My Quest To Damage the Duracave Solar Home Generator

Dear Duracave customer support

I’m not sure you can imagine the empty feeling in the pit of my stomach when I learned that my brother-in-law Jeff had borrowed my Duracave Solar Home Generator (SHG). I couldn’t believe that I let it sit in the box for weeks after I had ordered it. I blamed myself for leaving that day, but I wanted to see how bad Neki had hit Front street. I blamed my wife for handing over such an expensive piece of equipment to someone who has such a bad track record when it comes to taking care of things. When it was returned to me fully functional and without any visible damage two weeks later, I was stunned. I knew then that I was dealing with something special. I know toughness is something that you guys focus on but I never knew how tough your stuff was. I decided it was time to find out and record it for my YouTube channel.

First, let’s get all the performance stuff out of the way. The SHG’s potassium polymer batteries are almost as amazing as its ruggedness. The batteries offer astonishing cycleability and exceptional energy efficiency. The packaging materials say the unit pushes 98% efficiency but I haven’t really sat down and tried to figure out the numbers. All I can say is that according to Jeff, it only took a few hours of sunlight to charge the batteries enough to last all day. However, it was the “Tough as nails” and the “Lasts as long as the sun” claims that I found most intriguing.

You have to understand, Jeff is a walking disaster. He has been in an accident with every car he’s ever owned, and totaled most. My wife’s parents just stopped replacing windows in the house when she was little because he broke so many. I have no idea how many doors, counters, and floors he damaged as a kid. He once borrowed a shovel to help my mother-in-law transplant her roses and returned it bent. How do you bend a shovel transplanting flowers? My SHG spent 16 days with the embodiment of recklessness and yet didn’t even have a scratch, so I decided to spend some time figuring out just how tough it was.

I’m no engineer but I know that water and electronics get along as well as Jeff and the good china, so that was my first test. I filled the tub almost to the top, set up the tripod, and heaved the unit in. Imagine my surprise when I found that the satisfying crack I had heard was the tub and not my SHG. After a minute the weight of the generator opened the crack wide and I could hear water pouring into the basement. I stared as the water level quickly dropped below the dials and red indicator lights without a flicker. It had survived the tub.

I was surprised at how difficult it was to get the unit up on the roof by myself. If I have any complaint about your product it is the weight. Something about the size of a trashcan should weigh less that 80kgs. Anyway, after some rope and pulley finagling, I found myself overlooking the driveway with my trusty SHG by my side. I crouched behind the generator and took a deep breath. I pushed with everything I had. I pushed so hard that I almost went tumbling down with it. I caught a glimpse of the SHG tumbling end over end as I fell flat on my face and grabbed the camera before it fell too. I heard a crunching noise and smiled knowing that I had found the limits of Duracave toughness. As I stood, my smile disappeared. The crunching had been the driveway. A series of cracks had been formed where the corner of the unit had hit. It was lying on its back with its little red lights looking at me like nothing had happened. It had survived the fall from the roof.

I knew then that things were serious. I drug the SHG into the back yard and went inside the house to get my gun. I’m not a violent man by nature but this thing was starting to unnerve me. I positioned it in the corner of the yard against the stone wall to account for any errant shot and slowly pulled the trigger. There was a pinging noise but nothing else: no mark, no crack, no scratch, nothing. I aimed at one of the little red lights and squeezed. It didn’t crack. It didn’t stop. I began to crank off round after round, as fast as I could, hoping that dumb luck and volume would find a weak point in the SHG casing. I was so shocked that a full clip was unable to leave anything but the slightest smudge, that I barely noticed one of the bullets had ricocheted and was now lodged in my thigh. It had survived being shot, but I wasn’t sure I would.

The decision to drive myself to the hospital wasn’t one of my best, but I had lost a significant amount of blood at this point. Maybe that’s why I took the time to load the generator into the car with me. I just felt like we had shared something extraordinary and wanted to bring it along to explain what had happened to me. I soon grew more dizzy and started to have trouble focusing on the road. I guess I had sensed that I didn’t have long and decided to speed up in order to make it in time. I’m not really sure, the next 20 minutes are a confused jumble to me.

Evidently I passed out going 50 mph and hit a tree with the SHG sitting in the passenger seat next to me. I don’t remember the sudden stop, just being launched through the windshield. Everything slowed as I passed through the glass and flew into the cool air. I watched the generator flying though the air with me, it’s little lights flashing in defiance before I landed in the bushes. At least I think I did, like I said, everything was kind of a confusing blur. I remember asking about it as the paramedics pulled me from the foliage and strapped me to the board. I could see it lying facedown in the mud before they put me inside the ambulance. I asked, “Are the lights still on?” before blacking out.

When I was finally released from the hospital, the first thing I did was review the in-car footage. After seeing where the SHG punched a hole in the greenery, I went back to look, and found it just as I remembered, face down in the dirt. I took a deep breath and turned it over as gently as I could with my arm still in a cast. No lights, no sound. I felt like I’d been punched, and thought I might pass out for a second. Then I remembered the auto-off feature. Slowly I pressed the button with my swollen finger and I could hear a faint whirring inside. I wiped the dirt off the front panel and was greeted by those determined little red lights. The SHG had survived the car accident! I had tried to destroy your generator many times that day and it had always survived. I have great respect for that. Short of launching it into the sun or getting the Argonauts to leave it between the Clashing Rocks this thing will be there for you. It’s not tough as nails. It’s tougher.