Cascadia 4×4’s VSS Solar Panel for overland and vehicle-based travel

“Ingenious!” It was all I could say after mounting my Cascadia 4×4 solar panel on the hood of my Land Cruiser 200 Series. In today’s gear centric overlanding world, gear and equipment are plentiful. Camping and adventuring in Mother Nature are easier and more enjoyable today. But, not all gear is ingenious!

My Land Cruiser 200 is equipped with gear (Issues 23-27) and equipment to help me adventure in the wilds of the intermountain west and southwest. It’s my adventure mobile.  I pack it with hiking, canyoneering, biking, and photography gear. Whatever the adventure may beckon, I desire to be ready. One of my favorite pieces of specific overlanding gear is a 12-volt refrigerator. It’s functionally phenomenal, and it’s simple to store food and beverages just like my home refrigerator. The refrigerator uses battery power to keep items cold. Luckily, I installed a dual battery system and wired all my electrical accessories to my secondary battery. This reserves my main battery for simply starting the vehicle. However, with all my electrical needs such as a refrigerator and rechargeable photography equipment, cell phones, and other electrical goodies, I sought to charge my secondary battery as my vehicle sat while I’m out adventuring.

In the past, I’ve used rigid and flexible solar panels. Both of them worked quite well. Unfortunately, both took up room inside my vehicle and both required me to connect them to my battery for charging. Nothing too major, but something I hesitated doing when I only parked the car for an hour or two. Also, it would be easy for some unknown to unclip the panel from my battery, and take off with a nice, solar setup. I desired something simpler, easier, and more secure to use.  One evening, while detailing my Land Cruiser, I thought, wouldn’t it be nice to have a solar panel mounted to my hood. There is so much vacant space, “calling” to be used. Well, I learned that Cascadia 4×4 already thought of this simple, yet ingenious solution: hood specific solar panels. Their vehicle specific solar systems (VSS) are designed and engineered with a specific manufacture’s vehicle in mind.

David Loretto and Thomas Dyakowski started Cascadia 4×4 in 2013 when they decided to take their passion for the outdoors and overland travel to venture into the business world. They designed and manufactured gear in Tom’s garage.  A bit overwhelmed at first, their efforts paid off with the “Flipster”: a license plate mounting winch fairlead. Their business soared. Today, their Flipster has evolved into different models; and their vehicle specific solar systems (VSS) have hit the market as another top, quality offering.

The solar panel kit arrived excellently wrapped. I unboxed the panel and read the directions. The directions were the best I have seen accompanying a product. Yes, the best! The words and actual pictures within the directions helped me understand how I would mount this large black solar panel mounted onto the hood of my Land Cruiser.

I set off to work and split the mounting process into two, two-hour blocks of time. The process is not fast but is relatively painless. The only issue I experienced was removing the air bubbles from the protective vinyl coating. A little heat from the heat gun and everything progressed as depicted in the directions.  With the panel mounted, I attached the solar controller under my hood and attached the positive and negative leads to my auxiliary battery. As I stood in my driveway and admired my work, my battery was charging. Yep, it was “working” while I was relaxing.

A few weeks later, I found myself canyoneering with a few friends in the canyons of Robber’s Roost in south-central Utah. We enjoyed the last few warm days of autumn before the cold winds of winter blew from the north. As I drove south on Highway 24, I thought about the solar panel blowing off the hood and all the “what ifs.”  However, I remembered reading the directions that the glue used is also used for attaching glass to skyscrapers. So, it held and I continued traveling south.  The black solar panel did not reflect any sun rays either, so the driving experience was normal. Actually, the black solar panel stopped the sun’s rays reflecting off the hood’s paint; so in actuality, my driving experience improved.

We arrived at our first canyon in the heart of Robber’s Roost. I parked facing the sun, and we loaded up our gear. A few hours later, we hiked backed to our vehicles. I opened the driver’s side door and read my battery display. Yep, fully charged. My refrigerator had kept my food and beverages cold during our adventure, while the Cascadia 4×4 VSS panel fully charged my battery.

As we motored to our next canyon destination, I appreciated the simplicity of the solar panel and how it worked. There are many different gear solutions in today’s adventure world. Finding high quality gear that simply works should be a top priority for us all. The Cascadia 4×4 VSS solar panel does just that—it’s ingenious!

Visit the Cascadia 4×4 website to learn more: www.cascadia4x4.com

OutdoorX4 Magazine – Promoting responsible vehicle-based adventure travel and outdoors adventure