Habitat I

[bobhenry]

The biggest regret in my 5x10 build is not thinking far enough ahead on my electrical. I seperated my 120v from my 12 v and ran the wiring in the wall cavities and installed 1/2 depth electrical boxes for access. I just wish I had ran some type of conduit for the wiring. I now have a bad wire and a dc short somewhere and I will have to disconnect all and reconnect 1 at a time until I find the offending circuit and try and pull new wire thru several turns and way to small holes drilled here and there. I know I will lose the wire during the pull I just hope it is something I can live without!
Plan your electrical runs (and water) way ahead don't let it be an after thought.

[TheDuke]

That is really good advice. I guess you don't think of those things while you're all excited about the build. At least I have that cross-trailer raceway, but it looks like I should revisit that idea in Mikes Generic Benroy (I think that's where it was) of a large vertical conduit on either side. Fortunately, I don't have much of a water system to worry about. Thanks for the heads-up.

I wonder, just how ugly would a surface mount raceway be? I know they sell this stuff for quick re-model situations. Maybe there's a version that actually looks good.

TheDuke

[TheDuke]

SaGR, I've thought about your "squattiness" comment, and at the same time, we've been talking frames over on the "Red Trailers 5x10 "teardrop trailer frame" thread, and it led to my doing a raised version, that will now contain me (5'-7") standing up in the loo. So I put an outline pic of that, and one with the CR-V. Take a look.

TheDuke

[mikeschn]

ha ha ... you've been busy!!! I see you like the extra depth on the dropped floor too!



I'm busy this weekend, but maybe Monday I can catch up a little bit on my CAD work...

The iges file of my profile is here, if you want to eyeball that in your cad system.

http://www.mikenchell.com/images/et3.igs

Mike...

[TheDuke]

Ah, yes. IGES !! An acronym from the dim past.

My Architectural package doesn't know what it is. It thinks it's some kind of building material. Oh, well.

Hope it's a fun weekend, not some other kind.

TheDuke

[Miriam C.]

Great looking plan Duke. I don't see squat so you must have fixed it.

GitRdun

[mikeschn]

What format can you read? DXF?

Mike...

Ah, yes. IGES !! An acronym from the dim past.

My Architectural package doesn't know what it is. It thinks it's some kind of building material. Oh, well.

Hope it's a fun weekend, not some other kind.

TheDuke

[TheDuke]

DXF & DWG, but they lose all their intelligence (if they have any) when they come in. Everything becomes just 2D lines.

If you have anything other than just plain vanilla 2D autocad, like a 3D model, or anything that's not just lines, it won't be picked up.

When structural engineers would send me CAD data, I had to tell them to purge the file about 4 times, then global explode everything, then send it to me. Even then it would look wierd, and I would have to reconstruct a lot of stuff.

That's the problem with using the package I do. No interface with the outside world, and I'm getting behind. Maybe I should look seriously into this modeling program you're using. Forgot the name.

Free I can afford.

TheDuke

[jay]

http://moi3d.com/index.htm

[mikeschn]

Okay, I extracted a 2d profile of lines and arcs, and put in on the top work plane. You should be able to import this dxf...

http://www.mikenchell.com/images/et4.zip

Mike...

P.S. Yea, that's the modeling prg Jay, unfortunately it'll expire soon. I'm gonna go out and look for another free modeler that not outrageously difficult (3Dblender) or outrageously expensive (most of the other ones).

[TheDuke]

Mike:

Something got through. It was a fairly simple file, at least on this end. As you say, just 2D lines and arcs. All of the arcs had their associated chords, which I deleted. But at least I have a file of the outline. Is that the A/C and/or heater you have up in the bump-out?

I did a cursory search for other free solid or 3D modelers, found one called Alibre, which had a free version. Loaded it up, went through some of the basic tutorials, and it reminded me so much of Pro-E. If you are fairly high up on the Pro-E learning curve by now, this package might be easy for you to pick up. It's more than I want to put time into right now, and the free version (Alibre Express) will only manage 10 discrete parts in an assembly, and I suspect that would put a real crimp on your work.

So last night I went back to looking at Sketch-up, since so many folks have put real complex things on the forum from that package. Thing is, after a real good dig, I still don't seem to understand how to accurately size things. No (or very little) parametrics. They hint at a way to do it with "guide lines", but I can't make it work. I've been through their tutorials, and have put together a nice little house with porch, and put shingles on the roof, but they leave you stranded right there.

Other folks have talked about being able to download components from other sources, and I know (a little) about the Sketchup warehouse, but so far I haven't found things like wheels, tires, hitches, windows - - that would be useful to me. How to place an object accurately referenced to another is another thing I haven't found yet.

What keeps encouraging me is those nice looking Sketch-up models that keep appearing in the forum. Somebody, somewhere, has figured it out, and I wish they would give all of us some pointers so we can have that convenient modeling tool. Think of all the neater, better TD's that could be rolling around.

Hope you're having a nice holiday

TheDuke

[TheDuke]

Jay:

I had previously found MoI and loaded it up, but I couldn't find very much in the way of tutorials, or things like that, so I haven't used it. Maybe there's more there than I thought. Do you have a link to some serious documentation? I notice that it's written by a split-off guy from Robert McNeel, here in the Seattle area (Rhino). I've probably met him, in AutoCAD or Inventor classes down there (long ago).

Any help you can give, or did you just figure it out, trial and error?

TheDuke

[mikeschn]

Aw, I thought I would see the ET superimposed over your Habitat by now...

[TheDuke]

Hey, Mike, it's a holiday. I've got a potluck (the nirvana of retired persons) to go to and I can barely keep myself in this chair. Give me a day or two, and I'll have something. In fact, before I turn this thing off, I will probably send you my first try at a form to use to calc total trailer weight, along with some extra columns to use with a little method I devised to use the same data to calc and adjust tongue weight. I'm emailing it, because I'm not on solid ground with some of the points of theory, and I'd appreciate your looking at it before I put it on the forum and possibly start someone down the wrong track.

Take care

TheDuke

[mikeschn]

Is it just a coincidence that both trailers are the same height?



Mike...