contemplating a pop-up build

ktm_2000

New member
Hi All,

I'm interested in a simple camper which would allow my wife and I to explore more of the country and not get rained on in a tent. Essentially I want a Bed, some interior lights, a place to standup and put my clothes on before going out side, and if I don't forget something that won't leak when it rains. I have a 2010 Tundra and live in MA so I have 2 strikes against me on a truck camper, low payload and not too many used campers that would fit my truck in my area.

A while back I found this site http://www.thesupercamper.blogspot.com/ Essentially they bought pre-made panels of nida-core with 1 layer of 18oz glass on each side. The people did alot of work connecting the panels and the results look good and seemed to have held up.

I've worked with nida-core fabricating the decks on my boat and it is amazing how strong you can build with 2 layers of 1708 biax on both sides of a 3/4" thick core. I fabricated 4x7' sheets and then cut them to shape to fit the boat but before they were cut I put 1 sheet on 4 cinder blocks placed on the corners and then walked over the sheet. I weigh 200# and I didn't flex the panel walking over it, standing in the middle of the panel I could flex it if I started bouncing my weight and even then it only deflected the panel 1".

I'm trying to understand where all the stresses are on a camper so I can figure out where to add additional materials to beef up the structure and where I can keep it as light as possible to save weight.

So far to me it seems the greatest amount of stress is in

1. the cab-over section
2. the camper wanting to cave into itself when it is not mounted on a truck and there is alot of weight inside. primarily stress trying to compress the front and back panels from the outside into the center.
3. the floor section when off the truck
4. the roof on snow load.

What am I missing? I have some solutions to the issues above but would like to know If I am on the right track in my thinking
 

pods8

Explorer
Your walls will stiffen your floor structure as a whole (ie its not an open top box verse a flat sheet) so that helps a ton, if you are doing a doorway that doesn't allow a header across the top of your wall then some more stiffening would be good there. Main focus will be your cabover, and the load will be carried in the very top of the rails. If you do hard sides on the roof structure they'll again stiffen up your roof, if not then you'd need to make sure that flat sheet is properly designed.
 

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