10 days off grid. Building SunBloc in the monsoon.

I'm about to fall asleep and off-handedly check the weather. What I see is concerning. It's going to rain for the next 10 days straight. That can't be right. Even during the height of the monsoon season it rarely rains for more than three days in a row in Arizona. This forecast is telling me every single day will be wet and cloudy. I brought 24 burritos in a portable camping fridge. How am I supposed to manage electrical work loads with needing to keep my food preserved for the duration of this trip? I only have two 100 watt portable solar panels. This is the off grid business challenge and the weather is part of it. Juggling load demand with real world constraints. We'll just have to see how this plays out. I go to sleep with the challenge in mind.

The Preparation

Last month I hit the road. With the goal of proving sunbloc's design capability beyond drawing them up on paper. I needed real life data. But I also wanted to prove that a business could be run on only 200 watts of solar indefinitely. My loads were rather simple. A lenovo laptop, a smartphone, starlink for internet, camping lights, a DC travel food warmer, and a portable camping fridge. The fridge was the main load and the most important. If I was going to remain in the wilderness and continue working I needed to keep my food preserved.

Preparing for the trip I prepped 24 burritos. Burritos are simple, easy to eat, and don't create dishes. Wrapped in aluminum foil they were ready to go, I just needed to heat them up. I built a power station to power my loads when I go off grid. Starting with a simple 13" x 12" x 17" DeWalt toolbox from home depot. I placed the battery, a Discover lithium blue 24V 46 Ah (1104 Wh), in the center of the box. Then on the side walls mounted the charge controller, battery shunt, global link, and inverter. On the top lid I mounted the power distribution. A class-T fuse, battery disconnect, and DC fuse box. On the exterior I cut holes for the energy distribution: 2 cigarette plugs, a female DC jack socket, and a 100 watt USB-C charging module. I made sure it closed correctly, tested it, and we were good to go.

The Challenge

Day 1: I arrive at my site late at night and find a spot to camp by the lake. In the morning I set up my first mobile office location and spend most of the day relaxing: I read, hike, and in the afternoon go to the lake for a swim. Some light rain fell on my walk back to camp. This was the ominous sign of things to come. Before bed I look at the weather forecast. I can't believe it, it has to be wrong. It's supposed to rain for the next 10 days. This challenge was actually going to be a challenge. It's monsoon season but 10 straight days of rain is not common at all in Arizona. The only real problem so far is the global link never established a solid connection throughout the day. I'll need it to broadcast the solar data to the website during the challenge. Energy harvested: 690 Wh.

Day 2: My first day working. I focused on the off grid design software. Looking for bugs, making it more robust, and testing edge cases. The global link still hasn't been able to establish a connection. But that's the least of my worries as rain moves in. At first it's a slight drizzle but it quickly becomes a raging torrent. Huddling in the center of my canopy it's still not enough to keep everything dry as water splashes from all around getting everything wet. Energy harvested: 550 Wh.

Day 3: I wake up and check the electronics I left to charge overnight. The laptop is at 100% but I notice the USB-C charging light is off. I plug it in to my phone to see if it charges but nothing. The charger doesn't work for the rest of the trip. I figure the moisture from the previous day affected it. Today I'm moving out. I need to get to a location where the global link will broadcast the solar data. I pack everything up and let the battery charge until early afternoon. Then drive back to the main road along the rim. I find a breathtaking spot along a cliff edge and the best part is I'm able to get the global link to transmit solar data to Sunbloc's website. Energy harvested: 880 Wh.

Day 4: The new camp is amazing. The views are stunning and there's plenty of space for day hikes along the cliff. I start the day with 18% battery charge. Low, but I was previously in a heavily wooded area and the sunlight was only uninterrupted in the morning. Hopefully the new location changes that. Because it's on a southern facing cliff there should be no shading from trees. I heat up a burrito with the DC warmer, it only draws about 45W when heating items up but the tradeoff is that it takes about 1.5 hours to fully heat a burrito. The fridge is set to a standard 40°F. I don't mind waiting. It just means I need to plan out my meals. At this point I'm getting tired of the rice and bean burritos. It's a game of roulette. I didn't label the burritos so every meal after taking a bite I get a surprise: spam and potatoes or rice and beans. The spam hits different after 4 days of only two food options. Energy harvested: 1,240 Wh.

Day 5: I begin to settle into a routine. Every night before I sleep I take down the mobile office: the canopy and desk. The rain and weather consistently move in after sunset every night. While calming as I sleep in the comfort of my vehicle it destroys the camp every morning. At sunrise the battery reads 69%. The move to the rim edge paid off. I get more access to sunlight and I'm able to broadcast solar data. At noon when I grab a burrito, there's only 11 left. I'm more than halfway through the challenge. Energy harvested: 870 Wh.

Day 6: The battery starts the day at 80% and I'm hoping it can charge fully because the next few days are forecasted to be rough. Heavy rain is moving through the area and there are frequent flash flood warnings. I keep to a schedule of working in the morning, taking a break around noon and hiking. Then working until sundown. At sunset the battery reads 98%. Everything is going well. The real test will be the last few days. Energy harvested: 700 Wh.

Day 7: A large storm rolled through the previous night keeping me awake until after 12 o'clock. When the sun breaks the next day it's beautiful. Low clouds and fog cling to the broken, forested landscape. The sun illuminates the stubborn haze, burning it away from the earth. I get to work, but it isn't long before I'm completely engulfed in a cloud. At this point I work in the vehicle. The on and off rain has a way of making everything moist and damp no matter how I try to keep my equipment dry. Visibility is down to only a few yards for most of the day. The battery ends the day at 66%. Promising, if I get just a bit more solar exposure for the next two days I'll be able to finish the challenge. Energy harvested: 346 Wh.

Day 8: Thanks to the cold of the rain and chill of the night. The battery holds at 60% in the morning. The fridge barely ran at all. I put a jug of water in the fridge the previous day to increase the thermal mass as I ate away the burritos. This morning my breakfast burrito tastes a bit sour. They're fermenting. Not good. So I decrease the fridge's temperature to 20°F. Nearly freezing the remaining burritos to preserve them. I'm not too concerned, a bit of fermentation won't cause food poisoning. And I'm nearly out of burritos: there's 4 remaining. The heavy fog that's plagued my area breaks around noon allowing the batteries to get a decent charge and I'm confident I'll make it to day 10. Energy harvested: 306 Wh.

Day 9: The morning begins bright and clear. The battery charge reads 58%. Not bad given that I decreased the temperature to preserve the burritos. While not completely frozen they did have ice crystals in them. I eat one without heating it up to make sure there's enough energy to get me through to the last day. The clouds again moved in mid-morning with rain soon after. I work in my vehicle for the entirety of the day. For my last night I test the fridge, decreasing the temperature to the absolute lowest, -8°F. Energy harvested: 570 Wh.

Day 10: I checked the fridge to see how cold it was able to get overnight. 15°F, not bad. The water jug formed ice chunks. After hiking the surrounding area and taking in the view I prepared my equipment for departure. Once all my gear was near the vehicle, I prepped an off grid design livestream demonstration. As the sun set. The storms that visited daily began to stir. I reflect on how I couldn't catch a break on this challenge. It rained every single day but at this point all my equipment is in the vehicle. I complete the livestream and FINALLY drive away. Past the dirt roads and cattle guards back on to pavement. It's an odd feeling as I drive on the highway at 65 mph. Rain splatters the windshield, lightning illuminating the highway. A rare solitary pair of headlights passing my field of vision. It was definitely a challenge. Energy harvested: 760 Wh.

Thoughts/Takeaways

Working and living off grid was noticeably different from my usual workflow and routine. I was surprised how focused I was. Not just sitting down for longer sessions but being able to read and be immersed in the plot. Lately I've noticed how short form content has limited my attention span and ability to hold information needed to process a plot within a book. During the challenge I limited time watching videos because of Starlink's limited data plan. This was a large positive and I'll be looking forward to the clarity on my next off grid voyage.

Now for the challenges. I was not ready for how wet everything would get. And I mean EVERYTHING. There seemed to be no escape. Clothes and anything with fabric took hours to dry. The humidity and decreased temperature took me by surprise. I was expecting the sun to be out for longer periods of time to allow the humidity to drop but the clouds and rain were relentless. I'll need a tarp moving forward to manage the mud around camp. I found myself craving to be around or in a store, see a receipt, a store sign. Anything from the modern economy. The food was bland and tasteless by the fourth day. The salty taste of spam became a real treat. I purchased an off grid solar oven, which I'm very excited for, and I'll be using it going forward. Eating fermenting burritos on the 8th day was not enjoyable and probably the most difficult part of the challenge, not knowing after that first burrito if the next would be sour. Thankfully it was just the one.

I have to mention the resources used during this time. I brought 6 gallons with me. Of everything this is what worried me most. How much water I would consume and if it would cut the trip short. That turned out to be not a constraint at all. I left the camp with 2 gallons left. I also only produced about a third of a 30 gallon trash bag worth of garbage. Not bad at all. Living and working off grid not only reduces consumption but increases productivity. Quite useful when trying to scale a business with limited resources.

As for power draw the business consumed very little. During the trip I averaged 690 Wh of energy harvested per day. That was enough to manage, though it definitely didn't provide any excess. Running the business wasn't difficult. I switched between a Starlink mini and mobile hotspot when my phone received a robust signal. Charging the phone took only about 20 - 30 Wh/day. The laptop required 50 - 80 Wh/day and running the Starlink for 6 hours used 120 Wh/day. There was always enough energy for running the business. The fridge was the real constraint. It was the most variable load. Consuming about 60 W normally and 45 W in eco mode. Thermal management was the biggest factor in managing my energy budget. Overnight when the temperature dropped was the time to add water for thermal mass and lower the temperature of the fridge. Then increase the temperature during the day and let the cold water maintain the internal temperature of the camping fridge. Had I never managed the fridge I would have easily run out of power in the last few days. 60 W running for more than 12 hours would consume 720 Wh. More than the average amount of energy I was able to harvest. As for the DC warmer it consumed 45 W but didn't run for the full 1.5 hours. It ran current through the heating element in bursts. Placing the warmer directly in the sun also increased its effectiveness and reduced power draw. For two daily meals it consumed about 80-120 Wh of energy. While the amount of solar I was able to harvest wasn't ideal I effectively proved only 200 watts can outlast a full 10 days in a row with very limited sunlight.

This is exactly what I want to associate with the Sunbloc brand. It isn't building a business that will optimize for profit margin or any of the other metrics associated with viral businesses. Its about building an ecosystem that is stress tested and battle ready for those people that need a power solution for their rugged situation. Whether that is in mountain cabins or Arizona deserts. The most important part of an off grid solution is its reliability and that's where our story and credibility matter most.