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Unread 29-03-2012, 22:33
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AKA: Mike Ott
FRC #1619 (Up-A-Creek Robotics)
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Re: Educate me on Trailers

Ours is a 7'x14', tandem axle, "V-nose" with a drop door rated for 3500lbs and a walk-in side door. It doesn't have brakes but that would probably be recommended given its load rating. It has a 2-5/16" hitch and we pull it with my 1500 Silverado most of the time.

It has about 8 "D-ring" tie downs on the floor and about 8 more about 5' up, scattered along the side-walls. We also recently added full-length E-track tie down rails at the bottom of both side walls and at about 3' above the floor. This has been a GREAT addition as it allows us almost infinite flexibility in loading.

It has a deep-cycle battery and 3 roof-mounted fluorescent lights and a light just inside the walk-in door.

The trailer is black and our graphics are 2-color vinyl (yellow and white) on each side (done by a local sign company).

Suggestions for someone in the market:

1) Think about year-long storage of the trailer. Ours is too big to fit into our shop so we have to store it off-site.

2) Think about how you might want/need to adjust how you transport now vs when you have a trailer. We've actually migrated into fewer larger rolling carts for our supplies (instead of a lot of smaller containers when we had to get everything loaded into the bottom of a charter bus).

3) Get something big enough... Not having a trailer, you might be surprised how much room all your stuff might take and if you purchase a trailer and it isn't big enough for everything, you'll still be forced to deal with the hassle of loading the stuff that wouldn't fit into the trailer!
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