Overland Trailers
- Thread starter Steve
- Start date
Advocate III
That's pretty good. My XVenture trailer weighs 1200lbs empty!
Looks like you flipped the axle for more clearance? Any probs with the tires you have rubbing?
It's an awesome looking setup and I hope you post more about the back end kitchen deal, and the interior as well. Looks like you have room on the tongue for one of the angled nose boxes like you see at Harbor Freight to put batteries and solar charge controller, etc in.
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Thanks Bouncer, I will put more pictures up this afternoon. Still very much a work in progress! Just couldn't justify $15k for an offroad trailer/teardrop! Turned out to
The axle is a Dexter Torsion Axle, and allows full clearance. Doesn't hang down at all. The margins are pretty slim, but I haven't rubbed the tires on the fenders yet. I actually installed that tongue box last week. I will update the pics this afternoon. Planning on maybe housing a bigger deep cycle battery in there with the controller and charger. I am running a GoalZero Yet 400 battery now, but I will likely need MORE POWER!
Advocate III
Cool - I have a Dexter torsion axle under my XV-2 and love it. Having that under your taller trailer will really help in it not leaning as much one way or the other when coming across obstacles.
I have dual Odyssey deep cycle batteries in my nose box with a Zamp solar charge controller and love that set up, too. The Zamp has readouts with figures, not just colored lights or bar graphs like some have, which I've found really helpful too.
Looking forward to more images. Lots of room in there!
Advocate III
I have a Zamp ZS-15AW Solar Controller/Battery Charger. From their site: "Digital Deluxe 5 Stage 15 Amp PWM Solar Charge Controller uses a large digital display showing volts, amps and amp over a period of time while LED lights show charging status and battery condition."
Here's a short vid I took that shows the controller and its reaction time to partial on-and-off shade from fast moving clouds:
You can cycle the Zamp controller through a variety of figures by pressing the Amp/Volt button on the panel. You can also set it for a variety of battery types. I became fascinated with tweaking placement of my panels and experimenting with it all.
This Zamp controller is a PWM controller, which is typically sufficient for lower wattage systems. MPPT controllers, often used on larger installs like a house array, are better at tweaking every bit of power possible from panels, but are more expensive.
I have an Overland Solar 120w folding panel. Great panels made of the most efficient solar cells currently on the market, the Sunpower Maxeon cells. I love the panel, but haven't had the best of luck with the company I bought it from, so far.
The folding tri-panel came with a charge controller on the back of one panel, but the Zamp provides more functionality and detail, so we bypassed the one on the back of the panel in favor of the Zamp, which is on the inside of the nosebox lid.
My next panels will be two 100w panels meant for fixed application, which I will use to make a taller folding panel to hook up to another charge controller in my van feeding dual house batteries. This way I'll have a system for the trailer and a system for the van and can run them independently should I want to set up a base camp and then head out for a day or two in the van. They will also be redundant systems so I can use parts from one for the other if one or the other goes down for any reason. All part of experimenting with extended off-grid living setups.
If interested in more info on solar, here's a long post I did on Folding Panels vs Fixed Panels and another one I wrote about Charging Trailer Batteries and Folding Panels. Both are in reply to existing posts, which may provide a bunch of other info interesting to your application.
There are a bunch of great charge controllers out there. The Zamp is just the one I have the most experience with so far, and sure seems to have provided everything I need so far, too.
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Pathfinder III
- 5,200
- First Name
- Kent
- Last Name
- Reynolds
- Member #
-
1632
- Ham/GMRS Callsign
- K6KNT
- Service Branch
- Retired Firefighter
Influencer I
Enthusiast III
Member III
That is in Sidney Basin in the Ouray Colorado area... so it should not be too far from you.
Off-Road Ranger I
- 3,231
- First Name
- Joe
- Last Name
- Hunt
- Member #
-
10411
- Ham/GMRS Callsign
- Ke0uvb
- Service Branch
- USAF
There are some crazy good trailers out there. We have put about 30,000 miles on this rig after we built it. did the design myself, did a lot of research first.
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Traveler III
Traveler III
Nice set up! I am in the process of building a trailer.
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Traveler III
Traveler III
Nice! The more I see these Turtleback trailers, the more I want to just buy one instead of making my own set up
Traveler III
Now this is a set up! Great idea! I've thought about bringing my dirt bike along on our adventures.
Ok so this is my 1st post here, so be gentle. ;)
Here is my first Overland Adventure Trailer. It is a 2015 Panther Trailers 5x10 body with a front "porch" deck that also carries my ATV to off grid adventures. Hope you guys/dolls like it.
More pics and info here: http://benhedrick.com/expedition-trailer/index.html
Ben
Traveler III
Nice! how do you like sleeping in this and how does it handle the trails? We've been eyeing these
