If you’re looking to buy the Tulsi, you’re probably doing so for environmental, survival or off-grid living reasons. Most people espousing these ideals believe that basic everyday tools should be of high quality, extremely durable and preferably locally and/or sustainably produced. Unfortunately the Tulsi fails miserably on all these counts (except for locally produced, if you live in India).\r\n\r\nI don’t know if Sun BD Corp. is lacking in technical skills, materials or production management, but somehow they succeeded in turning a great concept intro a wretched product. Right out of the box I was hit with a cloud of noxious vapors even before I opened the oven. Now, I run a chemistry research lab so I’m not exactly chemophobic, but the smell of solvent from the fiberglass and glue was overwhelming. The manual says that this “new furnace smell” will vanish after a short time in the sun. I left the oven in the sun for most of 4 days, opening the lid once in a while to vent the noxious smoke, but it never got any better. I decided to get scientific here and do a more controlled bake-out. I took the oven to my lab and noticed a layer of material had collected on the inside of the glass lid. A gasket scraper did little to remove the hard film, but I was able to dissolve it off with an acetone-soaked towel. (NOTE: do not use solvents unless you have the training and protective equipment to do so safely!) The film came off and I proceeded to set the oven out in the blazing May California sun from ~11 am to ~ 5 pm with the electric assist on full. Every 30-60 minutes I went outside and lifted the lid to clear the vapors and then re-aligned the oven. I’m currently on my 5th day of bake-out (9 if you count the solar-only days) and smoke and sickening fumes just keep coming! I’m not sure the oven will be usable because of this “feature” but I will try for a few more days.\r\n\r\nOverall, the construction is very shoddy – cheap hinges, fasteners, clasps and seals that are little more than strips of rubber poorly attached to the case. Some areas have too few screws and others way too many. Makes me wonder if these people have ever built anything before. The case insulation seems insufficient since the back of the oven gets extremely hot. In a well-designed oven the major mode of heat loss is radiation through the glass, not conduction through the case. Perhaps the best use for this oven is as a set of parts for you to build your own. Strip off their smoky “furnace paint” or just wait for it to flake off by itself and apply your own. An omega gasket would do wonders for the seal. As other reviewers have noted the “pans” it comes with truly are a joke. Another annoying feature is that the light from the green LEDs in the power switches can’t compete with the sun, so you can’t tell whether they’re on of off. Luckily they’re rockers so you can easily label the “on” side with a marker. If you buy this oven be prepared to either re-engineer it, return it or curse a lot. Better yet, build your own! It’s not rocket science and the skills you learn will help your goals of responsible living a lot more than having a disappointment in a box shipped to you, likely form halfway around the world.\r\n\r\nI’d like to end on the only positive note I can muster regarding the Tulsi Solar Oven – I like the overall concept of a compact, suitcase style hybrid solar cooker. The mirror arrangement is uncomplicated and the cooking area is large, if shallow. The manual (on CD) is hilarious- a combination of instruction, philosophy and virtuous living guidelines sure to entertain most and possibly offend some. With the electric assist on full power a temperature of 325F can be attained in just a few minutes on a clear day around noon.
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