Absolutely amazing review - one of the best I've ever seen - thank you!!Unzipping and lifting the top of the bag was easy enough:
You can see that it has 3 internal Velcro straps as well:
And here is a close up of the bracket, relatively simple design and it looks like it will be easy to repair if necessary. Nice that the bracket is all metal.
Not as nice of a design as the Batwing, but that bracket is a combination of plastic and metal, the Alu-Cabs is in a league of it's own.
As soon as I un-Velcroed it, the foot poles fell out. The Rhino's has the foot poles attached to the bars. This isn't a great design, as the poles can hit your vehicle. I think I will wrap the poles together and put them in last, at least that way I can grab them when I open the bag.
I pulled on the first/last bar and brought it around to the back of my truck, no built in strap like the Rhino or the Alu-Cab to attach it, which means you have to let the opened awning hang off the bracket. I tried putting in the foot poles but they won't hold the awning on it's own, the Batwing is basically the same way, but Rhino had a built in strap to attach it to something. I ended up using a Nite Ize twist tie.
So here it is with no guide ropes in 8 mph winds and 16 mph gusts:
The Batwing you were able to stake the poles, you can't with these poles, so you must use the guide lines provided with the stakes provided. I like being able to stake the poles themselves. The other big difference is these poles go through the top of the awning, this is going to let water in, so you are definitely going to have to guide rope the centers between the poles during rain. The Rhino's design has the poles outside the awning.
The only way to attach the guide ropes to the poles is to the metal spike that goes through the awning, there is nothing but to tie a knot around the spike. Here's the Rhino for comparison.
Here's the Guana from the top, The stitching looks good:
Here's looking up at the awning from underneath of it:
I had to guide rope the poles down, because one or two would fall out with a gust of wind.
Packing it for the first time, took some time, release all the poles, gather the poles, unhook from the back of the truck and swing around, all the poles are attached in one plane, trying to get the poles to lay in the folded up awning is a pain in the ass, they keep falling out, I finally just left them out until I had the thing velcroed in you also have to make sure the bars are pulled as far forward as possible, otherwise you can't close the bag. There is room in the bag for the guide ropes and stakes. I'm sure I'll get the hang of it with more use.
The best thing about this over all my other awnings...I can get in my garage with it on. :)
Overall the quality is decent, the Rhino Rack Batwing is a better design but not much beefier or sturdier than this awning. For the price my first impressions is it is a great value and better quality than I anticipated for the price. Will it last you ten years? Sure if you take care of it and don't use it in high winds, but I learned first hand the same could be said of the Batwing. As a value purchase the Batwing does offer a better design (attached poles, magnetic catch for holding the poles to the bracket when closing, a better stake/guide line set up, a nice material on the awning itself. But the Batwing is bigger to store, heavier and twice as much money. The Guana is better value than the Batwing, at this price (especially with free shipping) it's an unbelievable value, I think it would still be a value at $500.00
I'll be using it for real this weekend on my trailer and will let you know my thoughts of using it "in the field".
A few questions - when you first open the awning to deploy it, you said that all the weight rest on the bracket (where it pivots). What's your impression on this failing even though the pivot point is made of metal? I know this could be circumvented if you have someone to help hold it up while you attach it to the back of the vehicle and then stake it down but sometimes that's not an option. Are the support poles telescoping so that when it rains you can set up a decline for the water to run off and not pool up on top? Do you find it necessary for the straps to be wrapped around the bag? Maybe they're just there to help prevent sagging.
Overall, I'm really impressed with this but clearly there are some modifications or manufacturing redesigns that need to be made, but for that price, it's really hard to beat.
