So it's not long to go now I'm about to load up the car completely with all the
fuel water virtually everything except for food and I'm gonna head to the
Weighbridge now that's a step which most people probably forget to take but it's
something I think everyone must do before they head off on a big trip is
actually put their car fully loaded onto a Weighbridge and make sure they're not
over their gross vehicle mass or GVM of their vehicle because if you
overload the vehicle you're adding extra stress to the car and also you're
driving illegally and if you do have an accident your insurance company may
refuse to pay you out so I'll get this car loaded up and then I'll head down to
the public weighbridge and see if I come in under or over if I am over or too
close the GVM then I'll have to do some repacking and remove a few things but if
I'm a reasonable amount under then I should be fine once I add the food and
my own body weight to the total weight.
Okay so I'm all packed so I'll head to the petrol station fill up both my tanks
and then head to the Weighbridge
I got back from the Weighbridge yesterday and it's not looking good for me now the
GVM of a defender 110 is 3050kg now fully loaded with 185 litres of
diesel 71 litres of water and the rest of my gear I'm coming in at 3 tonnes now
I weigh 65 so putting me in the car puts me 15 kilograms overweight with no food
on board now the only thing I've done differently since my last 2015 trip was
that I had to add additional solar panels and a third battery to the car
that weighs around somewhere between 70 to 80 kilograms it's at least 31
kilograms for the battery alone which I knew when I was installing it that I
would be eating into my available payload for the rest of my gear but I
figured that since my previous trip I also reduced at least 30 or 40 kilograms
of gear that I was carrying which I shipped back home all unnecessary
camping gear I wasn't using so I spent last night unpacking everything and
going through I managed to remove a few more things a few of my books but I have
to do something more serious and drastic which is remove something from the car
which is heavy or convert to lithium batteries which would save about
17 18 kilograms of battery weight but the problem is there lithium batteries
are still very expensive searching around I was able to find one for around
$1000 which is a hundred amp hours which technically you can take a lithium much
much further down to a greater depth of discharge to around eighty percent
without doing any damage at all which will give me 80 amp hours of usable
capacity compared to the 130 amp hour AGM which I'd get around 65 amp hours
usable but with far less weight 17 about 14 kilograms for a 100 amp hour lithium
but if I did that I would also have to upgrade my solar regulator to one which
can charge lithium batteries which would cost about another $600 it's already
starting to get quite expensive I can't remove too much of my remote area
gear and spare parts because I need those for really remote stuff where I
might end so that's non-negotiable the other alternative is to remove my Mulgo
side rails I'm thinking I'm going to start there first and put them on the
scales and start deducting from that which is a real shame because I
absolutely love having them on the car it makes me feel so much safer knowing
I'm not going to damage any of my body panels and it makes it a lot easier to
get in and out of the car at night as well just using the step to get up into
the car now of course I do have the full fuel tank and water on board which
technically I don't drive around all the time with 185 litres of diesel typically
I only fill my primary tank which is 120 litres which would give me an extra 65
litres less or 65 kilograms of weight which would then be plenty I'd have
enough for me and my food but then when it does come to more remote stuff I'm
going to want that fuel load or fuel capacity to do the really long distances
and when it comes to water sure I'm only one man 71 kilograms of
water does sound like a lot and there are places plenty of
country towns that do have taps available where you can fill up for a
small fee now when I am heading off from the greater desert country some of the
more outback places I need that just for safety because if I break down somewhere
I'm going to want that extra twenty two liters that third jerrican as a safety
backup which will give me around another four to five days of supply so I feel at
this point in time I want to try and keep that it's not obviously I'm not
going to have that all the time but when I do do the most remotest stuff that's
probably when I will be overweight as it currently stands but that's
also when I can't afford to be overweight because I'm probably putting
the car through the absolute most amount of stress but drastic measures have to
be taken I have to hit 3050kg absolute maximum with all my food on
board and me inside so let's start there and we'll see how this progresses and
where I can cut corners and reduce some of my clothing I think I probably got a
few too many shirts and pants and just go back to basics unfortunately being a
filmmaker and wanting to edit on the road full-time I kind of need the
additional solar and battery which is ultimately what's sent me over the
limit so let's get started.
So the rock sliders are off and the original trim is back on I've saved
around 29 kilograms in weight which minus my
15 gives me a positive 14 kilograms
which I could use for food but i'll keep looking around the rest of my gear
and just keep cutting things down and like i said typically when i'm traveling
the 65 litre tank is empty anyway so it's an extra 65 kilograms of payload
available it's only the really long distance stuff I don't know how
available fuel is that I'll fill up the secondary tank so I'll head to my boxes now
and keep going through.
So after a couple of run throughs of all my gear I've
managed to remove this material here all up weighing 6 kilograms so it's just
some extra books which I probably don't need to take because I can get all
these on kindle and read them on my computer a few bits of camping gear some
clothing and just a few tools which I no longer need because they're double-ups
0 things like allen key sets which I
purchased for my old winch which I no
longer have and my car doesn't use allen keys anywhere else on it and the two
places that do I have a single key for each of those types anyway so it's
another six kilograms and I've also decided to purchase a lithium battery
and a new regulator it was the only way to remove additional weight to get me
down far enough so I feel comfortable so let's take a quick look at the battery
I've purchased and some of the specs it has.
So after searching around on the
internet I was able to find a lithium ion battery which wasn't too expensive
I found this DCS 12 volt 100 amp hour battery for $1199
Australian dollars on sale which seems quite reasonable it comes with a three
year warranty so if we look at the specifications it has a 13 kilogram
weight which is an 18.2kg saving off my previous 130 amp hour
AGM which is quite dramatic not only
that I get 100 amp hours of usable capacity if you see here under cycle
performances it claims it has 2,500 cycles at 100% depth of discharge meaning
you
can take it all the way down to zero using all 100 amp hours
where as an AGM generally 50% depth of discharge is the most you want to take it
down to which for me would be a 65 amp hour.
All up it claims it has a 5000
cycle lifespan doesn't say as to how far but likely I will only take my battery
down to around maybe 50% down to the 20% absolute maximum remaining if we look at
the AGM lifespan to get anywhere near 3000 cycles plus it is almost impossible
even if you just take the top 20 amp hours off the AGM to get anywhere near
enough number of cycles it's incredible this technology and the
amount of weight saving you get.
So going through the weight saving I've made thus
far the AGM was 31.2 the lithium is only 13 so I've saved 18.2
kilograms there minus the 29kg for the rock sliders and the 6kg of additional gear
brings me to 53 kilograms of weight saving so if I minus that from the 3 tonnes
it currently is add my 65 in it comes to 3012kg which is a 38 kilogram
remaining payload for food which should be about right so technically when I'm
fully loaded with everything in for the most longest remotest trips then I
should be on GVM any other time 65 to 85 kilograms less as I have less fuel and
water on board for general touring around more populated areas.
Let's take a
quick look at the regulator I've chosen I'm replacing the current solar one with
an DC to DC charger from Enerdrive it's a 40 amp
unit and has an MPPT regulator built-in so I can use both solar and the
alternator to charge the battery that's around four hundred and fifty dollars so
a little bit more wiring to do but I'll have a much more better system I have
probably 80 amp hours available capacity so it means more time and I
have a better regulator and I can also use the car to charge the battery as
well which I don't currently have as I kept the third battery completely
separate from everything else so I have another installation video coming very
soon for the lithium battery so stay tuned.
Thanks for watching.
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