Last night, Anne foamed around the cracks between all of the walls in the bathroom which is proving very effective in containing the smell from the recycled water. We are all much happier and don't have to use as much Febreeze.

Today, Jan and I spent lots of quality time with the C40 and the power meter. We discovered that somewhere in the C40 installation, something went wrong. After conferring with Paul, we discovered that the instructions we had weren't right, and that the C40 might not even be what we need for this application. After spending a lot of time troubleshooting, we rigged a more stable system for the 12V DC system in the meantime - we connected the wires (through the C40 for ease of wiring when it does come online) to the 12V DC fuse board to a battery and connected the 12V charger that had been powering the 12V board directly to the battery instead. This has the added benefit of a) allowing us to close the DC fuse box and b) putting the charger on the floor instead of on the trashcan it had been sitting and taking up lots of room.

We connected the DC power meter sensors in my box, taping all of the wires for the 12V DC Musk connection together (a green ground, a white negative which is already connected through a power meter current sensor, a red positive, and the orange power meter voltage sensor which should be on the same connection as the red wire to read the voltage of that wire) for ease in installing later, when the C40 is up and running. We put the cover on the box because there's no reason anyone should be in there, and we wouldn't want to zap anyone.

The orange voltage sensing wires for the AC power meter channels have been connected into the control boxes for the power meter and have terminals crimped onto the ends so we can just attach them tomorrow when we power down the Hab. The AC current sensors just clamp on to existing wires, so that should be very easy. The most complicated part tomorrow is going to be the high current DC leg from the batteries to the inverter with the terminals we're going to have to solder on. But we plan to do all of this tomorrow morning so that we don't interrupt the breadmaker for dinner.

I also received word today that the 24V DC light for the stairs is in the mail and should arrive tomorrow. We'll definitely get that installed before we leave. It's weird, knowing that we're about to head back to the real world... I've really started to love working on the different things around the Hab. I've learned a lot from everyone I've been working with and I'm going to miss the opportunity to accomplish so much and play with so many electronics! But I'm already contemplating how I'm going to get back out here as soon as possible.

Emily Colvin, XO
MDRS Crew 47