adam88, if I remember right you live in the Vancouver lower mainland and if so you could look into Sunview industries, they are in the Okanogan and have double paned windows that can be ordered with whatever thickness of wall you have and may be able to help you, mine are from there and are double paned, tempered glass with screens for much less than you would pay at Motion windows. Mine sit flush on the outside and protrude into the camper space by an inch, you may be able to get them to make an inverted window where the protrusion is on the outside, seems like it would be easy for them to do that. The sietz windows have a complex screen, curtain set up that needs some interior space, they do scratch easy too from what I have seen and if exposed will get dinged up easily if you are travelling around BC.
http://www.sunviewindustries.ca/ no affiliation blah blah
hey westyss,
You read my mind. I actually just looked over your thread yesterday actually and visited the sunview website and was thinking that I'd see about asking them to make an "inverted window where the protrusion is on the outside"
. Great minds think alike? Out of all the threads on expo yours is still the one I am taking the most inspiration from. Sunview seems like a great company and they make doors too.
A few issues have come up as I plan to build the camper. The big issue with my camper (compared to yours) is that, while yours is about 60" closed, with an 18" lift....... mine will be about 44" closed with a 36" lift. So it's a lot tighter. Because of this, the windows need to be mounted on the outside portion (that pops up) instead of your camper where you were able to mount them on the inside wall.
Another issue I've ran into is the actuators. I wish I could just go with Firgelli ones like you, simple electric actuators, but they don't offer one that can do what I need. Because the interior height of the camper will only be about 41" (accounting for 1.5" thick floors/ceilings), and I need to achieve a 36" lift, I have to go with a multi stage telescoping cylinder. This will allow the stroke length to be cut in half. So closed, the actuator will only be 18" (stroke length / by 2) plus whatever the shaft is.
Third issue I've ran into is the door. It will need to be a two piece door - a top half and bottom half. This shouldn't be too big of a deal. I'm sure sunview can make the doors if I ask them to and give them details. But it may cost a bit more, and figuring out the design of them and how to properly seal them may be a bit more work.
In the end though, I think it will be worth it. Since I'm putting it on an F350, the goal is to have the camper sit as close to cab-height as possible. It's taken a lot of design effort to make it all work. I'll probably start designing it in a month or two, just busy with work right now. I will probably see if RhinoKore is still in business and willing to sell my panels. Hopefully they are, otherwise, I'll have to find another composite panel place. I'm going to basically be using the same method as you did, except I'll be building the exo-skeleton first and gluing the panels into it, as oppose to the other way around. I liked your idea of putting the panels together and then gluing the aluminum trim on (to make it stronger), but I think doing the exo-skeleton first will be easier and less messy when it comes to dealing with the sikaflex stuff. Plus I am going to be using the exo-skeleton to actually mount the camper to the flatbed (instead of screws), by using a mount system I designed. And the flatbed is going to be designed with wheel wells and a 3 point mount system (all part of the "plan"). Lots of work! I am planning on taking it down to South America for an 18 month trip eventually.
And yeah, I live in Surrey. I still totally want to come by and check out your camper sometime. Maybe in a couple of months I'll take a drive out there, beer on me!
