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Topic: Our custom true flatbed truck camper build thread

Posted By: travelnutz on 04/03/14 09:02pm

I second silversand's post about it being extremely cold this winter in Florida. It certainly wasn't normal in temps as we have been coming to Florida (from the Keys to the northern border with Georgia) for 50 years now mainly because we have lots of family down here and we had a place for 19 years in South Florida. They used to grow hundred of thousands of acres of oranges and grapfruits in even the northern half of Florida for many decades. However, those groves are about all gone now and just a memory due to the repeated freezing blasts most years for the last about 20-25 years. Even the big stately palms froze! Tell the hundreds to thousands of citrus growers who lost it all about the "global warming" and they probably spit in your face and walk away! Now they are calling it climate change and it doesn't really matter as the damage has already been done! Just get ready for the next ice age should you live long enough! silversand, we also froze our behinds off in Florida this year and several other recent years and YES, most of the time was living in our RV! Thank goodness it's a Carriage because the poorer insulated RV owners told us they couldn't even get theirs up to 60F inside many nights. Even my Bro near West Palm beach and the Ocean and his Daughter over on the Gulf side about 30 miles north of Ft Meyers froze their behinds this winter. We vividly remember 18 degrees on Christmas morning at Clewiston (south side of big very shallow Lake Okeechobee) in the late 90's and it was a balmy 28 degrees on the north side of WPB and yes we saw actual snow in the air and have the pics to prove it. A superb CC LB 4X4, GM HD Diesel, airbags, Rancho's, lots more Lance Legend TC 11' 4", loaded including 3400 PP generator and my deluxe 2' X 7' rear porch 29 ft Carriage Carri-lite 5'er - a specially built gem A like new '07 Sunline Solaris 26' TT

Posted By: BoonHauler on 04/03/14 09:14pm

WOW, my head is spinning!!....... 05 RAM 3500 CTD 4x4 Q/C Laramie DRW/NV5600/3.73, B&W Gooseneck, MaxBrake, PacBrake PRXB, Brite Box Fogster, BD steering Box Brace 2014 BoonHauler 3614

Posted By: btggraphix on 04/03/14 11:36pm

Great post, I enjoyed the logic run through. From square one I was figuring you'd be in great shape, until I saw how little your chassis actually weighs....remarkably light! My chassis weighs so much it feels like the camper could weigh a lot more and not worry about tippy ness but I really am surprised at your low weight. Glad my guess was right at least, you sure won't have an issue I remember Doug Hackney posting a nice thread here where he did the same sort of calculation but after he had assembled his rig. As I recall he used a forklift and scale and lifted each corner to a specific angle (or maybe just measured the angle) and measured weights and got a pretty darn precise measurement of his vertical COG. I would be interesting if once you assemble the rig to do the ACTUAL measurement and compare against your prediction. Doug was doing it to get a feel for what sort of side hill angle he could drive safely. you've added a nice contribution here, thanks!

Posted By: sabconsulting on 04/04/14 12:57am

Excellent calculation. Another thing to consider is the CoG of whatever you plan to carry on the rear part of the load bed, but I can't see that being a problem either. Cheers, Steve. '07 Ford Ranger XLT Supercab diesel + '91 Shadow Cruiser - Sky Cruiser 1 '98 Jeep TJ 4.0 '15 Ford Fiesta ST '09 Fiat Panda 1.2

Posted By: Jfet on 06/08/14 10:11pm

Long time with no update. We have been working a bit here and there getting the systems installed and interior layout. As mentioned we went with a 12V/24V NovaKool compressor fridge instead of the 3-way propane fridge we had already purchased (oops). The NovaKool vents to the front so I had to seal up the huge holes I had cut in the side for the previous fridge. I will have to either put a fake screen over the aluminum or some big stickers For the kitchen counter, we went back and forth about what to do. At first I was going to go cheap and get the quick and dirty veneer covered particle board counter you find at Lowes/Depot. We then started thinking about Corian. While visiting Crosscut Hardwoods, we saw some solid walnut 1.5" thick countertops and were sold. I mean, how many truck campers have a solid walnut countertop? The backsplash is made up of metal tiles although it has not been finished and will wrap around to the stove. The stove, water heater, and furnace are all installed and working on propane. I made a sealed metal box for the propane fittings that is vented to the outside. It also contains a solenoid valve controlled by a propane leak sensor which will shut off the propane automatically in event of a leak. I pressure tested the system for a week with a manometer and it held perfect pressure. The wiring panels are Blue Sea marine versions that you find in boats (exact DC model is in our sailboat). They are very nice quality and I just like the look and feel. It was a mass of wiring but I tried to route it neatly. I used a CO2 laser attached to the head of my cnc mill to cut out the protection acrylic for the AC section. I will miss that tool when we hit the road... We made a shroud with ducting for the little AC window unit that allows it to reside totally inside the RV. There is a pan that can drain to the outside and everything is aluminum and weatherproofed around the AC unit. It seems to work quite well although the hottest day we have had was 82 (it cooled down to 68 very fast). Obviously we will not use it a lot because even at 600 watts it is too much for a battery bank. We also finally got the door and windows installed. The camper is getting very close to being weatherproofed. I need to install the clearance lights and flood lights plus seal up a few hatches. I am itching to see this thing on the truck but I know it will be a lot harder to work on it out in the driveway vs in the garage. Still, I think we will have a picture of it on the truck this summer. We will finish up cabinets and flooring this fall/winter. * This post was edited 06/08/14 10:41pm by Jfet *

Posted By: rickeoni on 06/08/14 11:30pm

Looking awesome. 2008 F450 2007 Adventurer 85WS 2012 Haulmark "The Garage" 2016 Outdoors RV Glacier Peak 26 RKS

Posted By: kereams on 06/09/14 12:30am

Consistently amazed! You do awesome work. *2011 F350 SRW CC/LB/PSD - Mods: Custom overload springs with custom early engagement blocks~Firestone Airbags~Hellwig Big Wig Rear Sway~Rancho RS9000XL~Bilstein Steering Damper~19.5" Hankook DH01'a on steel wheels. *2012 Chalet Ascent S95R Camper

Posted By: BoonHauler on 06/09/14 09:41pm

I see you've been at it fulltime during your absence, that's a lot of work you've gotten done! .... Looking great!! I see we think a lot alike.... so what BTU furnace unit did you go with?.... is that a Everest Star?

Posted By: Jfet on 06/10/14 08:19am

BoonHauler: Yes, that is a Atwood 7920-II 18,000 BTU input furnace. Good eye! A little side project here. I was planning to make some outdoor floodlights for our camper. I wanted very bright, low profile, LED lights with adjustable intensity. Hard to find cheap so I was going to make my own. While at Camping World this past weekend, I saw these incandescent porch lights for $9.95. I didn't care about the guts but the housing and lens looked about perfect (and very hard for me to make myself). I purchased some and yesterday converted them into (insanely) bright outdoor floods for our camper. For the LED elements I used the modules out of failed 450 lumen 7.5 watt household style 60 watt bulbs. It turns out the electronics in this model fail after a short while because of poor quality but the LED elements are perfectly fine. The LED elements are mounted to a aluminum backed circuit board and quite robust. The LED series string runs on about 36V DC at 250mA so I used a little potted DC-DC current regulated converter to drive two of them in parallel (this particular model is a 700mA Flexblock by LuxDrive). The current (and thus light output) is controlled by a simple resistor (or potentiometer for variable light intensity). I cut a little 1/8" thick aluminum plate to mount the flat LED modules then bent a 1/16" thick aluminum bracket to hold this plate at angle. LEDs do generate some heat but it is likely some of that will flow through the aluminum bracket into the aluminum skin of our RV. At any rate, it is a lot better heat dissipation than the little LED incandescent replacement bulbs you see in stores. The last photo shows it running at about 80% of full power. It is saturating the camera and my eyes still are a bit sore from looking at it from 12 feet away. One side of the camper will have two of these Don't camp too close to me if you want to sleep!

Posted By: CA Traveler on 06/10/14 08:43am

m4products.com has a variety of regulated, non-polarity, 12V LEDs. I have a number of these on the inside. They also have vehicle flood lights but definitely cost more and I don't believe they are as low profile. 2009 Holiday Rambler 42' Scepter with ISL 400 Cummins 750 Watts Solar Morningstar MPPT 60 Controller 2014 Grand Cherokee Overland Bob

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