Teardrops n Tiny Travel Trailers

HI all, thanks for all the great info on this forum. I'm pretty excited at the prospect of making a foamie of my own!

I've been working on a design for a small foamie standie trailer. I think I've got it nailed down, and would love some feedback. The idea is to have the lightest, smallest trailer possible that still has standing room and a bit of room to move around in. I'll be using it mostly on ski trips in the winter, so I want to be able to cook and hang out inside. I'm building it on an old pop-up camper frame that I found on craigslist, which determines some of the design and size. The rear of the trailer will have a bed, that is slept in lengthwise. The middle area will have a 4x4 ft drop floor. I'm planning on making the drop floor have fabric sides, so that it can be raised and lowered easily, making the overall trailer less high. The front area has a small table for cooking, etc. The top view of the trailer is wider in the middle than at both ends, to give a bit more "hang out" space in the standing area, and no excess space (and weight) in the sleeping area. The trailer profile is also tapered in both to (hopefully) help with wind resistance.

Approximate dimensions are 4 feet wide at the rear, 5 feet wide at the widest part, and 3 feet wide at the narrow front. The body will be about 11 feet long. The height will be determined by how the drop floor works out (i'll build that first). The goal is to have it just tall enough to stand comfortably in with the drop floor extended almost to ground level.

Here's some images of the CAD file I've made. You can see the trailer frame shape, as well as the overall shape of the trailer, and the interior in the cut-away view.

I'd look at making the drop floor permanent. In the first place it sounds like a cold feet special, and in the second place for cold weather camping you get all sorts of "interesting" problems with both fabric areas and areas that are less insulated than the rest. Basically it's going to ice up, internally and externally.

Watch the rear overhang and the potential rear downforce/side force from either the build or weight. You want more weight in front of the axle, not the rear, as this creates a sway effect. In addition, while you may have more weight on the nose, if the rear has a long overhang, then you can get a lever effect, which also can create the sway. Swaying trailers can be very dangerous.

dave

Lever effect isnt just sway, it will bounce the back end of your car up. Happened to me once, was interesting.
Please watch this, its like 30 seconds: https://youtu.be/i2fkOVHAC8Q
You want 10-15% of the total trailer weight to be on the tongue. I use a bathroom scale on the jack to check it.

On the trailer design, i like it! Heading fromt to back where it hits the widest point and starts to go narrow again- round that as much as possible, if you can keep the air stuck to your trailer it will be much more aerodynamic.
I like your drop down area, by fabric you mean waterproof canvass right?


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Hmm yeah maybe the axle is to far forward. It's tough to figure out where it should be. It would be much easier after the trailer is built, and just weigh the tongue weight with a scale like you mentioned. I suppose I could move it back a foot or so just to be safe.

I like your idea, nice design, compact and you can stand in it to get dressed, make coffee or a sandwich... I agree, the axle oughta go back some. The drop floor is a great idea. Definitely lowers the overall height and weight and increases the way the space can used.

How you drop the floor could be a challenge. My standie has a fixed drop floor to keep things simple, plus it is above the axle ( so the size of the floor is 38"x 90") . I needed the space for a family of 3 and a dog. We can only stand on about half of the floor space, it extends under the dinette at one end and under the bed about 20" at the other end.
I have always liked the idea of a droppable floor but not sure how to do it, I look forward to seeing your plan.
I can see how making it easy to drop and raise could be important, since I am often in and out of my trailer for this and that, just to put something in or check on stuff.

dancam wrote:Heading fromt to back where it hits the widest point and starts to go narrow again- round that as much as possible, if you can keep the air stuck to your trailer it will be much more aerodynamic.

This changes due to Reynolds number which is a function of characteristic length, typical velocities and fluid viscosity BUT, rule of thumb for cars and small trailers I figured out, is air will go round up to a 15 degree angle, as long as it has about 6" of surface to reattach to, and will also follow about a 4" radius or larger. So if it's greater than 15 degrees and rounding is too much work, break it up into 15 degree or smaller steps. This falls apart for long class A rigs and speed runs on the salt flats, but should be "close" for highway speeds.

Eye failed to pick up on the axle location earlier, yah, looks too far forward... only way it isn't is if you haul nothing but air behind it and have appliances, water tanks, across the front, two propane bottles and battery on the tongue, basically everything crammed forward. If you're eyeballing teardrops, beware that most of their weight is in a rear kitchen, so they can tend to put the axle quite far back. I think a design like the Wanderer in the design library is most similar to eyeball for the layout you want, but no substitute for figuring it all out properly.