Technical questions for Teardrop Design

[matthewp]

Hello all,

I've been "doing" the off-road trailer and ground tent "thing" for a while with my wife. The battle throughout the time has been to find my wife a "comfortable (to her specifications)" mattress. I am itching for a new project and realize the way to go on this is to build an off-road teardrop. I have found a basic design I want (still in my head at this time) with great help to StumperXJ's Sawtooth build thread. Therefore, I now have a couple of questions:

1) One thing I noticed his, and the other teardrop threads on this forum is that no-one is actually fiberglassing. I see folks are using a good multiple coatings of resin, but no actual fiberglass cloth & resin over the wood. Is there a reason for this?

2) I am going to need a LOT (In other words... Completely lost) of advice/assistance/references on figuring out a 12V set-up for the trailer. I'm looking at 1, possibly 2, deep cell batteries, a solar panel and some sort of auxilliary charging/power for when batteries die. All this is to run a water pump (maybe a water heater of some kind while I'm at it), a couple of lights (reading mostly) and an iPod dock. Advice all around on this idea is very much appreciated.

3) (Almost forgot this one...) I am planning on putting my coolers (Yes, I'm a peasant!) on drawer slides. For planning purposes, how many inches of clearance for the draw underneath and width should I add when figuring the size of the space of the cooler cabinet (IE: A 14" tall X 14" wide cooler needs a space 15" tall and 16" wide to account for the drawer constructed)?

Thank you in advance for all your info/advice/help.

 

[matthewp]

I think I may have found the answer to my power question in the Support Equipment section of the forum. Thanks TEOTWAKI!

 

[Woods]

I'd say that fiberglassing the joints would certainly add strength and seal very well. I'm not so sure that fiberglassing 100% of the panels would do much, other than add to cost and build time.

Sounds like you've got a good direction for 12V. I'll be charging my battery off of my vehicle and I use parts of a charging kit called "toad charge". I'm using a 7 amp hour battery. It's tiny about 4" x 6" X 2.5". It's new. I've never charged it. I've run about 40 gallons of water through the system and the pump just started to slow a little.

I think you'll have to figure the cooler spec out yourself. Pull out some strips of wood and eye-ball what works. The slides should mount to the sides of the cabinet and vary in width. I know that my 250 lb. slides are .75" in width.

 

[Revco]

For a simple iPod type "dock" you can get one of those mini 12V amplifiers. They put out like 200w and have 2-4 channels. So you hard mount it, wire up some speakers, and plug your mp3 player into the cable and you're done. I bought one off ebay and used it in my '56 Ford truck so I wouldn't have to install a modern radio. With some clearance sale Pioneer speakers mounted under the seat and my old ipod hooked up, that thing sounded great. I can't remember who made it, but it was chinese, and around $40 shipped. Sounded much better than the Sonu Docking Station I use in my shop.