The Saga Continues…
The Technopod setup at the Furnace Creek camp in Death Valley
Well… I finally recovered from a hectic Death Valley trip in the Technopod. You can see the basic setup in the photo above. I use the portable solar panel at the left to keep the deep cycle battery topped off though I didn’t have much time in camp to really use the computer much – mostly just downloaded images in the evenings. This trip was meant as a full scale test of the Technopod capabilities but I was bitten by Mercury retrograde!
All in all, the trip was very valuable to discover deficiencies in my interior design. The bumps and vibrations of highway travel ended up dislodging the hard drives which worked their way forward and fell onto the bed during the 6 hour road trip. Not the biggest disaster as they made a soft landing on the bed but still… I have to secure them a lot better. The printer did fine as it was more securely strapped down but the biggest issue was the monitor! I had installed the monitor with an articulating arm that was bolted onto the desktop. The stress of the road snapped the arm sending the monitor forward onto the bed. So the monitor spent the entire time in Death Valley locked up in the trunk of the car – not particularly useful.
The other Mecury retrograde issue involve my internet connectivity. I had a Novatel Wireless modem with me that I intended to use to connect and blog from the location. I had very good 3G coverage most places in the park and 5 bars at the camp site. However, the modem decided to take a dump and all I got for my efforts was a blinking red light!!! The iPhone ended up being the only way I could stay on top of email, etc…
To add insult to injury, I managed to get food poisoning (or something) at the LADIG event on Tuesday night right after I returned and I spent the whole of Wednesday in excruciating intestinal pain. All my work has been delayed and I’m just now getting around to catching up!
The basic camping features of the Technopod worked just fine however and I had a great time photographing in the scenic Mosaic Canyon, Dunes and Fall Canyon. You can see some of the preliminary renderings here: Web Gallery
So… its back to the drawing board as far as mounting the monitor goes. I have to secure the hard drives a little better as well. All good info to help craft the Technopod into my mobile living/working vehicle! Onward and upward…
