest will be branch circuits.
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Top shelves will hold a DVR/security camera controller and the cellular modem/router. Those will be my 24/7 circuits.
I want to be able to watch coyotes and deer from home! lol.
CHRIS
 
I had a 20' conex I brought up to a radio tower. I added foam insulation boards, 3/4" plywood to the sides and ceiling. I had a Baird AC unit mounted on the side opposite the doors. I painted the roof every few years with the roof paint they use on trailers. It stayed dry and water proof. I did not need heat as the radio station in their was so hot it needed to vent outside.
We used a bull dozer to haul it up there. That was 25 years ago and it is still there. Have fun with your Conex boxes. They are awesome.
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I have the rack mounted half-assed up on the roof. I wasn't planning for the louvered panels to protrude up. lol. So I did a makeshift job by pre-drilling the square tube and then using self tapping screws to go into the skin. I used a lot of caulk around the attachment points. I'll probably redo those with 1/4-20 bolts with a mounting plate on the inside. But it's up there for now.
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Now, to get the two wires inside and keep the water out I came up with the following. Our Lowes is going through a remodel and crap was everywhere. The stocking guys had no clue about service entrance options and whatnot. I went with this single gang box that had the threaded hole in the back as well as top and bottom. On the back I used a screw in conduit fitting as a bushing of sorts to protect the wire getting through the skin. A hole saw popped a hole large enough for the bushing to poke into the container. Caulk on the bottom and under the self-tapping screw holes for water tightness. I used a UF wire watertight connector and ran the wires through it. Then loaded the outside of the connector up with caulk. Lastly, I put a wrap or two of Gorilla tape and spread the wires and pinched the tape together between them. Maybe it'll keep rain out. We'll see. :rolleyes: The other hole was filled with a screw in plug.
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I wired up the controller and it threw an error until I set the battery type right. I had to cycle the breaker after I made the change and it cleared the error. On the way out to clean up I realized that I hadn't pulled off the craft paper that I was using to block the panels from light. lol. I fixed that before we came home for dinner. I'm going to head out tomorrow and see if I can figure out the menu of that charge controller.

Oh, the panels were about 10 minutes out of the sunshine in these pictures. We timed it perfectly. Ha!

CHRIS
 
additional tips

  • anytime you run wires, give yourself some slack - you'll never know when you need it. You'll find 12 - 18 inches of slack in your household light switch and plug boxes. This enables you to extend the switch out of the box to repair/replace, etc.
  • anytime you run wire through a conduit, also run a pull rope (twine, cord, etc.) if you can. Then when you have to run another circuit, you can use the pull rope (and pull another pull rope at the same time)
  • use a bigger conduit than you need if you can to provide room for expansion
 
additional tips

anytime you run wire through a conduit, also run a pull rope (twine, cord, etc.) if you can. Then when you have to run another circuit, you can use the pull rope (and pull another pull rope at the same time)
[*]use a bigger conduit than you need if you can to provide room for expansion

^^^^^This.

Priceless advice.

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Not a whole lot going on. I have a few projects started but not quite finished yet.

I have a dvr and camera system going in. I made a steel upright to mount two of the cameras on. The other two will go on the walls. Upright is mounted and wires pulled on the inside of the box. Waiting on a couple of electronic pieces to clean up the 12v power that is needed.

The LTE modem I had crapped out on me ( see above about the 12v power, lol) and I am waiting on a replacement. But I do have the dual antennae setup mounted and the wires plumbed into the box. Ready to go when the replacement arrives.

I also started on the canopy install. The provided self tapping hardware kept snapping on me so I stopped working on it today. I bought some better self tappers at TSC this evening. I’ll head back out tomorrow and work on it some more.

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It’s starting to look like one of the commo trailers that I worked in in Iraq. Ha!
CHRIS
 
Resurrected this from a 5 month nap...


Haven't made time to do much with the connex since I'm back at work. Weekends mostly have been eaten up small chores here and there, adding grass cutting the past two weeks. So I took yesterday off and finished cutting the grass so I could focus on a couple of other things. Namely, I've had it on my mind to paint the doors- turning on to the street, one could see the gray doors sticking out like a huge billboard.
So 5 rattle cans later, wala!





And I pulled some 12/2 down the length of the inside to drop in a few outlets, hung a couple of flourescent lights and greased the door dogs- dang that improved closing the door so much I kicked myself for not doing it sooner.
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