How to: DIY Wedge Camper

I wont be using a drill press lol, so there is that. Ill let you know how it goes

 

Thanks for all help! I really love fusion 360 haha, was playing around at work, designed the jig as well lol. Garage where I will be working on my project has some ooold and rusty band saw, will see if it still works, or else will have to use grinder

 

Yeah no prob man! It’s a fun project for sure!

 

cutting angles is my weakness. but these days I just cut them long and sneak up to it. Im going to have to miter the corners to avoid having to weld caps onto the end.

I picked one of these up

https://www.homedepot.com/p/Evoluti...d-Multi-Material-28-T-Blade-R255SMS/310500941

we have one of the Evolution circular saws at the makerspace for cutting steel and its really confusing to take a circular saw to sheet steel or metal in general. Like your body resists you from putting the saw on the chunk of metal. A miter saw with an Evolution blade will also work well, just go slow. I invested in a complete metal miter saw because I will use it for many things and it can use wood blades / its better than my current $50 miter saw

 

I miter cut the corners of my lifting platform and they turned out great, but I was more inclined to try it on that small piece than a big part of the frame haha. I bought a diablo blade for the miter saw to cut the extrusion and holy cow. Cut through it like it was butter basically. If I continue to do more metalwork, I am definitely going to invest in a nicer saw and some nice metal cutting blades as they are much better than an abrasive blade. But the setup I had was cheap and got it done just fine.

 

So I am definitely a noob in the fusion 360 dept. How do you angle the tube? I have the frame built.

 

Haha I am not the best to ask on this lol!

 

welcome to my world.

I just remembered how to use joints to get the top and bottom aligned in free floating space. What I am going to do next is make my vertical support pieces and probably do the joint tool again since you can align it however you want. and then use some sort of offset plane or an intersect tool to trim the tubes to length.

I'll probably dork around with it tomorrow.


--friend of mine sent a video of him doing what I need to do in fusion and I can confirm the joint tool is what youll use and then redo the extrusion on the support and do "to face" or surface and boom... compound angles. I cant share the vid he made because I don't want to share the dimensions and such since those are part of the paid files

 

So what are people doing to seal the floor against the extrusion ? I picked up some of that RV tape. That was a disaster. Not enough squish and too firm. Pulled it all off. Thinking about buying some silicone caulk and running two beads on either side of the channel in the extrusion.

 

I went with rtv silicone. The gasket making material.

 

Oh good idea, I might do the same thing as well.

 

RV tape as in window butyl?

 

Yup correct

 

Is everyone using 1" or 1.5" extrusions? I see ripcords v2 uses the 1.5, but I wasn't sure what people were doing. I don't think 1" will be too weak, my plan was 1x3 for the bottom and 1x2 for the top, but what do I know.

 

Most are sticking to the 1.5 since it lines up nice with the 1.5in tubing

 

Cool, that makes sense. I'm really trying to keep it the same width as my prinsu so that is a bit of a bummer as it reduces the interior a bit. I may have to look up what the deflection looks like for each size.

Thanks!

 

Huh that's a bummer.
Thanks for trying it though, guess that saves me some time.

Ah, that does reduce the interior a bit. that'd put you at like 43" interior space if you're using 1.5 extrusion.
There was a member a few pages back who is using 1" extrusion for weight, could ask for his opinions.

As far as appearance wise I don't think it looks too bad to have the stickout. I think a flush with Prinsu would look better but not sure if it's worth the sacrifice in space.
Here are a few screen shots of my CAD with my DIY roof rack which is about the same width as a prinsu. (this is for a first gen though).

 

Likely going to shrink my opening by about 3 inches and extend the lifting portion of my floor to make the sleeping area 83in in length instead of 80.

Anyone know what the tool would be called to drill or cut open the slot portion of the extrusion to make inserting accessories something you can do without having to take end caps off? Mainly just looking at doing that in the interior so hooks and such can be easily added. I know they have the drop-in nuts as well.

 

I believe what you want is a countersink or countersunk bit?

Or you could use a tiny hole saw if they make them to make an opening. Using the drill bit usually has a drill bit then the countersink portion so you might puncture the inner wall if you cant find one without.

 

Cleanest way would probably be a flat bottom end mill, but might be an expensive solution.
Maybe a jig and drill bit, come back through with a dremel and sanding attachment to clean it up.

That’s a good idea about adding a drop in location though.
I assembled my roof this weekend and left the corner pieces off since I haven’t finalized threading the sliding retention nuts in yet. Inside would be even worse to fit accessories