To be able to power the fridge, computer, compressor, load camera's and portable phones, ... STAFCO Bvba www.stafco.be installed:
1. Solar panels 2 x 80W-12V MonoCrystalline on the roof rack.
2. Cyrix-i 12/24V-120A intelligent battery combiner under the hood.
While driving, the alternator from the engine produces the power for the 12V-100Ah additional battery on which the fridge, computer, ... run. Whenever we stop for some days to hike or just to have a rest, the solar panels take over.
The alternator always has the upper hand over the solar panels and the Cyrix-i decides if the starting batteries have to be topped up before the power can be delivered to the auxiliary battery.
Whenever we stop for some days, the starting batteries are automatically deconnected from the additional battery at 12.5V and only the additional battery continues to deliver power to the equipment.
On the ferry from Iceland to Denmark, the car-decks remained in the dark for more then 62 hours and the fridge was still working at the pre-set 5°C when starting the car again (ok, it was rather cold on the Northern Atlantic).
Apart from the standard cigar socket in the car, there are 4 additional sockets. The fridge has a fixed connection to the auxiliary battery and the 4 sockets serve mainly to run the rest of the hardware. Most of the equipment can run or can be charged with the 12V power output from the battery. Only the camera needs a converter.
2. Fridge:
We opted for the Waeco CF-35 because of the dimensions and capacity. The Engel we had was to high to be build in and to voluminous for both of us. The Waeco height corresponds with the plywood storage boxes we made and we do not have to fill the fridge with big amounts of food. Christine likes shopping and it is an opportunity to mingle with the locals!
http://www.waeco.com/de/produkte/pkw/4191_482.php
the Ozzie way ....
3. Various electrical hardware:
Converter 12V to 230V: Mobitronic by Waeco 500W (surge 1000W). http://www.motorcaravanning.co.uk/shopuk/waeco_inverters.htm
Compressor: Super Air - 70 litres/min - max 10 kg/cm² - 12V (no reservoir).
Computer: Panasonic Tough Book CF-19, 12V or 230V (mail, blog, OziExplorer, photo's, ...). http://www.techradar.com/reviews/pc-mac/laptops-portable-pcs/laptops-and-netbooks/panasonic-toughbook-cf-19-1081460/review
Led lights to the car ceiling.
Water cooker for a soup or tea while driving.
4. Navigation:
Reise Know-How maps from the "world mapping project" (Achtung: ze Zermans are mapping ze world ... again!), printed on waterproof, tear resistant synthetic paper. English legends and transcription for the main towns. Handy when you are in China or Russia. The maps show also the main tourist attractions. http://www.omnimap.com/catalog/int/reise.htm
The Panasonic CF-19 is equipped with a GPS and running OziExplorer GPS Mapping Software for uploading or downloading of way points, routes and tracks and for real time tracking of your position (Moving Map). OziExplorer allows you to work with maps on the computer screen that you create from scanned or digital maps.
Identical, calibrated, Reise Know-How maps are uploaded and from then on it should be easy to follow the itinerary in places like Mongolia (with no road signs), China (with road signs but ...), etc. ...
"Where are we?": check the screen and then the paper map or zoom out for the bigger picture.
"Where are we going?": check the map for the destination and then the screen for the real time position.
http://www.oziexplorer.com/
Garmin ZUMO 220, motorcycle GPS and therefore waterproof and with the possibility to swap batteries. The benefit is that I can mount the Zumo in the car, on the bike or take a stroll. The battery has an claimed autonomy of 8 hours but in reality "only" 5 hours. You need more: swap battery.
Since I started looking for information about how to navigate around the world, more than a decade ago, things changed in GPS-land. Now also Russia is covered, partially, and all of the Americas.
Compass (hey, I was a boy-scout).
5. Recovery:
We did not install a winch (saves €'s and kg's) and opted for a recovery based on digging, off road Bushranger X-trax II, an air jack and/or the help of passing vehicles.
http://www.bushranger.com.au/x_trax_ii.php#.UIuRtG83s-c
http://cens.com/cens/html/en/news/news_inner_37738.html
We also purchased a Dynaline Winch Line from Marlow rope. These ropes replace steel ropes on the winches and are 70% stronger than steel and 8 x lighter than steel. With the weight of 49 gr/m, the rope floats on water. The Dynaline Winch Line is made with Dyneema fibre. Dyneema is a superstrong synthetic fibre based on polethylene. We bought a rope with diam. 10 mm - length 30 m - average break load of 9.7 ton. http://www.marlowropes.com/winch-line-menu/dynaline.html
We have also two 3 ton - 6 m straps and various shackles.
The length of the Dynaline, with the straps, should be sufficient to get me or another unfortunate vehicle out of the bog/river/sand/snow...
6. Water:
In principle we buy bottles of water for drinking water. However in some countries even bottled water is not safe. Therefore we also purchased two Katadyn MyBottle water purification systems for personal use. This allows us on hikes to repeatedly fill the bottle with water from rivers or lakes and saves a lot of kg's in the back-pack. http://www.katadyn.com/
For cooking and dishes we purchased a Katadyn syphon. Clear water from rivers, lakes, village pumps, ... will be filtered and stocked in 10 litre jerry-cans. A jerry-can got contaminated anyway? Buy another one.
Showers are done with clear water where encountered. A heat exchanger, coupled to the cooling water circuit from the engine will heat water for the shower.
7. Cooker:
Until now we cooked on a Camping Gas stove. Cooking on this stove was difficult to impossible with strong winds (we are cooking outside the car). One evening in Iceland, while we had for the third time cheese sandwiches and raw veggies, a young couple started brewing as if there was no wind at all. In fact, the harder the wind, the better the stove was heating.
Back home we bought the Swedish Trangia 25 Alcohol Stove and added a Trangia Multi-Fuel burner. On our trip we should be able to find methyl alcohol or ethyl alcohol or unleaded petrol or paraffin or kerosene to fill the stomach with a hot meal.
http://www.trangia.se/english/5612.25_series_ul.html
We take also a foldable BBQ with us. If with all this we are not able to cook, we go to a restaurant!
 |
| Hinged solar panels with 25 cm storage height underneath. |
While driving, the alternator from the engine produces the power for the 12V-100Ah additional battery on which the fridge, computer, ... run. Whenever we stop for some days to hike or just to have a rest, the solar panels take over.
The alternator always has the upper hand over the solar panels and the Cyrix-i decides if the starting batteries have to be topped up before the power can be delivered to the auxiliary battery.
Whenever we stop for some days, the starting batteries are automatically deconnected from the additional battery at 12.5V and only the additional battery continues to deliver power to the equipment.
On the ferry from Iceland to Denmark, the car-decks remained in the dark for more then 62 hours and the fridge was still working at the pre-set 5°C when starting the car again (ok, it was rather cold on the Northern Atlantic).
Apart from the standard cigar socket in the car, there are 4 additional sockets. The fridge has a fixed connection to the auxiliary battery and the 4 sockets serve mainly to run the rest of the hardware. Most of the equipment can run or can be charged with the 12V power output from the battery. Only the camera needs a converter.
2. Fridge:
We opted for the Waeco CF-35 because of the dimensions and capacity. The Engel we had was to high to be build in and to voluminous for both of us. The Waeco height corresponds with the plywood storage boxes we made and we do not have to fill the fridge with big amounts of food. Christine likes shopping and it is an opportunity to mingle with the locals!
http://www.waeco.com/de/produkte/pkw/4191_482.php
the Ozzie way ....
3. Various electrical hardware:
Converter 12V to 230V: Mobitronic by Waeco 500W (surge 1000W). http://www.motorcaravanning.co.uk/shopuk/waeco_inverters.htm
Compressor: Super Air - 70 litres/min - max 10 kg/cm² - 12V (no reservoir).
Computer: Panasonic Tough Book CF-19, 12V or 230V (mail, blog, OziExplorer, photo's, ...). http://www.techradar.com/reviews/pc-mac/laptops-portable-pcs/laptops-and-netbooks/panasonic-toughbook-cf-19-1081460/review
Led lights to the car ceiling.
Water cooker for a soup or tea while driving.
4. Navigation:
Reise Know-How maps from the "world mapping project" (Achtung: ze Zermans are mapping ze world ... again!), printed on waterproof, tear resistant synthetic paper. English legends and transcription for the main towns. Handy when you are in China or Russia. The maps show also the main tourist attractions. http://www.omnimap.com/catalog/int/reise.htm
The Panasonic CF-19 is equipped with a GPS and running OziExplorer GPS Mapping Software for uploading or downloading of way points, routes and tracks and for real time tracking of your position (Moving Map). OziExplorer allows you to work with maps on the computer screen that you create from scanned or digital maps.
Identical, calibrated, Reise Know-How maps are uploaded and from then on it should be easy to follow the itinerary in places like Mongolia (with no road signs), China (with road signs but ...), etc. ...
"Where are we?": check the screen and then the paper map or zoom out for the bigger picture.
"Where are we going?": check the map for the destination and then the screen for the real time position.
http://www.oziexplorer.com/
Garmin ZUMO 220, motorcycle GPS and therefore waterproof and with the possibility to swap batteries. The benefit is that I can mount the Zumo in the car, on the bike or take a stroll. The battery has an claimed autonomy of 8 hours but in reality "only" 5 hours. You need more: swap battery.
Since I started looking for information about how to navigate around the world, more than a decade ago, things changed in GPS-land. Now also Russia is covered, partially, and all of the Americas.
Compass (hey, I was a boy-scout).
5. Recovery:
We did not install a winch (saves €'s and kg's) and opted for a recovery based on digging, off road Bushranger X-trax II, an air jack and/or the help of passing vehicles.
http://www.bushranger.com.au/x_trax_ii.php#.UIuRtG83s-c
http://cens.com/cens/html/en/news/news_inner_37738.html
We also purchased a Dynaline Winch Line from Marlow rope. These ropes replace steel ropes on the winches and are 70% stronger than steel and 8 x lighter than steel. With the weight of 49 gr/m, the rope floats on water. The Dynaline Winch Line is made with Dyneema fibre. Dyneema is a superstrong synthetic fibre based on polethylene. We bought a rope with diam. 10 mm - length 30 m - average break load of 9.7 ton. http://www.marlowropes.com/winch-line-menu/dynaline.html
We have also two 3 ton - 6 m straps and various shackles.
The length of the Dynaline, with the straps, should be sufficient to get me or another unfortunate vehicle out of the bog/river/sand/snow...
6. Water:
In principle we buy bottles of water for drinking water. However in some countries even bottled water is not safe. Therefore we also purchased two Katadyn MyBottle water purification systems for personal use. This allows us on hikes to repeatedly fill the bottle with water from rivers or lakes and saves a lot of kg's in the back-pack. http://www.katadyn.com/
For cooking and dishes we purchased a Katadyn syphon. Clear water from rivers, lakes, village pumps, ... will be filtered and stocked in 10 litre jerry-cans. A jerry-can got contaminated anyway? Buy another one.
Showers are done with clear water where encountered. A heat exchanger, coupled to the cooling water circuit from the engine will heat water for the shower.
7. Cooker:
Until now we cooked on a Camping Gas stove. Cooking on this stove was difficult to impossible with strong winds (we are cooking outside the car). One evening in Iceland, while we had for the third time cheese sandwiches and raw veggies, a young couple started brewing as if there was no wind at all. In fact, the harder the wind, the better the stove was heating.
Back home we bought the Swedish Trangia 25 Alcohol Stove and added a Trangia Multi-Fuel burner. On our trip we should be able to find methyl alcohol or ethyl alcohol or unleaded petrol or paraffin or kerosene to fill the stomach with a hot meal.
http://www.trangia.se/english/5612.25_series_ul.html
We take also a foldable BBQ with us. If with all this we are not able to cook, we go to a restaurant!
No comments:
Post a Comment