Steel Soldiers::Military Vehicles Supersite - View Single Post - S-250 Shelter / Ham Shack Conversion

professor solderflux · 04-19-2009, 19:52

You can't work in the dark, and without electricity and the doors shut, these shelters are as black as it gets. Power enters the shelter and its' 60 Amp panel through a service panel to the right of the exterior door. The recessed panel has an integral weather shroud, and two imposing connectors (connected in parallel for "daisy-chaining" these things), a covered duplex outlet, and a grounding terminal. The connectors that mate with these plugs carry 115VAC across two sets of wires (to spread the current load across more copper, and thus requiring smaller, more flexible wire), and are a little hard to track down. I did find one for $50 including shipping, and am still waiting for it's arrival from MD. In the meantime, I used the "backdoor" to energize the shelter, so I could use the lights and outlets. I made an electricians nightmare, and wired a short cord with a grounded AC plug on both ends. This goes between the extension cord and the duplex auxilary outlet at the exterior service panel. I also made a bright red sign warning anybody not to unplug the "hot" plug from the shelter. I'll be sure to disassemble this cord when I'm done with it!

Getting started to refurbish the shelter, I realized I had two fronts of attack: INSIDE and OUTSIDE. The outside was still a little cold to work on, but it smelled a lot better than the inside! This shelter is very light-tight, air-tight, and water-tight when all the hatches and vents are closed. While that keeps moisture OUT, it also keeps any moisture that happens to be there IN, as well.

There seemed to be evidence of powdery mildew on almost every metal surface, so one of my first jobs was to wash everything with a solution of hot water, PineSol, and a little bleach. I took the fluorescent lamps out of their holders to clean too, and discovered these neat little brown plastic retaining clips that slide over the socket and two-prong bulb terminals to prevent them from turning, and coming loose. I only discovered their function after snapping two of them, so if anyone knows where to find more, please let me know. I've searched the web, and local places, but no ones ever seen them before. The other neat thing on the fluorescent fixtures, was a bracket on the side to hold a spare bulb. These used a large O-ring to hold the spare bulb to the bracket--love this sort of thing!