Leaving a Legacy. How about a Revolution?

On a personal note, the older one gets, the idea of leaving something of value once we have departed becomes ever more important. So this month’s blog is more personal, and less about the business that is taking up so much of my time and mind space.

June marks 30 years since I went into full-time four-wheel-drive publishing. At the time, I had been editing TV commercials, but I’d reached the point of either leaving the advertising industry or heaving myself off a very high bridge. So that you’re able to better understand this, I'll share just one example of what I had to endure inside advertising. It's 1990, and approaching 10pm. I’ve been in my dark edit room, like a mushroom in a cupboard all day. I’m editing a bank commercial and being asked to try endless infuriating changes to the cut, just so my clients could stay long enough to empty bottle after bottle of my scotch. Once, they even took down one of my lovely framed photographs to run lines of cocaine on the glass. And all I wanted was to be at home with Gwynn. At this time, Gwynn was writing technical manuals. For a creative writer, this is not unlike a lion trainer having to breed earthworms. She too had had enough. So whenever we found sufficient free time, we would go off somewhere exploring the bush in our Land Rover. (At the time was a One-Ten V8).

Our break away came in 1996, a move to the other side of the country to start a business publishing 4x4 books, videos, maps and to work this new invention called The Internet. Our first web domain was 4xforum.com. (Which later became 4xoverland.com). It's been a good business for me and my family. For me, the best part has been that I've done what I love. In those days, it was mostly the written word in the form of newsletters, books, reviews and blogs. I mixed with a lot of people creating what is now the 4x4 accessory industry. A small number of those brands have grown into giants, good examples being Alu-Cab and Front Runner. Many have remained small with new ones popping up all of the time, all over the world. Most of these people get into this industry because they love travelling in their 4x4s. Because running any small business is no easy task, in almost all cases, their businesses prevented them from doing the exact thing that drew them to it in the first place.

I remember gloating that unlike them, my love of overlanding was sending me overlanding, not creating conditions where I had to stay in the office. I could and did go to so many amazing places. But this is where I feel that I need to apologise, especially to my Patreons and ASPW-Experience members because of fewer than normal production releases in recent months. This is because I have fallen into that very trap myself. In the past year, I have spent most of my working time on Egon, instead of creating content and going on trips. But I am pleased to say that this insanity is ending. The 48V project was huge for Heiner and me because there were so many unknowns. But we both knew that if we succeeded, we would be doing something truly extraordinary.

Neither of us are clear on exactly how it came about, but we concur that we were asking ourselves what the industry needed most. What was the most common pain point with overland travellers? And our conclusion was the long charge times needed to refill house batteries.

During our October 2025 trip, searching for water in the desert, even though I had 400 a/h and Heiner, 200 a/h, we found ourselves charging batteries off of each other. The moment one cooks with electricity, the demand on batteries is accelerated massively. We all had solar blankets, but in the realms of induction cooking, they make little significant difference. Even though we were driving every second day, the daily runs rarely exceeded three hours, and that wasn't enough to sustain us.

We settled on the idea that we would try and radically improve charge rates in an ordinary 4x4.

Heiner’s answer was clear: 48Volts.

But, he explained, there was a problem with 48V. No one had done it successfully.

24V was possible and would easily double charge rates. But it's still a long way to 48V.

He then challenged himself and asked out loud, “I wonder if 48V is even possible?”

48V would more than quadruple charge rates if the major technological hurdle could be overcome—load dump.

He explained that load-dump protection equipment was readily available off the shelf, but only up to 40V. But with a 48V architecture, one regularly exceeds 50V. A load-dump is like shutting off a tap very quickly, with a resultant banging of the pipes as the energy in the moving water finds somewhere to be spent. So pipes vibrate, which dissipates the energy. With electricity, this water-hammer is called load-dump. What happens if a battery is suddenly disconnected during a phase when producing a lot of energy? That fraction of a second of surplus energy has to go somewhere, and for a millisecond, causes a voltage spike that, should it enter the system, can destroy equipment. There was no off-the-shelf product available anywhere to solve this problem. We would have to design and test one.

That’s when the universe stepped in.

The universe is a strange thing, I think you’ll agree. I say this because it was at that exact time that a very special person entered our lives: an extraordinarily capable electronics engineer.

Heiner challenged him to design a solution and then to build it into a board-based power distribution hub that could be the heart of a new 48V system. And so, about seven months later he presented us with a design. Heiner immediately got to work to build a prototype board for testing.

And so a revolution was born.

Those of you watching the show might remember that we drove the 48V-equipped HiAce from Perth to Melbourne to prove the concept. Then later in the year, from Queensland to Perth with the first production prototype Egon Hub 48V installed.

Many of you will remember the loud bang and spark as Heiner did the final connection. There was nothing funny about that moment. We both froze. Heiner had inadvertently caused a load-dump - the exact thing that the system was designed to harness. It did its job perfectly, but there was a snag; It could only do it once. He was then faced with the challenge of connecting everything without causing a second load-dump, because failure would mean our drive across Australia would be postponed, another board made, tested and fitted, to try it all over again. And as you may know, he managed it and the crossing was a success.

The electrical system worked without fault as we wound up the alternator from 50% to 70% and finally when we were close to home, 100%. When it came to designing the production DC-Hub 48V, they built in a suppressor that could handle repeated load-dumps. I watched them test this over and over on an oscilloscope.

But our challenges were far from over. The system required a 48V alternator and a straightforward and reliable way of swapping out the vehicle’s original equipment. And we wanted to keep every component where we could, Australian. Suffice to say that this month we launched our 48V architecture and, on a personal note, completed a major chapter in my life.

I've spent the last 30 years talking about 4x4 equipment, helping designers develop and perfect products simply by telling stories about them. You probably know about the Alu Cab Hercules Troopcarrier camper conversion, where the fold up bed was my concept. It has since been copied by everyone building Troopy camper conversions, even the Germans. Do you remember when roof racks lost their side rails? I needed a rack for my Land Cruiser-76 and I approached African Outback who were making nicely built alloy racks and accessories. But I specified no side rails at all and the owner, the late Adolf Waidelich, asked why?
  “What do side rails on a roof rack do exactly?” I asked. “They have absolutely no purpose at all. They don't prevent stuff falling off because everything is tied or strapped down anyway. They make it more difficult to climb onto a rack to tie stuff down and they make it more difficult to pull things off. They can assist with mounting awnings and other accessories, but that can be solved with a few well-made brackets”. This would've been around 2006. None of these things have been a solo effort, and all are part of a sometimes unwitting team effort.

I feel for the third time in my career like I’m creating trends and leaving legacies. And 48V feels to me the most significant thing I have contributed to this industry. Because this is unique. No other 48V system on the planet works the way this does.

During development we constantly asked ourselves ‘What if’ questions.

What if an alternator fails? With regular 12V, it’s a major problem. So, what if we could make the system less reliant on some of its major components? What redundancies could be built into this all new architecture? Answer: A few solar panels can make the alternator redundant. If a DC-DC converter fails, because it has two, the second can be swapped over. Or the truck can be turned back to 12V OE systems by just swapping back the 12V alternator. And, what if the Can-Bus fails? In every 48V system we’ve looked at, this can cause a catastrophic shutdown. With Egon, a minor inconvenience, if that. Normal charging will continue and all a Can-Bus failure means is that one can no longer optimise the charging until Can-Bus is restored.

We cannot contain our delight when we see fitment centres posting videos about how amazing the system is, how easy they have found it to install, and how it just works. And how they gush in disbelief when they witness charge rates exceeding 4kW, something they have never seen in their workshops - ever. Meanwhile, the system easily charges at 5kW@ 2000 rpm!

I have concluded that of all the things that I have done in the 4x4 industry and community in the 30 years on which I have based my career, this is by far the most significant.