XBOW (Xtreme Bed On Wheels) Build

[KCStudly]

Nice work. Good pictures, too.

[Dirtclod]

SW and KC

Thanks for taking the time to post up. I was beginning to wonder if there was anyone out there in TNTTT land.

Also thanks for the words of wisdom on not filling the Dado's before glue up. I plan on taping them up really well before the poly. But thanks for the reminder.

As for a clean shop? If you saw it in person, you may retract that statement.

[swoody126]

Dirtclod, on the thread i am posting about building a small wooden double paddle kayak i now have over 4k hits butt less than a dozen of those have been replies

40-odd of them are my posts

and the rest are phantoms/lurkers who remain silent

ONWARD THRU THE FOG/saw dust...

sw

[Dirtclod]

Thanks SW

Spent a few minutes last night test fitting the cabin cabinets. Gonna need a few minor tweaks but nothing a belt sander cant fix.

[sid]

Hey Mike,
Mark from Smyrna here.... You're build is looking awesome, nice work...

[Dirtclod]

Hey Mike,
Mark from Smyrna here.... You're build is looking awesome, nice work...

Hi Mark.

Thanks for the kind words. It was so nice meeting you and the rest of the VolunTears. If you ever get out this way, give me a shout and come on by and see it in person. I will PM you my number.

Mike

[j.hensley]

I love watching and living vicariously through all TNTT builds. Great work! One day I'll get to build my own. Until then, keep up the great work!

[Dirtclod]

Thanks J Hensley for the kind words.

No "picture worthy" updates lately. I am to the point of adding epoxy to the outside of the walls and polycrylic to the inside of the walls. Nothing too exciting about watching epoxy dry ! Add a coat wait 2 or 3 hours, sand, add a coat wait 2 or 3 hours, sand ...over and over.

[Dirtclod]

Good Morning TNTT

Sorry for the lack of updates lately, I threw my back out and was out of action for about a week . A few trips to the chiropractor later and I am able to function again.

I would be much farther along if I would quit changing my mind along the way. Seems every time I look at this thing I get a "What If" moment and new plans are laid. Decided to move the PD 4045 up to the galley wall and give up some interior self space for more storage drawers in the galley. (Cook's orders !!)

Here are some pics. I need to get some new ones and will post those up as soon as I can.

[Dirtclod]

Morning TNTT

I wanted to post up my pictures from my AC experiment. Now granted this is all in theory and after seeing the idea in the B.O.B build I decided to go for it and if it doesn't work out then I will use the AC in the shop.

My plan is to have the AC unit sit on a 6 inch platform to keep it as high as possible in the bulkhead to keep the bedding from blocking the front. I noticed that the Swiss Tear had this issue and had to build a diverter of sorts. In this platform will house a 4 inch deep plastic tote that will have a drain for captured condensation. For now I will just empty it when it starts filling up. So to do this I also added magnets to the hot air exhaust hood and to the 6 inch platform that will allow for a "no tool" removal to get to the drain pan. As for air flow in to keep the compressor cool I added a 8 inch deck inspection plate to the side and have a 8 inch computer fan that pushes 106 cfm that will pull air from the outside straight into the compressor vents. For exhaust I will also add another 8 inch PC fan that will suck air out through a vent in the floor.

Again this is all in theory and not tested yet, but I hope to have it all hooked up soon and will post up my findings. If anyone sees a problem or has a suggestion. As always I am open to any and all suggestion.

[Dirtclod]

I spent some time this weekend working on the AC. Have it all fabbed up and I hooked it up for the first time yesterday to test it out. Let it run about 2 hours. It was in the upper 80's and very humid in Middle Tennessee yesterday. The AC worked well. The intake fan seemed to do its job and the exhaust vent / fan pulled the heat out. I still need to work out some condensation drain since it output about 6 cups of water in 2 hours pulling the humidity out.

Of course I had to get the fans with cool little blue LED's



System all in place. I 1/4 inch rubber strips below the AC to isolate it from the trailer for noise and lashing straps and footman loops to hold it in place. Exhaust hood is epoxied on both inside and out and will be screwed in place once I fab up a drainage system. Pulled my motorcycle battery to run the fans temporarily.



The rest of the day was spent applying Polycrylic and Epoxy to the galley parts.


Making sawdust and making progress.

[working on it]

I spent some time this weekend working on the AC. Have it all fabbed up and I hooked it up for the first time yesterday to test it out. Let it run about 2 hours. It was in the upper 80's and very humid in Middle Tennessee yesterday. The AC worked well. The intake fan seemed to do its job and the exhaust vent / fan pulled the heat out. I still need to work out some condensation drain since it output about 6 cups of water in 2 hours pulling the humidity out.

Of course I had to get the fans with cool little blue LED's



System all in place. I 1/4 inch rubber strips below the AC to isolate it from the trailer for noise and lashing straps and footman loops to hold it in place. Exhaust hood is epoxied on both inside and out and will be screwed in place once I fab up a drainage system. Pulled my motorcycle battery to run the fans temporarily.

• Nice work! You've already tested your unit in 80 degree temperature, but how much heat build-up was being retained in your exhaust duct? I tested my set-up during similar or warmer weather, and it worked...until the ambient temperature rose to 98 degrees, and still experienced thermal shutdown, even with the exterior vent enlarged and with an axial fan inside the duct. It finally became fully functional after I eliminated all restrictions to the exhaust flow, and the 240 cfm duct fan was able to remove the heat fast enough.

• 

  140 degrees-temperature of exhaust.png (603.47 KiB) Viewed 2271 times

  initial testing found heat build-up to thermal shutdown levels

• 

  lower temp.-thermometer with unimpaired exhaust.png (498.56 KiB) Viewed 2271 times

  ducting removed/modified 3 times before exhaust temp. fell to acceptable level

• 

  THE SOLUTION-Aero-flo 6 inch-diameter duct fan.png (612.83 KiB) Viewed 2271 times

  hi-flow, hi-heat axial fan made it work
• I used a metal boot, with an 8" exit, reduced that to fit into a 6" insulated duct, and finally thru a metal/louvered wall vent (5" opening). Thermal shutdown occurred due to heat building up, back into the exhaust boot. I tried the axial fan, without success, until I progressively enlarged the metal vent's openings, until I finally eliminated it, altogether...I used it as a hinged cover, matching my other similar vents). Your curved exit duct/boot is much more direct, and less restrictive, but it may still experience some backup of exhaust heat (the fan and louvered plate blocking the outflow, the heat building up directly under the trailer - and rising back up- , the louvered plate itself, heating up). And, under continual use, how durable/heat resistant is the plastic housing of the fan, and will its' bearings seize due to heat? I also bought a 120vac computer case fan, to use when I was building my A/C system, but the airflow was insufficient in my opinion, and after I read the exhaust temperatures involved, decided that it would fail, eventually. That's why I searched for an inline axial fan, designed to work in home heating ducts. I used the case fan to cool the chassis of the unit instead. It's blue, too.

[Dirtclod]

Working,

Thanks for the reply and detailed results from your experiments.

The shroud did get warm to the touch. I will fire it up again today and check the temps with my laser thermometer and see what it is after running a few hours.(Don't know why I didn't think of that while it was running the other day) I also wondered about the life span of the little fan in the exhaust duct. I may just remove it as it seems to hinder the exhaust flow more than help it. I plan on making the exhaust hood removable so that I can run it wide open during the day when the hatch is open and then only put the hood on at night or when the hatch is closed. I hope this will keep me out of the thermal shutdown mode. If not I may need to look into a stronger output fan to pull away the heat.

There has got to be a way to make this work. Those Little Guy trailers have an AC in the cabin that has to vent somewhere. Does anyone know how they magically remove the hot exhaust?

[Dirtclod]

Morning TNTTT

Sorry for the lack of real updates. We have actually been out camping



Once I finally found a cooler that would fit long ways I modified the rear drawer area a bit. Here's a quick shot of the new layout. Gonna have 2 big drawers and now the battery will live in the tongue box. Not the most convenient but it does give the cook more drawer space. Also built the cooler tray for the slides.

At this point I am about through with all of the dry fit mockups and will start actually assembling this thing then on to the inner ceiling.

[Dirtclod]

Afternoon TNTTT

Had a good cool weekend to get out and work on the tear. Finished up most of the assembly in the galley



Built drawers and slide out for cooler



Milled up some African Mahogany for door and drawer stiles and rails. Centers will be 1/4 birch ply





Also glued up the inner ceiling panels and put 4 coats of polycrylic on them. Next up will be finishing the drawer and door fronts then up goes the ceiling.

Making sawdust and making progress.

.