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Unread 29-03-2012, 20:59
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Educate me on Trailers

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.
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Unread 29-03-2012, 21:22
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Re: Educate me on Trailers

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.

Last edited by DRH2o : 29-03-2012 at 22:28.
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Unread 29-03-2012, 21:29
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Re: Educate me on Trailers

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.
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Last edited by Chris Fultz : 29-03-2012 at 21:32.
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Unread 29-03-2012, 22:12
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Re: Educate me on Trailers

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.
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Unread 29-03-2012, 22:33
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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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Unread 29-03-2012, 22:52
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Re: Educate me on Trailers

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.



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Unread 29-03-2012, 23:59
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Re: Educate me on Trailers

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.
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Unread 30-03-2012, 01:04
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Re: Educate me on Trailers

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
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Unread 30-03-2012, 01:52
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Re: Educate me on Trailers

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.
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Unread 30-03-2012, 02:24
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Re: Educate me on Trailers

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.
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Last edited by sanddrag : 30-03-2012 at 02:53.
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Unread 30-03-2012, 06:48
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Re: Educate me on Trailers

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.
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Unread 30-03-2012, 07:06
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Re: Educate me on Trailers

Quote:
Originally Posted by ebarker View Post
A critical dimension is the height of the door frame, which is less than the interior height.
We have a rather modest trailer (purchased at a rather modest price) that barely fits everything we need it to, and the door is sufficiently short that we have to tilt a 5' robot to fit it inside. I would not make the same mistake again!
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Unread 30-03-2012, 07:58
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Re: Educate me on Trailers

We just purchased a Homestead brand trailer from a local dealer this year.

6'x10' Single Axle (No Brakes) and it uses a 2" ball so it can be towed by most SUV's, Trucks, or Vans.

We elected to get the rear ramp and the side door. The only other major option was we elected to go with the taller height so we could load a max height robot on a movers dolly without tipping it. This makes the trailer about 7'6" tall and consequently is about as much pain to park as a box truck when it comes to parking decks.

The school district bought it so it has local government plates as well.
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Unread 30-03-2012, 08:11
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Re: Educate me on Trailers

A 6 x 14 tandem trailer is probably 2500 pounds empty. You will easily get it close to 5000 pounds with room for that much stuff.

I would be worried about the Ranger, and that is about the tow limit for the Ridgeline. Check the vehicle ratings and be sure you are not going to exceed tongue weight or total towing weight.

The rubber suspension is nice. We have that on our trailer. Smooth ride.

The front tongue is a great place for the spare because it is easy to get to.

Surge brakes are good and are very common. They are reliable and only need a connection to the back-up circuit on the tow vehicle to lock them out when you back up, so it is minimal impact to the vehicle wiring.
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Unread 30-03-2012, 08:59
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Re: Educate me on Trailers

I agree with Chris. You start throwing stuff in the trailer and next thing you know you have a gross weight over 5K.

A Ridgeline really limits your options. A Ranger max's out at no more than 6K.

You also need to think about your trip length. Are you driving coast to coast or just scooting around town ? What is your top extended speed, what is your terrain.

In addition of weight, weight you have to start and then stop, you are also dragging a giant parachute behind you. Weight and the giant parachute adds up to stress on the drivetrain.

I've seen people take their minivan and put a hitch on it, drag a big trailer a thousand miles and cook their transmission to the tune of $ 5,000. Money that could have been used to get a better vehicle and / or trailer.

In a few weeks when we go to St. Louis I've got to pull the rig over the Appalachians. We have an max ascent / decent of a couple of thousand feet and a max grade of 4%. After that it is downhill and flat all the way to the Mississippi.

We do about 2 dozen events a year. A 7x14 would be nice but a 6x12 is nimble and navigates the urban jungle and rural jungle well also. We do not carry a machine shop in the trailer.

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