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17 months, 43 countries, and 2 vehicles

Electrical

My battery strategy for Mandy was one 1100 amp battery for the car and another (Elecsol 1100 deep cycle battery) for the gadgets, charged via a blocking diode fitted by Brownchurch. This was great as I could happily drain the auxiliary battery and not worry about starting the car - and most times by connecting the two together in parallel I could start the car with a flat main battery.

The Camel has two parallel 800 amp batteries so I had to revise a few well learned practices - basically this meant no drain on the battery from any of the auxiliary systems when the ignition is turned off.

We started with:

Waeceo Coolmatic CCF 35 litre fridge - connected to the auxiliary in Mandy, and directly into the cigar lighter in the Camel. Struggled in the high 40s, but below 30° worked beautifully, even after the catch broke. You simply cannot put a price on an ice cold beer after a hard day on the piste to Timbuktu.

Xantrex 300W inverter - great on both cars until it died in Mali - an unbranded replacement cost £50 and lasted all of 10 minutes. The original inverter was invaluable in Scandinavia where accommodation was expensive, but I was able to do most of my charging by booking in to a cheap hotel once a week. The inverter was teamed with:

  • 6 socket individually switched power strip with neon indicator from B&Q - brilliant - used everywhere.

  • 10 meter extension reel - from Burkina, came with 2x 2-pin sockets plus a UK 3 pin one! A must.

  • Various international/2-pin adapters.

Into these were plugged the following 240v appliances:

  • Energizer NiMH battery charger (3-pin UK) used for charging 24x 1600ma AA batteries (GPS, camera, metal detector).

  • Braun Ultra electric toothbrush charger - never leave home without it.

  • Philips Philishave 384 - I look too much like Bin Laden if I don't shave.

  • Charger for O2 XDA Phone/PDA - see electronics section below.

  • Toshiba Laptop charger - see electronics section below.

  • Drill and angle grinder - see tools section above.

  • Big torch charger - I used my UK400R (rechargeable) dive torch for illuminating above and beyond the call of normal torches - great for lost things at night, and for signalling in an emergency.

I picked up a 15W solar panel with charge controller along the way, which may have it's uses but so far hasn't seen much sunlight.