Stefan (my second shooter) and I usually debrief after events over grease. Until Stefan stopped eating meat, "grease" meant the closest McDonald's, but these days it's usually Hungry Jacks because they've got a vegan burger.
So, after the Western Sydney expo earlier this year (shout out to Your Local Wedding Guide), that's where we headed -- or tried to. My car made it all the way, but Stefan's car seemed a little slower than normal. I called him from the self-service kiosk. Apparently, he had stopped at a red light and couldn't start again. A good Samaritan had helped Stefan roll the car into a side street.
Could I come over and help with a push-start? Why, yes, I could (and I could bring a vegan whopper meal as well).
I drove to the address he texted me, and we gave it a crack. But the push-start didn't work, despite repeated attempts.
What Stefan strongly suspected was that his alternator was... fucked (to use my technical term). The battery in a car provides electricity, but the alternator is the spinning bit that keeps the battery charged. If you can't get that alternator going in the first place, then a push-start won't do anything.
What to do?
I headed to the nearest petrol station and bought some jumper leads. But that didn't solve the basic problem. My car could charge his a little, sure, and every little bit counts, but it wouldn't be enough to get him home to the Central Coast.
Luckily, Stefan is MacGyver. And the first thing the TV MacGyver does in any situation is assess what he's got.
So, Stefan had an extension cable for a car cigarette lighter socket (but it was quite short). And he also had a friend (me) who usually packs way too much gear. In my car, there were: an EcoFlow lithium battery (I use it as a failsafe for livestreaming; it sits between my kit and the power point); and a car lighter hub -- you plug it into the socket, and it turns that single socket into four additional sockets.
Now, my lithium battery has a cigarette lighter output. So that gets some ideas flowing. If Stefan can connect it to his car's socket, using his extension cable and my hub so that the battery isn't sitting on the gear box, voltage will flow from the higher source (my battery) to the lower source (his car's battery). People usually think of the cigarette socket as output only, but if your car's battery is dead then it becomes an input.
First problem: the power draw is too high. So, Stefan begins disconnecting things. Anything that's not essential (interior lights, dashboard lights) gets pulled. And now the power draw is just enough for the battery to handle.
But would my battery provide enough juice to get him home? Well, maybe. Maybe. There's an indicator on the side showing how much run time is remaining. There's a problem Stefan is aware of: if the engine heat rises above a certain level, that triggers the radiator fan, and that fan would burn through too much energy, and he's screwed.
So Stefan has to make a fateful decision: should he risk it? The clock is ticking down to sunset. He lives on the Central Coast, which is a fair way away, and turning the headlights on would drain too much power. Either he leaves for home right now, or he stays at my place that night, comes back the next day, rolls the car into the nearest mechanic tomorrow.
The latter was the safer option, even if more inconvenient.
But Stefan is confident that he can keep tabs on power consumption, and if things get dangerously low, he can always pull to one side of the motorway, and at least he'll be closer to home. The main variable is how much traffic he'll encounter driving out of Sydney.
So, I arm him with a flashlight, a vegan burger and a "good luck" -- and he makes it! He makes it just in time before dark, and the legend of Stefan is now one story richer. He orders a new alternator at the first opportunity, and the car is good to go in a day or two for his next video job.
