This is going to be another blog post of boring electrical problems. I set off from my campsite south of Khutse gate and immediately noticed the alternator light on. I pulled over and cleaned the connections, but I had no luck, it seemed the alternator had burned out. I decided to head south about 10km to the next town to get phone service where I rang an alternator supplier in Gaborone to see if they had my alternator. They promised to ring back, so I started to head south thinking I would have to go to Gaborone the capital of Botswana, about 180km away.
The Gaborone alternator supplier rang me back a couple of hours later, no good they didn’t have it. I got to Lethakeng about 80km south of where I had camped, and tried an auto parts supplier there. Still no-one had it. Then I decided I would try the biggest Landcruiser parts supplier in South Africa N1 4×4 to see if they had it. They didn’t but they probably could get it in, but they wouldn’t ship it out of South Africa. So I had to decide whether to give up and head back to South Africa, or try something else.
I decided I might be able to connect the cranking battery to the solar panels on the roof to charge it. I had a spare solar charge controller, so I set it all up temporarily and it worked. I was getting about 7amps charge into the cranking battery as well as running my fridge and other gear. I decided it would do. So I made it a bit more permanent and headed back north to my original campsite. I will try a couple more other things tomorrow morning, but if I get started OK I will continue north to Khutse Game Reserve.
