Context
After I built my first DIY solar-powered lawn care trailer, I shared the build on youtube with some videos about how it worked and in action. At the time, it was just that: a one-off experiment to see whether solar could meaningfully support all-electric lawn care equipment in the real world.
I wasn’t trying to launch a product. I was just documenting my experiment.
What I didn’t expect was what came next.
The Signal
After the videos were up, I started receiving messages like:
- “I’m getting ready to solarize my new 24ft trailer — can you help me understand rough material costs?”
- “Do you sell plans? I run an all-electric landscaping business and just bought a 12ft enclosed trailer.”
- “We’re open to flying you out to build this trailer for us.”
- “We want to partner with you to design and scale our next setup.”
- “What would you charge to build one of these?”
There were many variations, but the pattern was consistent.
People weren’t asking for inspiration.
They weren’t asking for theory.
They weren't just asking for advice.
They were asking for a way to get from idea to execution.
Often with:
- different trailer sizes
- different locations
- different use cases
- different timelines
Essentially with the same underlying question:
“Can you help us make this real?”
Building Trailers Wasn’t the Answer
At first, I considered simply building trailers for other people.
That idea breaks down quickly.
- Every trailer is different
- Every location is different
- Every timeline is different
- Every build becomes a one-off
- Support scales linearly with labor
I was already:
- running a lawn care business
- managing a YouTube channel
- returning to college
I’m one person.
Even if I wanted to spend my life building trailers for others, it wouldn’t scale — and it would eventually collapse under its own weight.
Why Selling Complete Trailers Won't Work Either
The next idea was to build complete trailers and sell them outright.
That has its own problems:
- It requires becoming a trailer dealer
- It ties up capital in inventory
- It requires land, equipment, storage, and staff
- Buyers are geographically distributed
- Most people already own a trailer and want that trailer converted
That model might make sense later, with more capital and a team.
It didn’t make sense as a starting point.
Why “Just Sell Plans” Wasn’t Enough
I also considered offering plans or parts lists.
But that creates a different failure mode:
- It assumes people are comfortable drilling into their roof
- It assumes electrical and mechanical confidence
- It assumes the ability to source dozens of parts correctly
- It assumes persistence through a long, fragmented process
For many people, that’s exactly where projects stall out.
Not because they lack motivation — but because the cognitive load is too high.
I didn’t want to sell something that only works if you already know how to do it.
Reframing the Problem
At that point, the problem became clearer.
People didn’t need:
- a finished trailer
- a one-off custom build
- or a spreadsheet of parts
They needed a repeatable way to remove friction.
Something that:
- works across common trailer sizes
- ships to your door
- installs cleanly
- doesn’t require a fabrication shop
- doesn’t demand expert-level electrical knowledge
- still preserves ownership and customization
In other words: a kit.
The Decision
Instead of building trailers for people, I decided to explore designing a solar kit that people could install on their own trailer — regardless of whether it’s for lawn care, a mobile workshop, a makerspace, or something else entirely.
The goal is simple:
Reduce the gap between “I want to do this” and “it’s up and running.”
From Decision to Prototype
By that point, my original lawn care trailer was showing its age — not because of the solar system, but because it was simply an old trailer that had lived a hard life. It had done what I needed it to do, but it wasn’t the right foundation for validating a repeatable system.
Once I committed to the idea of a kit, I needed a clean platform to prototype against.
That decision pushed the work out of the abstract and into physical constraints: trailer sizes, mounting consistency, shipping, installation time, and real-world usability. Those constraints are what started to shape the technical work that followed.
What Came Next
Exploring a kit raised a new set of questions: how much solar can realistically fit on different trailers, how panels should be mounted, how the system could remain modular, and how all of this could be shipped and installed without turning into a custom build.
Those are the problems the following logs start to address.
More SOON™
