My bucket of compromises

[Duck1021]

I've always said that any build, whether a camper or a computer or whatever, is a bucket of compromises. The trick is to pick the ones that suit your priorities.

Let's start with the purpose for this little camper build and what it needs to be able to do:
Must pull well at highway and offer the smallest frontal area possible
Must have room inside for me to be able to put on pants comfortably. Don't have to be able to stand, but I should at least be able to have height to be kneeling and not pressing my head against the ceiling
Must fit in the garage
Must have ground clearance for fire roads and off road camping
Must fit a queen size bed for myself and Mrs. Duck to sleep comfortably
Must have inverter to power my CPAP machine and laptops for working on the road

Next, the nice to haves:
Air conditioning and heat to extend the camping seasons into the winter and into the hottest summer temps (Planning on being in GA in July)
Use the same size tires and wheels as the tow vehicle so that any spare can be used anywhere
Have a built in cooler with on board refrigeration so I don't need to rely on ice (I'm a refrigeration mechanic)
Have enough storage that the trailer can stay stocked up with camp gear at all times so we can just hitch up and go whenever we want. We both finish work at 2pm or so, so it's nice to beat all the traffic on the weekend
Solar charging for the battery bank that will power lights, inverter, refrigeration, etc...
A way to carry our bikes with us for getting around where we camp.

And finally, what isn't important to us:
We don't want to cook inside
We don't like the limitations of awnings attached to the camper

After a lot of thinking, we decided that a lot of the must haves are exclusive of each other with conventional design. To have the interior height, be low enough to tuck behind the tow vehicle (Trailblazer), and use the same Trailblazer tires, the axle would be above the frame. To have the ground clearance for off road while being low for the highway the suspension would need to be adjustable.

This is where we decided that we would be building our own frame and suspension system.
I started the job of designing the airbag based suspension system that would give us enough travel. I came up with a 2:1 ratio system that maximizes wheel travel. We would be able to run from 0-15" of ground clearance. Attached is the render of the basic design.

trailer suspension assy.png (436.93 KiB) Viewed 1500 times

The files got sent out for laser cutting and the steel arrived, so we started building.
My wonderful wife welded up the bulk of the frame after we aligned and tacked everything.

Plum welding frame.jpg (158.39 KiB) Viewed 1500 times

I worked on tacking up and aligning the boxes that would take the forces of the airbags as they suspended the trailer frame.

Suspension tacking.jpg (94.1 KiB) Viewed 1500 times

[rjgimp]

Looks like a great start. Sorry I missed seeing this back in April, is there more...?

I like your separate lists of priorities. I have 3 different lists: must-haves for me, must-haves for Mrs G if I expect her to come along, and would-be-nice but can-live-without. I agree some things on a list might make other things impossible or at least really difficult, so plans B, C, D, etc are always a good idea.

Regarding power needs, the things you mentioned on your first list will function just fine on DC power. It is really inefficient to start with DC, invert it to 120VAC, only to plug in something like a cpap or computer charger that contains a DC converter within the power cord. If you aren't going to include refrigeration or air conditioning, you might consider forgoing AC power altogether. Operating a cpap and charging laptops and phones can fairly easily be accomplished with a battery and moderate solar array. Many builds here have DC power only. Certainly worth some thought.

Carry on! Looking forward to more updates.

[RJ Howell]

I don't consider those Compromise! You made a list of needs, then wants and balanced through reality. Though in my world sending spec's out to be laser cut is not a reality...
Air suspension is a different angle. Maybe I missed the why and would like to understand. Adjustable clearance? Curious why over torsion.

Looking forward to more of the build!

[S. Heisley]

The first three "Must haves" are easily done.
With the CPap, there are a couple ways to do that.:
1) You can get a CPap that has a rechargeable battery and recharge it with a generator during the day.
2) With a generator, you can probably run your laptop at the same time as it is recharging the CPap.
3) When you feel you can afford it and have the time to do it, you can get a solar powered system. That could range from a few hundred dollars to a few thousand dollars, depending on how much you can do yourself.

Your ducks appear to be lined up nicely.