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@@royblackburn1163 yea I’m going to go out on a limb and say with 100% certainty that guys weren’t making hard side roof top tents for cars during the Great Depression or ww2 lol

@DIY_Davy They did actually, even old land rovers in the 50s and 60s had hard poptops, (carawagon), not many concepts are new, but now we have Internet we see alot more modern versions. You can watch a carawagon top put up on I should be back on the 10th channel.

I know there’s “similar” stuff from the 60s there are hundreds of patents that lapsed and are now being claimed as the first but even so after hours of previously combing through old magazines, literature and patents I’ve never seen a (DIY) (Hard sided) roof top camper. And I’m absolutely certain these things weren’t created during the Great Depression or WWII because the men were too busy having no money or fighting in Europe

@@timmaio yea I looked a couple different types of honey comb and core types. The driving factors were cost, weight, strength and insulation. I decided the cost and lack of insulation of the buds core wasn’t really worth it

@@AdamBurgess-p3g I finished this over a year ago now and it works exceptionally especially in the cold I get practically 0 condensation inside even when it’s sub 0 temperatures. Aluminum does have a high heat transfer which is what creates the condensation as the aluminum gets cold. Luckily since only the outer frame is aluminum this doesn’t really matter as the surface area of interior aluminum is pretty negligible.

@@jamesstack965 thanks brother!

Are you the son of the tiger from the jungle book?

@@Paul-rp7uh thank you!

@@juliemaas688 thanks so much! I hope you’re doing well too!

Yea you definitely could, it was significantly cheaper for me to make the carbon panels the way I did, than to purchase really any kind of comparable composite panel like an frp honeycomb but if you had a good source that was priced well or just weren’t willing to laminate the panels yourself it would be a really good alternative to the composite I used. There are also polypropene honeycomb panels which I wasn’t super familiar with at the time of building. These would have been really good to use as the roof, door, and wall panels because they’re pretty cheap, light and strong enough for those sections. I’d be hesitant to use them on the floor without some added support or without going a little bit thicker on the core thickness. I have the complete CAD model and some technical drawings available on my website: diydavy.com if you’re interesting.

Link isn’t working

I appreciate that!

Thanks! The torque generated would be extremely hard to calculate even in a static scenario where the truck is stationary and only the wheels are turned because I don’t know the actual corner weights of the vehicle, it’s assisted by a hydraulic cylinder and nearly every component of the system dynamically moves with any input. But even if I could do that calculation, that stationary calculation completely goes out the window when actually driving because it’s impossible to accurately calculate the dynamic torque the system would apply even using a simulated cad analysis because there are infinitely many factors especially in a high speed off-road application. I guess you could put a dynamometer on the pitman arm and the linkage bars to measure torque after it was actually built and it was used in the the desired application but I don’t have dynamometer money laying around lol . So the answer is I don’t know, but it’s engineered with overall good practice design and commonly used features in similar systems of the same application.

Thanks! Yep it's my design. I'm building my 3rd gen Tacoma into a class 7f truck to race in the Baja1000 as well as other races and associations. I'm hoping to actually fabricate and manufacture everything for the front end by the end of the summer to target finishing everything necessary to actually race in 2025. I've already starting building the fenders I designed necessary for the amount of wheel travel I am anticipating with this steering and suspension system I designed

@@DIY_Davy that's awesome man. Good luck out there, I usually try to catch some coverage of Baja every year. Maybe I'll see you.

Well you definitely don’t need those but they make it much easier

It’s Fusion 360

Yes they’re on my website diydavy.com It includes the cad model to make any changes you’d like, written instructions with the technical drawings, parts list and pictures and the materials list

Thanks! Hahaha yea i definitely should have, it probably would have saved me so time and frustration. I have one now though

I just finished it up. Its available at diydavy.com. under plans it includes the material list, detailed instructions with technical drawings, pictures and the functioning CAD model

@@DIY_Davy Thank you for sharing. Speaking from Brazil, here $125 is half the minimum wage. I aimed high... it doesn't fit in my wallet. Congratulations to the project.

@@ToniPLay-xs8pw yea I understand, it’s hard to value the amount of time and effort I put into this but lot of people said the same thing so it’s now $50 if that helps.

😂😂 yes identical to this

Yes, I actually finished building this quite a few months ago now. I wound up using carbon fiber for a large portion of the project.

Thank you. Yes I had to take a break from social media for a while for school and work but I’m just about wrapped up with the “final” 3D model and drawings for plans to release along with my list of materials

@@DIY_Davy Hello, any progress on this project for download or purchase? Grateful

Yea I definitely considered it and may even recommend that to someone doing their own. There are a couple problems with t slot: one Issue is they’re about twice as heavy as rectangular tubing so this would bring the total weight from about 180 lbs to somewhere around 250. A pretty substantial increase but looking back probably worth it for the added functionality, time saving and appearance. The other problem is the weight is double IF you can source the t slot profile in a 1”x6” profile or at least a 1x5” tall profile or metric equivalent. 80/20 and similar suppliers selling to non business entities in the US don’t carry that profile and only carry 1.5”x6” which would ever further increase the weight. If you could source the extrusion straight from China or through business related connections it would certainly be ideal. I also wanted to challenge myself and try to weld aluminum.

Thanks! So like all the other panels the triangular panels have an exterior aluminum frame. I just welded that frame then traced the interior of the triangle the same way as the other panels. Because I also welded that inside edge of the tip as well I had to terminate the tip of the triangle with a very small flat section to match that. But after I glued all the edges of the foam to the aluminum any small gap like that was just filled up. Let me know if that answers your question

Thanks! Yea definitely not extremely polished and there are definitely quite a few things I would have done differently one of them being vacuum bagging the carbon fiber. But I was trying to save costs where I could while still having something extremely light weight. I wouldn’t ever put this into production, I don’t really have the passion for the project to devote that kind of time and funds into. This was really just born out of the wants I had personally for a roof camper and potentially helping other people fill those same needs if they can follow along and do it themselves.

Ecoflow Wave 2

@@DIY_Davy thank you

About 185 lbs

Can you make it from lighter, yet, as strong materials? ​@@DIY_Davy

@@robertwilson1827 that would be extremely difficult. The top and bottom frame could be made from carbon fiber but that would be extremely cost inefficient and probably only shed about 20-30lbs for double the cost and be nearly impossible without molds. Aside from that, it’s pretty much the lightest weight a hard wall roof tent could possibly be without spending ludicrous amounts of money

Excellent job! I would have painted it. Truck bed liner black not to hide any imperfections. I'm building one myself and this is the best video I found yet. 🍻 Can you tell me how much it cost you and how long did it take?

Thanks! There are quite a few things I would have done differently and I can’t go into all of them in a comment but I still don’t have a solution for everything. Now having tested in everything extreme weather condition I think I’ve pretty much come across every potential issue the roof camper will face. I would have probably made the overall length it a few inches longer to have a larger opening to pass through the bed and the camper while still maintaining the full sleeping length. I wish I had vacuum bagged all the carbon fiber components instead of the hand wet layup. I think this would have produced a much better looking and stronger overall construction overall as well as probably cutting down on composite construction time by a significant margin. I also wish I could have sourced aluminum extrusion for the frame instead of the tubing to provide more utility and look much nicer but there isn’t anything available off the shelf that’s not double the weight of rectangular tubing. But I probably could have found something lighter coming directly from China if I scoured for a week or so. Overall it gets quite a bit more hot than a fabric roof tent in extreme heats but really excels in the winter retaining a lot more heat and having absolutely no condensation on any surface inside the camper. It performs about the same as a fabric style tent in normal weather.