Teardrops n Tiny Travel Trailers

I did finally manage to work out how to put a solid, insulated folding top on the Compact:



I'm sure it would be easier to understand images of a 3-D model, preferably with animation of the folding operation, but life is short... The blue bit is the top of the roof, the orange bits are the folding sides and the green bits are the folding front and back. There are full-length seals on every joint and I reckon the top would be watertight.

Updated plans here.

Andrew

Andrew, I really love this design. My wife has really decided she would like to be able to stand up in a trailer (especially after we went to a RV place and browsed pop-ups) but I am not allowed to park anything on the side of my house higher than the fence (6' - damn HOA rules!)
Can you give me some details on how the solid back and sides for the roof would be anchored when up? Also if I went with canvas, any suggestions on how to attach the canvas.

Awesome design man, truly!

I think one intention of the original Compact design was that it would fit in a normal garage. I haven't got that bit quite right yet as the trailer is 78" high with the roof down (or are US garage doors that high?) - but it would be easy to modify the design to less than 72".

In the up position, the side panels are held in place by the front/back panels which fold up between the sides. The seal acts sideways, so to keep pressure on the seal halfway along the side panel, I'd probably put a slide bolt* there engaging on the roof top.

The front/back panels are held by a slide bolt on each side that would engage in the side panels.

If using the 'canvas' sides, I would fix them in place by taking one turn around a small wood batten (say 1" x 1/2") and then screwing through both the batten and the 'canvas', probably with surface screw cups for prettiness.

Did that make sense or are sketches needed?

Andrew

*Not sure of the American word for these. Anyway, see McMaster-Carr catalogue page 2786.

OK so on the hard top everything is just kind of held in place by pressure. I guess the seal is just like regular rubber weatherstripping?
It sounds good.
I showed it to my wife and she loves it, so I think that is what we are going for. I will probably be starting in November and will take plenty of photos.
Not sure about the garage door. I will have to measure it and might even used a raised axle (to lower the body). Or make it slightly shorter with a higher popup.
I will have to spend some time refining the deisgn to my personal needs and tastes.

I've added some sections through the joints in the roof to make it clearer:



This is added to the roof pdf here.

The seal is intended to be a rectangular rubber one from the Trim-Lock catalogue - I think it's the same one that Rik used and liked.

Andrew

Andrew, here is a thought. What if the sides and back were fixed and just lowered in to the body? Then you would just need the hinge in front and a couple of those locking knife hinges in the back. Wouldn't that simplify it? You would just have to make sure the sides did not hit anything inside as they traveled down.

If you used canvas sides, would you still keep a single solid piece at the back to hold things up?

What if the sides and back were fixed and just lowered in to the body?

Nice idea, but the sealing problems where the sides pass through the (fixed) roof look really horrendous - an automotive company could solve this but not little old me...

If you used canvas sides, would you still keep a single solid piece at the back to hold things up?

My guess is that it would be a good idea to have some adjustability in the system to cope with strech or shrinkage of the 'canvas'. So the design shows two fixed length rods with the tops fixed to the roof and the bottom running in a track (using sliding door hardware, maybe?). The further along you push the bottom end of the rods, the further up the roof goes - but with the rods nearly vertical, it won't take much to lock the rods at the desired point.

I would go with a one-piece continous 'canvas' tube - I think mixing solid panels and canvas would be quite hard to do well.

Andrew

angib wrote:Nice idea, but the sealing problems where the sides pass through the (fixed) roof look really horrendous - an automotive company could solve this but not little old me...

You think so? I think it could be as clean as the folding sides. Just have a strip of insulation along the bottom lip of the top and the top lip of the bottom (see sketch)



In fact I think it would be pretty nice. Just use a coupld of draw latches to hold it down snugly and a couple of slide bolts like you said, to hold it up.

You have a lot less insulation this way too. What do you think?

p.s. It just occured to me, if you do it this way you do not have to have that thick "cap" to conceal the folding bits, so you could make it much more streamlined.

Shrug53 wrote:

angib wrote:Nice idea, but the sealing problems where the sides pass through the (fixed) roof look really horrendous - an automotive company could solve this but not little old me... :roll:

You think so? I think it could be as clean as the folding sides. Just have a strip of insulation along the bottom lip of the top and the top lip of the bottom (see sketch)



In fact I think it would be pretty nice. Just use a coupld of draw latches to hold it down snugly and a couple of slide bolts like you said, to hold it up.

You have a lot less insulation this way too. What do you think?

p.s. It just occured to me, if you do it this way you do not have to have that thick "cap" to conceal the folding bits, so you could make it much more streamlined.

Hey Shrug,

Your idea for a pop-up is similar to what I was talking about when I posted about a drop-down footwell. If you just turn your drawing upside down, you could create a nice deep footwell that would pull up when it comes time to travel so there wouldn't be any clearance issues.

By the way, I think your design is the best I've seen to date for creating headroom! Now you just need to figure out how to put some windows on the vertical surfaces of the pop-up to provide light.

I love the creativity of this list!

Joanne

Not wanting to rain on anothers design but one problem I see is,,,, to use the cabin at all you would have to raise the roof,,this includes getting to interior cabinets,,the pop up section should be as flush with the top as possible when lowered so the cabin could be used without poping the whole thing up every time,, with andrews design it is flush,,,Just an observation

chip

Chip wrote:Not wanting to rain on anothers design but one problem I see is,,,, to use the cabin at all you would have to raise the roof,,this includes getting to interior cabinets,,the pop up section should be as flush with the top as possible when lowered so the cabin could be used without poping the whole thing up every time,, with andrews design it is flush,,,Just an observation

chip

There is that. With mine however there are less opening sections to seal. I could do the pop-up flush gainst the walls, but then I either have to have cabinets mounted below the lowest point of the sides, or I need to mount cabinets on the pop-up portion which would add considerably to the weight.

However the sides would come in just enough to clear cabinets, which is someplace you would not be sticking your head anyway, so you could enter the trailer without the top being up.

As for windows on the pop-up section, I see no reason why a couple of pieces of plexiglass could not be flush mounted to the pop-up sides. In fact it had not occured to me, but that is a pretty good idea.

Shrug,

You are way more confident in getting a good seal than I am! :confused5:

When your roof is up, any water running down the sides will land on the seal and then back up from there until it gets up to the surface of the fixed roof. This is quite a reservoir of water to have sitting there trying to get past the seal (particularly when you're sleeping under it!). It is also water that will dump inside when you put the top down.

If you look at pretty much any application of seals, the seal is there to deflect water away into a gutter or drain, not to lie underwater itself.

Andrew

Ok, I am not sur ehow I see your seals are any different. It seems like with that many folding pieces you would have more trouble sealing.
How could you change my fixed sided design to eliminate water build-up?
How exactly does yours keep water running away?

Shrug53 wrote:Ok, I am not sur ehow I see your seals are any different. It seems like with that many folding pieces you would have more trouble sealing.
How could you change my fixed sided design to eliminate water build-up?
How exactly does yours keep water running away?

Shrug,
It appears to me that Andrews seals are all covered, and are for keeping air out, where the bottom ones of yours are outside and exposed to the elements, and would need to keep both air and water out. See the difference?

Shrug wrote:Ok, I am not sur ehow I see your seals are any different. It seems like with that many folding pieces you would have more trouble sealing.
How could you change my fixed sided design to eliminate water build-up?
How exactly does yours keep water running away?

You're dead right about the number of pieces in my design causing sealing problems, but I've looked at each one and decided there's a decent method. But I do need to do more on the bottom seal (at the hinge).

To explain the problem with your internal pop-up, here's a sketch:



On the left is your bottom seal - as rain runs down the side of the pop-up, it passes through the gap in the roof (there must be a gap if the pop-up moves) and collects in the space underneath until it's full of water as shown in the sketch.

On the right is a typical automotive use of a seal - it's the actual design of the seal on the tail-box of my motorcycle project. The orange bit is the fixed bottom and the blue is the lifting top - the interior is to the left and the exterior to the right. In this case, the water doesn't tend to go near the seal and only does so as wind-borne spray - when stationary, any water that gets into the seal chamber will try to drain out the bottom to the exterior.

I can't see an easy way to seal your pop-up without having water build-up. One solution would be to fit one or more drain tubes so that any water that comes in can drain out to the ground. Many sliding roof systems in cars use this, but those drain tubes do have a habit of clogging up, and then you're back to square one.

Andrew