Educate me on Trailers

[sanddrag]

Our school has the unique opportunity to acquire a new trailer to my specifications. I'm knowledgeable about a lot of things but trailers certainly isn't one of them (yet). For those of you with trailers, tell me everything we need to know. This will be the trailer for our school for the next decade if not more, and I want to make sure we do it right. Pictures are welcome too.

I want to know sizes, weights, specs, options, nifty features, graphics, what you use it for, what you pull it with, etc.

[DRH2o]

About 4 years ago we purchased a Pace America 6 X 12 enclosed. It has a large drop gate that is a 1000 lb capacity ramp and a small side door. It is only single axle with no brakes so the load capacity is 2000 lb -- add brakes and it goes to 3500 lb for the same trailer. This is a VA State law -- we went with no brakes because it doesn't have to have a state inspection sticker. There is a great deal of room, fairly stripped down when we got it and we installed our own tie downs. It is fairly light and very easy to pull. The automotive dept services it -- they do not have to do much. It cost us less than $3000 and has been great to have. We have pulled it with my 2001 Silverado, 2004 Trailblazer with a 4.2 l 6cyl, and a new Nissan 6spd V6 --- none have any trouble pulling it. It is registered to the school systen so tags are govt use -- we keep it at our school and have the only keys -- we are the only users. We currently have no graphics on it, but are working on getting a wrap donated -- there is a local guy that is very creative and we want something that will make people really look.

[Chris Fultz]

Ours is 6 x 10 or 12 - not posotive. Single Axle. Twin doors on the rear and a side panel door. Very similar to the attached photo.

Exterior - We have a large "234" logo on each side. We have our major sponsors on each side. On the rear, we have a smaller "234" and 6 of our major sponsors. We had these done by TKO Graphics and they have held up well for about 6+ years. TKO does trucks, cars, commercial graphics, etc.

Interior - We added one high shelf along the wall without the side door. It is good for extra bar stock, flags, etc. It goes most of the length of the trailer and is about 10" wide. We added another short shelf above the side door and it is large enough for the control board.

We added several "D" clamps to the floor and walls so we could secure the load. There are "studs" running vertically and braces horizontally so we found several good places to add these. We also added several in the floor.

We made a ramp for ours from Aluminnum Plate. It is about 5' long and has pins to hold it in place. We have a cross bar that goes across the back of the trailer and we strap the ramp to it when we are traveling.

Our "normal load" - robot (in front), 2 - 18" W x 42" rolling tool carts (one each side), our robot cart, battery cart, smaller tool boxes and other items in totes. It holds everything we need for a competition.

Some considerations -
Who will tow it. Ours can be pulled by a smaller SUV or truck.
Who will insure it. Ours we "gave" to the school so it has township plates and is insured under the schools policy.
Who can use it. We only allow ours to be used for robotics trips, not personal use.

A larger trailer can give you some more space, but also restricts who can pull it. A trailer with brakes (electric or surge) requires the right wiring on the tow vehcle, and a larger truck to pull it.

Be sure to get a spare tire, lug wrench and jack to keep with the trailer (we installed a spare tire mount on the tongue).

We love having ours and have pulled it all over to competitions, demonstrations and other events. With the logos on it, it is a rolling billboard for our team and for FIRST.

I will get some photos and add them.

[Mr V]

We've had our trailer for about 2 years now.

A couple of things I'd change are no side door as it is an extremely rare occasion that we use it and it pushes the rear axle back making it easy to end up with too much tongue weight. It also means there is a gap in places to attach tie downs.

I requested electric brakes but a student was put in charge of ordering it and did not get them.

Trailer tires are only rated for 65mph so take that into consideration and the ones that come stock on most trailers are cheap junk. I'm ordering up some new ones before St Louis they will be D load range rated truck tires. ST (special trailer) tires have a heavier wt rating than passenger of C load range tires.

Hope this helps.

[ebarker]

I spent a couple of years looking and thinking about trailers and I lucked upon a dealer that had just what I wanted.

For example, Pace ships a lot of 'standard' consumer cargo trailers but you can order just about any customization from a chart. The dealer ordered a custom but it turned out not to be what their typical customer wanted but exactly what I was looking for. So we managed to cut a deal after it sat on his lot a long time.

We got a Pace American 6x12, tandem axle, electric brake, extended height trailer. http://www.paceamerican.com/trailers/journey

The extended height is very important to us as we can roll a pit or road show nearly pre-configured and pre-packed. A critical dimension is the height of the door frame, which is less than the interior height. Interior height spec is nearly useless to us.

The wire rack in this picture is 5' wide, nearly 6' tall, 2' deep. There are several teams in this area that have transitioned to using this rack system but you need the extended height to get it done. Plus you don't bump your head when entering or walking around in the trailer.



This thing rolls in preconfigured, we set the sign and ready to go. It is wonderful. It sits on the trailer on the right side behind the side door. Between the rack and the back door sits the tool box. On the left side of the trailer is the robot cart preloaded with a showbot if necessary, and this year the bagged and tagged robot. We enter the side door to load specialty packages and other occassional stuff.

Everything is secured with E-Track down both side walls, about 40 inchs off the floor, E-Track D-Rings, and normal ratcheting straps.

Go here to see E-Track


It is way nicer to have electric brakes and tandem axles. It cost more but is definitely worth it if you are doing extended hauling or heavier loads.

The whole rig looks like this.



Ed

[Mark Sheridan]

Does any one know details on the NASA machine shop trailers?

I am pretty sure we will have a trailer next year but considering that my team is actually three schools with limited space; a portable small machine shop would be practical for my team.

[rsisk]

We got a 16ft utility trailer from Trailers Plus in Fontana (now in Redlands). We love it. They service it for us every six months.

We pull it with a Dodge Caravan with a towing package. Will be getting a truck so we can pull more weight in the trailer.

Would like to add a generator and lights (in and outside) as well as build in some storage of some sort.

Graphics were purchased from Two Pencil Designs for a very reasonable price and extremely good quality.

Here is a picture of the trailer with graphics....



Here is where we bought the trailer....
http://www.trailersplus.com/?gclid=C...FWcZQgod9ENVww

[Tom Line]

I strongly recommend dual axles and electric brakes. I have had single axle trailers where a broken spring has resulted in the trailer sitting on top of a tire on the ground. It's rare, but that second axle can be a lifesaver. In addition, on the occasion when you have to haul more than normal, you can.

I recommend electric brakes. Here in the icy north, having brakes that stop the trailer without pushing on your tow vehicle (surge brakes) are a wonderful thing.

[sanddrag]

Here's what we're currently looking at:

Our trailer will be custom built by http://www.heacocktrailers.com/

6x14 x 7 foot interior height (standing room inside) tandem axle
Rubber? Suspension as opposed to springs (they tell me it's better, less bounce).
Surge brakes.
Rear fold down ramp with torsion spring
Side door up front
Interior and exterior lights
Larger battery with solar charger/maintainer
Possibly a mount for a generator on the tongue and a power input and at least one receptacle on the interior and exterior
Side retractable awning
Full vinyl wrap
E-track at 2 or possibly 3 heights along the whole length of both sides, including interior of side door
A few floor mounting D-rings or similar.
Painted steel diamondplate floor.
Spare tire mounted on tongue. (I'm interested in hearing the pros/cons of where to put the spare.
Possible tongue-mount for barbeque instead of or in addition to (running out of space on the tongue).

What am I missing? We have the opportunity to order this once and forever more, so I want to make sure we do it right.

Like machinery, I figure you will always need a bigger trailer. But we don't want it so big we can't pull it with a normal sized vehicle, and we don't want it to be too much of a pain to park.

It will be parked outdoors year-round in SoCal. Our intention is that it will be multipurpose as follows:
- Hauling stuff to regional and offseason events
- Moving large and/or heavy things on rare occasions (a donated machine tool or Lego tournament tables for example.)
- Helping to support the expansion of robotics to all schools in the school district. We may do something like a mobile robotics minilab with many kits of Lego or Vex parts or computers or drawers of parts or things inside, that we could take to local schools for a day.

Our current possibilities for tow vehicles are a 2001 Ford Ranger 4.0L Extended Cab Automatic, and a 2000-something Honda Ridgeline. We may also have access to a mid-1990s Diesel Dodge Ram Dually Extended Cab, but we would need the trailer to be towable by any of the aforementioned vehicles.

Thoughts? I mostly concerned about the max size and weight to tow with the Ranger. From specs I read, we seem totally okay. Comments?

Also, we were looking at 7x14 rather than 6x14, but we thought the extra width would be hard to see/drive/maneuver.

[ayeckley]

Be sure you really, really want a trailer. Our second or third year we were able to use a 6' x 12' trailer that the school had. On paper it seemed perfect. In reality we found that it created more problems than it solved, especially at the Pittsburgh Regional. Towing it up and down hills on narrow, crowded one-way streets was a challenge, and parking it got very expensive (we were charged as if it were two cars). It's also a bigger target for theft since folks [correctly] assume it's filled with tools.

Since that initial experience we've gone back to hauling everything in school vans. It's probably not an issue except in certain cities.

[Alex Cormier]

Originally Posted by rsisk

Graphics were purchased from Two Pencil Designs for a very reasonable price and extremely good quality.

Here is a picture of the trailer with graphics....

Rich,

Your link seems to not be working, so here is one of mine.

[MrBasse]

You really need to know the maximum weight you will pull before you make any decisions. Is a diamond plate steel floor really that important when plywood probably weighs less, does the same job, and is ridiculously cheaper to replace? I've towed small trailers with a few different Rangers and I can say from experience that you shouldn't try to use a compact pickup to tow a full size load. Scariness definitely will happen, and that is multiplied when you have expensive and precious cargo (i.e. robots, tools and probably students too). The Ridgeline has a capacity of 5k lbs. so I would look past that option too if you are going to get a trailer like what you listed. You need a vehicle that can tow the trailer you buy, otherwise you have to buy a trailer that your vehicle can tow.

You have to remember that a lot more goes into towing than just weight. If you pull a shorter trailer with a shorter vehicle and load the trailer up at all, it is going to dance all over the freeway and stress the driver out until it ends badly. If you will ever go near a freeway, or plan to ever drive faster than 40 mph or so, buy a smaller trailer or a bigger truck.

[Retired Starman]

A couple of thoughts.

1. Don't forget to include the weight of everything you will throw in the tow vehicle when you are looking at the weight the tow vehicle can pull. Passengers and all that stuff in the back decreases the amount you call pull. People tend to forget that. Six people and luggage adds up.

2. Get a good tongue lock for times when the trailer is sitting by itself, either at the school or on trips at the hotel or venues. Some of the places we compete aren't the safest for a trailer. You might even want to get a Denver Boot to lock the wheels. Here is a site that has stuff to help. Don't know anything about them, just did a search. http://www.universalboot.com/

For those of you who don't have electric brakes, I suggest getting them. It is an easy after-market installation job. Did it myself on my box trailer. Even a moderate weight trailer will warp front disk brakes on a tow vehicle if you aren't careful. Much better to have the drag of trailer brakes help slow you down. Much safer too.

Dr. Bob

Chairman's Award is not about building the robot. Every team builds a robot.

[cpeister]

To add to Dr. Bob's post regarding locks,

If you are parking the trailer during an event and leaving it hitched to the tow vehicle, remember that locking the tongue to the ball isn't enough. You should also use a locking pin to attach the draw bar to the hitch receiver.

[Triple B]

David,
Sounds like a sweet trailer you are about to order but I would definately consider the extended height version. We have a standard height trailer and our crate has to go in on its side. good luck and see you in St Louis.
mike d