Hand built hard-side, pop-up camper

[Home Skillet]

5/6/11 Update on build

Well I managed to fight off the urge to overindulge on Cinco de Mayo and have a brand new update for you all.

I have now been framing in the "Titan Expedition Vehicle" interior and the cabover bed, the galley, and the water/electrical closet are now formed. I am also deep into the electrical wiring and plumbing as you can see from the photos.
I am pretty happy with the layout (and it took a lot of standing around and redesigning in my head to get there). Loads of drawer space. A nice under bed storage area and a pretty functional galley. The Edgestar 40 quart fridge is big and takes up some space, but it will be really nice to have a cold beer even after 5 days out there.
I found a really nice little wireless remote control box for the actuation rams too.

I also have a logo for the vehicle now. Give me some feedback on it.

If you want more info take a look at Hooked Up Films.

 

[Home Skillet]

More pics

 

[Home Skillet]

the logo

The logo. What do you all think?

 

[CLynn85]

Nice work. I've been following this thing since the beginning on WTW and to be honest, I never thought you'd make it this far, very impressive.

As for the logo, looks good, but the t's are a little hard to distinguish to me.

 

[Home Skillet]

Nice work. I've been following this thing since the beginning on WTW and to be honest, I never thought you'd make it this far, very impressive.

As for the logo, looks good, but the t's are a little hard to distinguish to me.

You and me both man! I can't say as to whether or not I would do another one at this point.

Thanks for the feedback on the logo. You are right about the T's. It was actually meant to be a little obscure (didn't want Nissan thinking I was stealing their thunder or anything). :ylsmoke:

Home Skillet

 

[SLO_F-250]

Nice work Home's! :Wow1: You have done a very good job on the build. Congrats. Looking forward to seeing the Titan in Action!

As for the logo, it looks good, but might get somewhat hidden if the camper is painted a dark color.

 

[Home Skillet]

The Final Product, pretty much

Hey all, I'm back, and packing some good news. The Titan Expedition Vehicle/carbon fiber/built on camper/Hooked Up Films ride is DONE! There a few small details, but generally this thing is finished.
Not only that, but we have now had it out on its Maiden Voyage and it was an A+ performance! 400 miles into the Eastern Oregon Outback with 78 miles of washboard and 5 miles of primitive double track and we now can safely say, "It's tough, it's light, it's roomy, and it's easy to use!

We have two new videos up over at Hooked Up Films. The first shows the final specs and does a complete walk through, the second is a "hey look at me" short vid of the maiden voyage.

We wanted to say thank you to all of you for the awesome support and encouragement throughout this whole process. You guys rock!

We will be posting regular videos of the adventures of the TEV and updates on how she holds up.

 

[Bumzo1]

Wow I just read through your entire build journal on your website and I am impressed! That thing turned out great! Do you have any pictures of how you vented your water heater? I'm planning on using a similar one on my trailer.

 

[Pest]

That turned out pretty great. I like the use of the cheap plastic drawers... I don't think there's anything that would maximize the storage as well. Typical drawers waste space with thick walls and glides.

 

[Home Skillet]

Wow I just read through your entire build journal on your website and I am impressed! That thing turned out great! Do you have any pictures of how you vented your water heater? I'm planning on using a similar one on my trailer.

I don't, but can get some. I used a 3 1/2" vent that is typically used to vent Natural gas hot water heaters for homes. It fit right onto the top of the EZ 101 water heater. I then bent is slightly over about 3 feet to make it exit the camper but not have a 90 degree angle (I was worried about heat backing up into the heating unit and frying it). I now have used it on 4 trips for short bursts like the galley sink and for 4 showers. The exhaust pipe does heat up some but not anywhere near enough to combust even paper touching it and I was careful to wrap it in some thin foil insulation as well.

I think this is the only way all to do hot water heaters in campers. Super energy efficient and muuuuuch lighter than a traditional unit. Go For It!

Home Skillet

 

[Home Skillet]

That turned out pretty great. I like the use of the cheap plastic drawers... I don't think there's anything that would maximize the storage as well. Typical drawers waste space with thick walls and glides.

Thank you for noticing. the drawers were cheap indeed at only $9 per 5 drawer tower. Very light and you are right the space is amazing compared to the wooden drawers with sliders.
Are we Americans that concerned about the finished look that we would rather have the weight and limited space. C'mon camper manufacturers.....let's start getting creative for all us expedition types!

Home Skillet

 

[DEnd]

Great Build up! only concern I have is what appears to be to small of a wire going to the camper battery, but since it's just for charging it may very well be the right size. I just remember the electrical fix I had to do on my Diesel Escort (which had the battery in the back) and that involved putting in a 2/0 wire. Looking at some online calculators for a 150 amp load you really need like 3/0... If you can keep the wire run down below 12' then you could go with 2/0... ( I was estimating between a 12' and 18' wire run)

 

[lstzephyr]

Could you give a general idea of the cost of the materials? I would be more interested in using fiberglass to keep costs down, but this is great!

Thanks for sharing! I am looking forward to more.

 

[pods8]

From my recollection he was using west systems epoxy and carbon fiber (& some carbon/kevlar) from www.solarcomposites.com.

Seems like most carbon runs $30-35+/yd for 50" wide. For the glass I'm using on mine I paid ~$3/yd for 38" wide so at face value carbon looks like a 7-8x+ premium. However that does not factor in potential better performance out of the material which could potentially mean less plys needed (and thus less carbon yardage overall). I never did any testing on carbon but for the exterior of mine I decided I like the performance of 3plys of 8.9oz glass, I doubt 3 plys of something like 19.7oz carbon would be needed though. So in that case if only 1 ply was needed it would be a 2.5-3x premium (only looking at the fabric) and if 2 plys were needed 5-6x premium. This is only looking at the fabric aspect since I don't know how much resin the carbon fabric will comparably use, so that would tweak the numbers some too.

On my build I had figured ~50yds (of 38" fabric) per ply for either the interior or exterior so with just 1 ply of carbon I'd need ~76yds which would be a $1750 premium over what I spent on 250yds of fiberglass (3 plys exterior, 2plys interior). However there would be resin savings and also don't forget time savings if only 1 ply was needed. So even though I initially wrote carbon off I'd say it's not a bad idea to build some samples from it to see how you like it. If 1 ply of carbon gave me the performance I wanted I probably would have though longer about it in retrospect, I doubt I'd think very long about it if 2 were required though. Getting a sample of some 19.7oz carbon 2x2 twill to see how workable it is and how much resin it soaks would probably be my first research step if starting over. That would be my first hope since it's more probable that 1 ply would be sufficient however I've got workability concerns since I know thicker fiberglass is tough. Going to a 11oz carbon 2x2 twill would be the next thing to look at, I suspect that would have decent workability, however that might fall into the issue of needing 2 plys...

Anyways enough babbling from my thoughts, it'll be interesting to get homeskillet's thoughts now that he's wrapped up.

 

[BlitzleBlat]

how is she holding up?

(ps awesome build, i was curious if anyone had built their own from composites)