Lone Peak Overland

I've been chiming in on a post about this new company over on Expedition Portal, but I can voice some of my concerns here as well:

I have watched every lone peak video and I have read every comment in every video, especially Kyle's.

Personal qualifiers as to why I feel like my position is valid enough to warrant being shared: BSME and another degree in Mathematics, practicing structural engineer for the past 6.5 years.

The overhang: Static load is one thing, and I have no concern about its abilities to hold up a few people while they are sleeping. This is well within the capabilities of the extruded aluminum framing.

But this thing has to do a lot more than simply stand still. Static load testing in a model (as linked above by @VAQ) is all well and good, but it paints a weak picture as to what the camper will actually experience as it lives its life.

And this brings me to my main concern: The frame itself. Kyle himself will tell you in his videos that they "really put it through the paces, and drove this thing hard", but how hard can you possibly push the camper on a stock F150? How hard can you possibly push the camper on a 4,500 mile road trip where your primary concern is to visit a handful of businesses who can help you market and install your product? You can't. You can't push it that hard.

And, surprisingly to me, even with that low intensity workout of the campers longevity, it still performed even worse than I anticipated. His video, entitled LPC - What's changing? points out two massive design problems:

1) the camper slid forward on the bed (26 second mark). How is this still an issue? Why are companies, vocal about their excellent designs, still using two bent pieces of metal to clamp the camper to the bed? They don't know basic Yield Line Theory of a metal plate? They don't intuitively realize that a piece of flat steel bent at 90 degrees is going to deform under moderate dynamic loads? This just screams of a poor understanding of dynamics.

and 2 (the big one) is their selected framing connection methodology and the fact that after only 4,500 miles (mostly paved roads) the campers frame moved, it literally deformed (50 second mark). Bolted aluminum connections, despite their custom extrusions and their custom corner pieces, is the worst possible way to assemble a moment frame, such as this camper. It is a distant second to even riveted aluminum, and leagues behind a fully welded aluminum frame.

At the 1 minute mark he says that it "honestly is probably not something to be concerned about". Fucking LOL.

His solution is to add some tiny (based on his hand movements in the video) brackets to the upper corners of the rear of the camper, as if that is going to beef it up enough that it will survive being on the bed of a jumping Raptor. Again, LOL. There is a reason that GFC uses a braced truss frame, and that it's kickers occupy a major portion of the side area of both sides of the camper. This is because this is exactly how it has to be designed and built in order to last a long time. He then goes on to say that these tiny kickers will create a "shear wall" (a very real concept), except that it not how that works at all. Adding tiny brackets to the corners in no way creates a shear wall. All it does is barely move the centroid of the resulting moment force a tiny, tiny distance away from its previous center, barely diluting the forces it needs to resist. Again, another error in understanding (I know he isn't an engineer, but rather a businessman, but when speaking on technical topics for a brand new product, perhaps he should have someone he knows who knows what they are talking about, prepare a script for him). To modify a moment force into a tension-compression couple, you need distance, based on the math. Without distance, you don't accomplish much.

In my profession I have never once been able to make a bolted aluminum moment connection handle dynamic loading in any satisfactory way (read: it will not meet code). This type of connection is simply not good at resisting those forces.

Now, he is adamant that he is going to be addressing these in the production model, and I believe him, I can only hope that now that he has over $1,000,000 in customer money that he can actually design something that will last more than 4,500 miles without the damn frame shifting!

There were lots of comments about it being "well-designed/engineered" from the outset, but this is not accurate at all. Initial strut strength and placement was poor, initial connection design to the bed was abysmal, initial overhanging portion of the tent (at the rear of the truck) was poorly done, the selected connection method for the frame is about as bad as it can possibly get (no joke here), which in itself is massively concerning.

To those of you who opted to skip out on the pre-orders, I'm with you. The product is not finished. The prototype is not flushed out, it's core components are not well done in the eyes of anyone qualified enough to know what they are looking at. He has a tremendous amount of work to be done before these start being delivered to customers.

I will end with this. I think it is a great idea, and I like to see competition in the marketplace. His price point is killer for a lot of folks, bringing this type of upgrade to their truck for a lower price. His lifetime warranty on the camper itself is industry leading. His response time is impeccable, across the board. He is very open about design changes as he stumbles across them. All good things. But at the end of the day we want a product that is going to last, and I do not see that portrayed in any of their work at this time.

 

In your opinion, is it possible to execute the necessary redesign and revise production plans within a year, given the resources we estimate he has?

 

Phew, that is a really good question.

He has promised to have units 0-50 ready in the June/July timeframe, which is only 7 months from now.

It is entirely possible, Kyle really does seem to be diving head first into this camper and its design.

I would say that if he had already had one iteration of his prototype (say he built one, tested it, found its flaws, and then upgraded it (all done off camera/social media)) under his belt, and what we were seeing in his videos was round 2, I would be a lot more confident. The design process, especially for something 'large' that is attached to something that can move rather quickly, is not straight forward. It cannot be done entirely within the confines of a computer, as the inputs require the programmer to make assumptions, which very well may not reflect rear life. Simply based on the overwhelming number of comments I read about static loading only, it reinforces the idea that the model doesn't reflect real life. The phenomena that vertical movement (the trucks suspension going up and down on a bumpy road) translates to horizontal movement is not overly intuitive. And this is just one of many ideas to consider.

If bolted aluminum moment connections were really good enough, then why would AluCab pay expert welders to fully seam weld their entire campers? Why would SP use the tedious design of riveting their moment frame together? And why would GFC, outselling them all by leaps and bounds, totally ditch the idea of a moment frame and instead ruin their users side access to their campers?

It's simple. Bolted aluminum moment connections are garbage for this application.

Based on all of this, I hope he keeps his nose to the grindstone, as the road ahead is not an easy one.

 

I don't disagree with anything you have said. I'm also a ME but I work on really really tiny stuff. So my structural knowledge is more of engineering intuition rather than actual practice.

I do generally commend his transparency. I have a fully welded aluminum shell, not a pop top camper, that I would say I've thoroughly put through the paces over the past 4 years, and have fought my own battles with it. As far as bed mounted campers, the industry standard camper clamps frankly generally suck. At least for Tacomas, they all clamp onto the t-slot channel in the bed side, which is bolted to the composite bed. Most are all relying on compression of the camper against the seal and bed rails to hold it in place. With lots of bed motion and high speed travel with a heavy camper mounted to the bed rails, things will inevitably shift. You really have to stay on top of replacing worn seals and inspecting and re-clamping frequently.

Superpacific has (had?) one of the worst designs I've seen, where the clamps provide no real lateral or fore/aft resistance.


GFC has a pretty good setup because of the robustness of the mounts and the frame in general, the mounts are fixed and the through bolts provide some lateral and fore/aft resistance.


IMO the best one that I've seen is AT Overland's which actually wraps over the inside of the bed rail. I'm not sure if they incorporate one at the front of the camper, which is what I would want to resist for and aft motion.



However the best way to resist motion is to through-bolt it to your bed rails. That's a a huge pain in the ass and not for the faint of heart, but it's the best way to keep things in place.

The shifting that he describes at the back of the camper, what I would interpret as racking, can be pitfall of a lot of campers. It's common because at the back of the bed, the bed sides are more susceptible to splaying apart because of the tailgate, and the camper is susceptible to this as well because of the rear hatch. This is where bed stiffeners help, but also where you need lots of lateral support incorporated into the structure. He's not wrong in saying that he needs shear support. He's describing gussets, not a shear wall, but the idea is right. I 100% agree that if he's bolting his frame together, he's already behind the curve. But IMO the best way to resolve this is by reducing the size of the hatch opening.

Look at AT's and Superpacific's rear vs Lone peak's. Lonepeak is entirely relying on the roof to resist lateral motion, which works just as well with truck campers as it does with houses. FWIW, this is exactly the problem my camper has. They maximized the rear hatch opening and even with a welded aluminum skeleton, it's really hard to control the lateral motion, especially with any additional weight on the walls or roof.




GFC gets away with this because of the welded frame and because it's so light.


As far as the additional overhang on the front, I have my concerns there too. You're 100% right about the static vs dynamic effects. Having that giant diving board hanging over the roof makes me nervous. If you're moving quickly over whoops, I would really be worried about that thing smacking the roof. If you've never watched a bed mounted camper during high speed travel over rough terrain, let me assure you that there is a lot more motion than you would expect.

Overall, I think there are a lot of clever ideas here, but I agree that I have some serious concerns about the base structure of it. I wouldn't trust it for my use case as designed, but it might fit the bill for a lot of people that maybe aren't so hard on their gear.

 

I'm with you on basically everything you said.

GFC V1's were welded (which you pictured exclusively). GFC V2's are fully bolted together. Its a more stable design (braced frame vs. moment frame), so you don't need the added capacity of a welded connection.

The attachment to the truck bed itself really doesn't need to be through bolted in order to be 'the best' that it can be. The top of your bed rail is thin sheet metal, and it certainly wasn't designed for bolts to pass through it. The rail however, at least someone from Toyota has designed it to be tugged on in a variety of directions. I've never seen a single image of a bed rail being completely ripped off of the composite bed.

I do agree that any connection that relies on crushing the camper down on the bed rails is already starting behind the curve. AT's is great, but AluCab has my stamp of approval above all of the others. It's the simplest and the most robust. It's just (4) plates per side that are installed vertically, and they bolt the lower track of the camper to the bed rail. The design of the plate itself resists motion. The fact that the back of the camper is actually a shear wall like Kyle wants just puts it that much further ahead.

I have no concern about my camper shifting. Even after rocketing my truck into the air at 50 mph it came down and the camper did not shift whatsoever. My friend with his LT Tacoma and GFC, which he routinely hurtles down very rocky roads at unthinkable speeds also has no issues. His truck has left the ground more times than I can count, all without any issue.

 

I didn't realize GFC's V2 was bolted together. That's interesting, makes sense though.

On through-bolting, you're 100% right. What I had in my mind was my friend who did that on his 2nd gen w/the KB voodoo rail caps. Those add an additional 1/8" of aluminum which he bonded to his bed rails.

I had never looked at Alucab's mounting but looking at your build thread, it definitely looks bomber. As far as the T-slot rails go, I agree, they're a great mounting point. The problem is more so how they are typically used to secure the campers.

 

this is from the video on GFC's page about their camper


looks bolted and more room to reach into the sides

 

On a long bed the location of the angled braces do give you a lot more space for side access, but for a short bed Tacoma the two braces meet at the top in the center, really cutting down on the size of the opening.

 

yea i was wondering if those moved depending on what vehicle its mounted to. the image i posted was from a ford truck, idk what kind, probably a f150

 

This is the best photo I have, you can barely see it on the GFC though

LM - Day 8 - 08 by Michael Rickerd, on Flickr

 

I am with you on this. I have a Super Pacific, and although a good camper design, they dropped the call on 2nd gen designs. they took the 3rd gen and made it a 2nd/1st gen. The camper does incorporate a lip to prevent it from moving forward but is useless on the 1st/2nd gen due to the difference in height and how the 3rd gen works. Mine has slid forward multiple times, and this is due to the POS mounts that they used to hold the camper. In light driving it is likely fine, but lime many of you, I'm sure, put your truck through some work. In 2 trips to Baja through backroads, driving fast etc. I have had my mounts come loose and the camper slide forward. I recently purchased a set of "beefy" mounts and the same road that happened on the first baja trip it loosened, and due to the design of the new ones, I almost lost my camper (they are not going to be offering these mounts, and it's a good thing. they are beefy but have a flaw. They are setup to clamp against each other. When they come loose, they let go. At least with the regional shitting mounts, they would loosen but still be intact. If Super Pacific would include a better mounting design besides shitty mounts or mounting to the bed without bracing, it would be awesome.

Looking at this camper, I have reservations on the lone peak. Pre-launch that pricing is aggressive. Super and other have done the same. No way they are going to maintain that pricing especially after they start to improve their design.

 

Are these rivnuts next to the tiedown slots?


Maybe fab up a vertical plate to bolt to those and tie it down to the t-slot like Alucab does?

 

I would even be worried about the alucab setup in heavy desert/baja trips, but the solid bar I like better for sure. For most I think bolting works but if you are a more spirited driver a more robust setup is needed. I have been thinking about how I can build a support frame that ties into the frame of the truck which the camper can be bolted directly to and not depend on the current clamps out there on most campers. They all depend on bolts connected to the rails, which shockingly support them. My rails are pulling away which means they likely flex when in use and add to the loosening bolts. For other superpacific models on fords/dodge and other they bolt it directly to the bed and do not use these types of mounts.

Yes, the entire X1 has riveted with some heavy-duty ones and no welds (minus some on the door for the shape). One of the original cofounders used to work in aerospace designing plane parts, so it has that factored into it.

 

I wouldn't be.

The AluCab posted above is mine. The truck is no slouch. It has been jumped. Into the air. I don't really know what is more spirited than a 50 mph liftoff in the desert.

4 days in the Mojave Preserve, a place that probably qualifies as desert/baja, no issues. Thousands of whoops, hours and hours of driving along at 10-20-30-40 mph, diving into corners, running washboards relentlessly. All without a millimeter of movement (literally checked with a digital micrometer based off of a reference point on the metal portion of the bed).

There are things about these campers that need additional attention, but the way AluCab mounts their campers to a Tacoma is not one of them.

We like the solid bar better, because our brain wants us to believe that a solid bar has to out perform anything that isn't a solid bar. But that often times isn't the case. There are a variety of intelligently shaped materials on the market that show that that big beefy piece of steel is very rarely ever necessary.

 

yah I bet one part that is not missing on the alucab is a lip or something to prevent it from moving forward. the 2nd gen X1 missed the mark since it was designed for the 3rd gen (they should have lowered it for all tacomas. That would be 1000% better than what I currently have. Some folks have done some similar solid bars on their X1 but using the rivnuts which I'm not aware.

Good to hear about Alucab. I know of other alucab owners that have had the camper shift forward and shatter the glass on the cab. it's likely all relative, and chance of luck in some cases.

 

Nope, it does not have any front lip to keep it from sliding forward. In fact, when you first install the camper itself you can see daylight at the front of the bed, between the front wall of the bed and the camper itself. You later install a panel over that gap to seal the front area of the camper to the bed.

A hard stop is not a necessity. The connection plate itself does all of the work to prevent the camper from sliding forward.

Just because each of these companies use bolts to hold things in place doesn't mean that the bolts are all used in the same manner.

Someone elses AluCab slid so far forward that it busted their rear cabs window!? Do you have a link to a thread about this? I'd love to read it to try and figure out why.

The gap between the rear wall of my ACCC and my rear window is wide enough to store camping chairs in there. In order for my camper to touch my window it would have to slid forward over 6 inches, which is quite the distance. Not to mention it would have to crush three metal panels into the cab of the truck as well, none of which are in line with the rear window glass.

 

Id like to understand more on what this connection plate is? That is likely the key here. Do they install a plate direct to the bed then you connect the camper with the mounts you sent?

 

I'm trying to find pictures of how they mounted them to the other models. Are you saying your t-slot rails in your bed are pulling away or your bed sides themselves?

 

Yes you can see it bending some. In reality, those t slots are held on by small bolts, although several of them. those also come loose. My thought is to future and bomb proof it is to have it bolted to the frame via a new rails of sorts rather than the t slots or bed which seem to points of failure for any setup. Most prob wont run into it. Seems like your use more matches my use. I can snap a photo of how my t slots sit now but they were doing that before the x1. I think long term those t slots do not expect that much tension then one off strapping of items.

 

I bet part of the problem is how the X1 clamp engages with that T-slot vs others. It's just grabbing onto the top, inner most edge, and prying it up. The others use T-nuts that engage with much more of the track profile so they don't have as much of a prying effect. I think tying into the frame would create a lot of problems. Besides just the how, the bed sides most certainly flex relative to the frame. Having your camper connected to the frame and sealed to the bedsides seems challenging.

All that said, having a heavy camper and driving like assholes, it's no wonder we have trouble with this shit I'm sure most people have no problems whatsoever.