Raw Recruit (Newbie) Will Need Lots of Help

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Raw Recruit (Newbie) Will Need Lots of Help

Postby CaleyAnn » Wed Jan 17, 2018 8:31 am

Hello, I'm a newbie. I live in the high desert of southern California. I got introduced to Placer (gold) mining about 10 years ago, and did that for a few years until the local area got torn up by the off roaders. So, my little CRV could not handle the loose sand and kept getting stuck. I quit mining until a year or so ago, when I joined another gold mining club who had claims that are accessible by my car.

I did a couple of trips out to the claims. I stayed in a motel, which basically ate up whatever gold I found, plus more cash. Gold mining is fun, but you have to come out ahead somehow. So I quit again. I am not a person who like to camp outside or in a soft walled tent. There are scorpions, rattlesnakes, coyotes, mountain lions, an various other not so nice denizens of the desert that I don't want living with me at night in my sleeping bag. I knew I needed some kind of camper to be able to pursue the gold mining pastime. I'd thought of a used RV, but was told that you would be purchasing other peoples problems. I thought about building a teardrop camper, but right now my carpentry skills are atrocious. So I finally figured out that if I purchased a cargo trailer, I probably had the skills to do a little work inside to make it functional as a camper

And yesterday I purchased a very small cargo trailer. It is only 4x6 in size, and the reason for that is that my little car, a 2001 Honda CRV is just not up to hauling big trailers. And my carpentry skills are not good enough to attempt to build a teardrop camper at this time.

So, I plan to convert it. I figure I have room up front for a shelf and maybe some small cabinets up near the roof. I also will put in a bench/cabinet along one side, at the floor for a place to sit. I will also make a removable table that performs two duties; one being the table, and by flipping it over, use it as the other part of a bed platform. There's not a whole lot of room for stuff, but maybe I can somehow manage.

I would also like to power this with 12VDC so I can have some LED lighting, and possibly run a really small 12 volt TV, and a radio, and some kind of cooling system, probably a fan. I am hoping I can find a solar power system I can sit up on top of the camper trailer when I am parked to gather power. I would have to build some kind of box to fit on the towing assembly, so I can put batteries inside, and the charging control system. This is something I have absolutely no Idea about how to go about things.

So, as a "Newbie", I will definitely need help trying to figure out how to make things work. And most importantly, I need to keep the weight down. The trailer weighs 610 pounds, and I would like to keep it well under 1000 pounds, preferably below 900.

Anyway, I will start a thread on this conversion, and I hope I can get some help trying to figure out all of this, and just what steps I should take when building things. I hope to have part of the conversion done by May, so I can try the trailer out on a trip to the gold claim. CaleyAnn
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Re: Raw Recruit (Newbie) Will Need Lots of Help

Postby Vedette » Wed Jan 17, 2018 11:41 am

Welcome to the Forum CaleyAnn
Are you sure you are going down the right path with a very small cargo trailer? :thinking:
From what you have said in your introductory post, I would think a traditional 4' x 8' teardrop trailer would have met your needs perfectly.
And might have lead you down a whole new lifestyle path and a whole new group of new friends.
Main reason for a teardrop over a cargo trailer would be the "Galley" :thumbsup:
There are lots of nice little Teardrops For Sale out there! It is not too late.
Cut your loses before you begin.....there are lots of people looking for cargo trailers (to haul cargo in) so you can easily get your money back.
Good Roads
Brian & Sandi
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Re: Raw Recruit (Newbie) Will Need Lots of Help

Postby CaleyAnn » Wed Jan 17, 2018 1:25 pm

Brian and Sandi, Believe it or not, here in California, Teardrop trailers that are used are almost impossible to obtain, and when they do come up for sale, the cost is usually five figures, basically what a new teardrop would cost. Seems teardrops have a similar good resale value.

Right now I am still paying down debt. It will be about three more years before I am basically debt free, if I live long enough to do that. :-) I do not want to wait to go and do things for that long. I am 68, and not getting any younger. And my little car, the only one I own, is not capable of moving more than 1000 pounds. It has the small engine in it, and technically was not designed to tow anything. I did tow about one ton of cargo and trailer to and from Florida back when the car was new, but had to be quite careful, doing only 50-55 mph. As I said, I have one vehicle, and refuse to go into debt to get another, I will wait until my debt is paid down, accumulate a sizable down payment, and then get myself more than likely a mid-sized SUV that can tow at least 1500 pounds. It must also have 4-wheel drive, not AWD. I am not a truck person, but if I have to get one, I would need a mid-sized, or a smaller full sized one, also with 4-wheel drive. And I am definitely not a sedan person. Sedans have no utility value for me.

I think this little trailer can be worked to make it usable. I can always use the available storage area to pack in what I need for what little cooking I do. Heck, being single, I don't really cook much at all for myself, so a galley would almost be useless for me. I have a 1`0x10 pop-up awning, a 10x10 tent that was designed to attach to the awning, and I have a two room tent used for a potty and shower. The travel trailer is more of a safety thing for me. I do not like camping in soft walled things. I am not comfortable because of the creatures that roam the desert at night. I need that comfort level that the solid walled trailer provides.

Basically I will be doing what I mentioned before. I will put in a bed platform that has storage underneath on one side where, when it is not a bed, it is a bench on that side. With that bench I will have that removable table that also doubles as the platform for the bed. I don't need a whole lot more. I would like to have a 12VDC setup that will run a very small TV, an AM/FM radio, a CD player, and things like a fan and possibly a heater, though I am not sure there is such a thing as an efficient 12VDC heater. I may have to find some kind of little propane heater that is rated for indoors. Also want LED Lighting inside. Not sure I need a light on the outside. Will have to see what everyone here says.

What cooking I do can be done on a table outside with the propane stove I already own. I don't need an oven or microwave. In other words, I really only need the basics.

What I do need here on the Forum is advice on how do go about doing things. I know I need a couple of vents somewhere on the trailer walls to allow air circulation so either heat or cold has somewhere to go. The dealership that sold me the trailer was quite firm about not allowing me to put something in the roof. They said it would invalidate the five year warranty on the roof

I plan on putting in insulation on the walls and in the ceiling. The trailer has horseshoe type supports that are about 1 1/2 inches square, so I should be able to squeeze one inch insulation in and cover it with 1/8 ply on the ceiling, and use the structural ply they have on the sides.

I also need an expert here to tell me what size solar system I need for such a small trailer. My guess is I do not need more than a 100 Ah battery if it is a deep cell type. But because I need to keep the weight down, I probably will go with a lithium type that can be charged using a solar cell setup. That would allow me to have about 400 Ah available to me, which I would hope would be adequate for all the electrical things in the trailer.

I got the trailer inside my backyard this morning, parked where I can work on things with my power tools. So I am ready to go. I will start another thread to start asking questions on how to go about things. CaleyAnn
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Re: Raw Recruit (Newbie) Will Need Lots of Help

Postby Vedette » Wed Jan 17, 2018 3:11 pm

Air movement (displacement) is very important! Otherwise you get an amazing amount of condensation build up.
We use 2 (one on each side) computer fans (scavenged from old computers) that we run at night while sleeping.
Miss Piggy (our teardrop) is all steel, so condensation was even a bigger concern. Those little fans move plenty of air
and run off of almost no power.
I would consider using an AGM RV Battery before lithium ....less than 1/2 the price, but still twice the price of a flooded type Deep Cycle
Battery.
Good Roads
Brian & Sandi
PS
You can find used TDs a whole lot cheaper than 5 figures here in the PNW. :roll:
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Re: Raw Recruit (Newbie) Will Need Lots of Help

Postby Vedette » Thu Jan 18, 2018 10:54 am

Check out Minnie Winnie in General Discussion!
Act fast!
Brian
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Re: Raw Recruit (Newbie) Will Need Lots of Help

Postby jsnbergman » Fri Jan 19, 2018 2:31 pm

Welcome, and im sure you will find plenty of help here. I was stationed at the Marine Base for several years in the 90s and am very familiar with your area. Like said below ventilation will be key even in the dry desert :thumbsup:
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