Building a Better and Tougher Awning

[VidereStudios]

looking at the arms they also look to be made from aluminium (based on the welds) do you know the size and thickness of those?

Hey paranoid56...good call. The arms are made of aluminum...actually the whole assembly is. It really saves on the weight. The arms are made of 1" x 1" rectangular aluminum tube with a .12" wall thickness. The rectangular profile is special however. Instead of somewhat sharp corners, the corners are radiused. This makes the overall profile stronger than if it was a straight square. It was somewhat of a challenge finding this stuff. But I now have a local supplier.

Impressive. I'm also looking for a legless/ropeless awning. Have you looked at the Alu Cab from SA? Looks great to me.
Wish I had your skills and confidence.
One other suggestion would be for a hard enclosure rather than a cover.

Cool company! Thanks for sharing about them...their 270 degree awning looks really stout! But a couple of photos still show it with poles and guidelines. And it looks pretty heavy.

Skills are pretty minimal...I'll be learning a lot making these. Confidence and enthusiasm are not in short supply though!

I have thought about a hard enclosure...probably out of formed aluminum. I want to get the first prototype put up on a rack on my 100 and see how things fit together, etc. I will still entertain that until either it or the soft cover clearly win out.

 

[paranoid56]

cool, i was thinking of making something also, but will see what you come up with. would be nice to have a USA option

 

[BuckBlue90]

Petr,
Another thought....
Why not include a flip up hinge on the mounting brackets so that the whole package can be flipped on top of the roofrack. It may need to be pinned for storage and deployment. This would probably only work if you have just the roof rack platform without side rails above.
This came to mind over the weekend when we were out in the bush. Thankfully we did not have the awning fitted as it would have been wrecked after leaning on the odd tree in tight sections.
Notably, the ezi awn retractable awnings with the aluminum case seem to take a bit of abuse.
Eric.

 

[VidereStudios]

Petr,
Another thought....
Why not include a flip up hinge on the mounting brackets so that the whole package can be flipped on top of the roofrack. It may need to be pinned for storage and deployment. This would probably only work if you have just the roof rack platform without side rails above.
This came to mind over the weekend when we were out in the bush. Thankfully we did not have the awning fitted as it would have been wrecked after leaning on the odd tree in tight sections.
Notably, the ezi awn retractable awnings with the aluminum case seem to take a bit of abuse.
Eric.

Hi Eric,

That's funny...I was thinking a similar thing earlier today. I don't particularly care for how the awning sits off the rack so much. It could definitely get smashed against trees and rocks in tight trails. I like your hinge idea...I'll have to play with some ideas on incorporating that. Another idea I had was to move the awning mount inward and place it on the inside of the rack edge. I'll work on some sketches over the next week or so.

In other news, I just picked up the prototype mount and arm assembly today. I'll post up some pictures this evening.

I am waiting until Friday to see what kind of sales pop up on racks (FrontRunner or Eezi-Awn). I'll be pulling the trigger on one of those two at that point so that I have a rigid test bed for figuring out some of these changes to the awning.

 

[harbinger808]

Been following this thread and excited to see what comes out
Have you seen this before?... I'm planning on buying these with a Hannibal 2.4M if my wife approves

http://prospeed-group.co.uk/product/xrs-folding-awning-brackets-2/

Hi Eric,

That's funny...I was thinking a similar thing earlier today. I don't particularly care for how the awning sits off the rack so much. It could definitely get smashed against trees and rocks in tight trails. I like your hinge idea...I'll have to play with some ideas on incorporating that. Another idea I had was to move the awning mount inward and place it on the inside of the rack edge. I'll work on some sketches over the next week or so.

In other news, I just picked up the prototype mount and arm assembly today. I'll post up some pictures this evening.

I am waiting until Friday to see what kind of sales pop up on racks (FrontRunner or Eezi-Awn). I'll be pulling the trigger on one of those two at that point so that I have a rigid test bed for figuring out some of these changes to the awning.

 

[ventura911]

Looking at a similar awning from So Cal Teardrops. Any update on your build?

:lurk:

 

[VidereStudios]

Hey, sorry about not responding right away. You caught me a couple of weeks before I made a trip up to Canada...and a couple of stops at outdoor fabric specialty shops on the trip up. So I delayed my response.

Anyway, yeah, lots of progress on this project. I got all the hardware pieces fabbed up as a prototype. These are very similar to the Hannibal brackets, arms, etc.

Here is the bracket (made to attach to FrontRunner or Eezi-Awn racks):





And here are a couple of photos detailing the awning swing arms:





And finally a detail of the typical roller arm end:



I have narrowed down the fabric options to basically three options...a standard synthetic fabric, a fire-rated synthetic fabric, and a natural cotton canvas with fire-retardant. The synthetic options come in a variety of colors while the natural cotton canvas is a cream color.

The next step is to order several yards of fabric and sew up the awning. Hoping to do that sometime in April or May.

 

[VidereStudios]

Been following this thread and excited to see what comes out
Have you seen this before?... I'm planning on buying these with a Hannibal 2.4M if my wife approves

http://prospeed-group.co.uk/product/xrs-folding-awning-brackets-2/

That is a great link! I was thinking of something similar to that. I'll have to add that feature into the mix. Thanks!

And another thing to note...I did get the FrontRunner Slimline II over the Christmas break. I got it installed and it definitely is super robust. Should make an excellent foundation for the awning.

 

[fjefman]

Any progress on the awning?

Jeff

 

[VidereStudios]

Not too much unfortunately. I have had a super busy summer and work has been really a drain on my free time. However, I am working on a couple of small projects to get my sewing skills up to speed. I do have everything setup to and just need to finish creating the 3D models of the upgraded brackets. Then I should be able to get the final prototypes made up. Hoping that the next two months are a little bit slower to allow for that.