Team Trailer Ideas?

[ChuckDickerson]

No, not the kind we all hooked to our robots this year but the real kind that you put stuff in and drag behind your vehicle down the road! We had a nice 2 year old 6’x10’ standard type cargo trailer DONATED to the team about a week ago. It is in excellent condition EXCEPT the guy that had it before us ran a pressure washing business out of it and must have had a big tank of water strapped to the floor in the middle of it. The floor must have stayed soaked and due to the weight of the water tank bouncing on the floor driving down the road 3 of the floor cross supports were slightly bowed down and starting to rust. Well, being a robotics team it took us about 2 hours after being given the trailer before we had assessed the situation and completely gutted the cheap luan paneling interior and warped wet flooring and cut out the bent rusty cross supports. What’s left is nearly perfect and will allow us to “customize” the trailer to our specific needs. The steel trailer floor support structure has now been replaced better than new and after some good priming and painting the floor itself will be re-decked hopefully with some high quality HDO plywood if we can locate a few sheets. HDO is pretty hard to find around here. Once that is complete we will be ready to redo the interior sides and “customize” it for the specific needs of our robotics team. Which brings me to my question. I know many teams have there own team trailers. For those of you in this situation what advice can you give on how best to use a cargo trailer and specifically “set it up” for a FRC team use? Our trailer is a tad bit short inside height wise to fully stand up in for most people and a bit small to really even consider setting up any sort of “mini mobile machine shop” so that is pretty much ruled out. We plan to use it more to haul our pit stuff to competition, demos, etc. How do you keep your team “stuff” organized and secured while driving down the road? We have searched around and found some cargo restraining systems called “E-Track” that looks like it would work well for securing carts, crates, boxes, etc. inside the trailer for transport. Does anyone have any experience with “E-Track”? I guess I’m asking for advice on how to get the absolute best use from this generous donation. If you were given a 6’x10’ white box on wheels for your robotics team to do whatever you want with, what would you do with it? If you have a team trailer that you have customized with neat features you find helpful please post some pictures here. We have some ideas ourselves but are looking for advice from others that may have traveled this road before. Thanks!

[gorrilla]

I suggest you put some eye-hooks in there(like 1 in each corner and the middle) just to keep stuff down....

and its always nice to have places to hang stuff out of the way....

[ginosoprano09]

I remember seeing one in Team 67's website.

http://www2.huronvalley.k12.mi.us/sc...bum/index.html

The 5th Album in the 2009 season.

Apologies in advance to team 67 for looking through their website

[R.C.]

I think 217 has a great trailor also.

-rc

[keehun]

On Team 67's website, check out 1998 pictures as well.

[David Brinza]

Originally Posted by rc_cola1323

I think 217 has a great trailor also.

-rc

Indy Sam posted this photo of ThunderChickens' trailer heading north on I-75 in Ohio. This photo provided more evidence of the great Simbotics/ThunderChicken collaboration of 2008.

[DonRotolo]

1676 had a trailer donated three years ago, also white. I would guess about 6 x 10, 5 feet tall inside.

A local graphics company, that specialized in truck wraps (adhesive vinyl sheets, printed with whatever and applied professionally to the vehicle) was cajoled by a sponsor who uses their services into donating a wrap job. See the photo.

The handiest thing we have are tie-down D-Rings in the floor and walls, which allow us to use rope to secure whatever's in the trailer. You do not want the load to shift! The trailer walls are not strong enough for one of those 'spreader-bar' type holders you see in pickup trucks or big tractor-trailers. Also the roof is not strong enough to hold any weight.

A light inside the trailer is very handy when packing up after dark, which is typical in winter.

A crank-type front 'wheel' helps when storing the trailer, otherwise you need some kind of holder to keep it level when not attached to a vehicle.

Wheel chocks are indispensable! You need four.

A spare tire is not a bad idea, either.

[Chris Fultz]

Here are some things we did that have worked pretty well -

A small cargo box on the front. It has a jack, wheel blocks, and we keep the receiver bar and wire harness adapter in it.

Get a spare tire, a lug wrench and a jack. Get a spare tire mount if you can.
With a spare mount and the cargo box,all of this can be outside of your trailer.

Use D rings and put them on the floor and walls to strap things in. These are good because they fold "flat" and won't be sticking out to be caught on when not being used. You should be able to get them at a hardware store or trailer store. be sure they are screrwed into the frame material - not just the wood.

We put a few shelf brackets on one side wall, up high, and made an 8" wide shelf front to back. it is great for the team flag, banners, aluminum rod, etc.

Buy some good ratcheting straps and get a bag to keep them in and keep them in the trailer. Strap down everything. Don't rely on bungee cords. If something inside breaks loose, it can slide across the trailer and be damaged, or cause the trailer to swerve suddenly.

Have fun with your project. We are glad we got our trailer a few years ago - it has been a great addition to the team.

[IndySam]

Just remember when you start customizing your trailer to keep in mind what kind of vehicle will be towing it and how much weight it can tow. Set yourself a weight budget and keep track of the weight (just like building a robot.)

[kramarczyk]

Originally Posted by DeepWater

We have searched around and found some cargo restraining systems called “E-Track” that looks like it would work well for securing carts, crates, boxes, etc. inside the trailer for transport. Does anyone have any experience with “E-Track”?

In college I spent several years in concert production which involved loading and driving trucks daily. As such I have learned the importance of load control for even the shortest jaunt. In my opinion, E-track beats D-rings hands down. E-track is a continuous piece that I can connect into wherever the load dictates, while D-rings force connections at discrete points which may not be quite where I need them. E-track also does this while providing the flush installation of D-rings. I would not recommend any method that does not install flush as it will be a consistent source of misery from catching on equipment and people leading to damage and injury. (Wheel wells in a trailer drive me nuts.) I have seen E-track run in vertical and horizontal strips within the trailer and I find the vertical runs to have similar problems as the D-rings. Best bet, install 3-4 horizontal bands of the e-track in the sides of the trailer. Pick heights that coincide with the stuff you carry; 18", 36" & 54" from the floor are probably good places to start, but adjust for your load. The source you found for the track should also have straps and load control bars. If not, check out http://www.etrailer.com/c-ET.htm. I'd start with 2-4 straps that clip into the track.

As an additional item, now that you have your own trailer, you have an opportunity to standardize your containers that may help making your packing life easier. We did this by making trying to get all of our container dimensions to line up with a fractional increment of the trailers inside width. For our 90" wide trailers this meant we had a 'half pack' dimension of 45", a 'third pack' dimension of 30", and a 'quarter pack' dimension of 22.5". As much as possible we made sure our containers had these external dimensions and they could quickly pack 2, 3, or 4 wide in the trailer without any real planning. This method lessened the amount of mental gymnastics required to pack the truck efficiently. Sure, we always seemed to end up with that roll of carpet or fake potted plant than needed to fit in there, but at least the silliness was limited. A robot with bumpers is probably a close half pack in a 6' wide trailer.

Just as a clarification, I'm not suggesting build your own set of custom road cases (which would be cool), but just keep those dimensions in mind as you look at other containers. Example, the KoP boxes do not fit well in my wife's mini-van, but some of the Rubbermaid 20 gal bins are 1/2 & 1/3 pack in that vehicle. Consequently, we use the Rubbermaid bins when we have to move stuff around in her van.

Good luck with the new trailer. As with any advice, your mileage may vary.

[Andrew Schreiber]

I cannot agree more with the standardized sizes for things, as a college student I move A LOT (I move every three months) One of my roommates packs all our dishes into standard Rubbermaid containers, they then pack all their stuff into more of the containers, loading their van with these (while heavy) is not that difficult because it just means making sure the heavy stuff is on bottom (color coded!)

[ChuckDickerson]

Thank you all for the great ideas and suggestions. We are currently working on mounting brackets to weld two tongue type trailer jacks at each back corner (one on each side) so we can stablize the trailer when it isn't connected to a vehicle. This way we can load/unload and just go in an out through the back without the front flipping up when not connected. We are going to make an aluminum floor pan to cover the whole bottom underneath the plywood floor to keep road splash, etc. of the bottom of the wood. We have located the HDO plywood so the floor should be done soon. We plan to install one of those triangular trailer tongue tool boxes on the front to store a tire tool, jacks, wheel chocks, cargo ratchet straps, etc. as well. The tires that are on it are OK for local use but I wouldn't feel comfortable making a long road trip on them so we are going to get two new tires and rims and put the old ones on tire carriers in the tongue as well for spairs.

Mark, thank you especially for the advice on the E-Track. The site you linked to was one of the places we were looking. Can you provide more information on how you would install the E-Track flush please? We were planning to screw plywood back to the inside walls and then attach the E-Track to the plywood but that would leave the E-Track raised on top of the plywood. Are you suggesting we attach the E-Track directly to the metal wall substructure first and then fit horizontal strips of plywood between the E-Track to make the metal surface of the E-Track more or less flush with the plywood? We like the idea of several strips of horizontal E-Track better than verticle as well.

We are thinking some strategically placed D-Rings flush mounted in the floor for certain things like our pit lift cart might work well also. Sort of box/crate/tub like items around the sides stacked and secured to the walls with E-Track and rolling cart like items positioned down the middle and secured to floor with chocks and ratchet straps the D-rings in the floor. Is this how others do it? We certainly understand the need for securing the load and want to plan well and do it right!

We also have a nice aluminum ramp to help roll stuff in and out that will work perfectly with either the double back door or single side door.

I guess our "standard" tub size right now are the tubs we all get with the KoP simply because we have collected quite a few of them over the years. We will have to measure and see how well they work in the trailer and may decide to standardize on something else in the future.

Good stuff! Please keep the ideas coming!

Thanks!
-Chuck

[kramarczyk]

Originally Posted by DeepWater

Can you provide more information on how you would install the E-Track flush please? We were planning to screw plywood back to the inside walls and then attach the E-Track to the plywood but that would leave the E-Track raised on top of the plywood. Are you suggesting we attach the E-Track directly to the metal wall substructure first and then fit horizontal strips of plywood between the E-Track to make the metal surface of the E-Track more or less flush with the plywood?

While I haven't done any install myself, if I had my options open like you do I, I would install the track first to the trailer structure (as seen here) and then put up the plywood. I would probably attach the plywood to the e-track sections with some rivets. Of course, I don't actually know what the wall construction of your trailer is either. The guys at etrailer can probably provide better guidance.

Is this how others do it? We certainly understand the need for securing the load and want to plan well and do it right!

How you pack is dependent on a lot of things such as, how full your trailer will be, weight of items, and what order you need to use things when they come off the trailer. e.g. don’t put the legs for your pit workbenches in nose of the trailer.

If the trailer is not going to be too full, you can flat pack (everything on the floor) and group items to the side walls if you like. If it is not an obvious easy pack, start wall to wall, floor to ceiling, from the very beginning. Heavy stuff low... high efficiency stuff first (no sailboat fuel)... the case dimensions from earlier help out a lot. Even knowing 2 of these + 1 of those goes across the trailer helps. It is really easy to pack less efficiently if the situation looks good; starting over because you left air in the nose is painful.

As far as load control goes, in my experience items shift in two ways. Towards the nose during decel and towards the ground due to vibration. My advice is get stuff as close to the nose and group it as a monolith. If the item is already strapped as far forward as it can go then slamming on the breaks is a non-event. (not that I recommend it) Likewise if things are in a single large pile, then if they happen to fall it is not as far to the next item. Before you strap the pile down, look for items likely to shift... and what they may shift into.

One last thing, not that this is much of an issue in a 6x10 trailer, but don't make your pile any larger than the people in the trailer can handle shifting as it is loaded/unloaded. I find that to be about every 8'. Once you hit that size, it is advisable to strap the load and install a flat surface to start packing against. I like load bars for this purpose. It should be noted that these are clipped into the e-track and have essentially no outward load on the trailer walls unlike the compression installed bars referred to earlier in this thread. Once these are in, start the packing logic all over again just like in the nose.

With all of this being said it should also be noted that my wife does not like how I pack the car for family trips.

I guess our "standard" tub size right now are the tubs we all get with the KoP simply because we have collected quite a few of them over the years.

A bird in the hand...

[ChuckDickerson]

Originally Posted by kramarczyk

While I haven't done any install myself, if I had my options open like you do I, I would install the track first to the trailer structure (as seen here) and then put up the plywood.

The plan was to install it exactly as shown in the video. In the video the walls are already covered in plywood and the E-Track is installed on top of the plywood which would leave the E-Track raised. Are you suggesting two layers of plywood? The first as in the video and then piece in sections between the horizontal E-Track strips to flush up the wall flat with the outermost surface of the E-Track? While I can see the advantage to this I am wondering about how much extra weight that might add to the trailer that could take away from the carrying capacity.

[Alan Anderson]

Originally Posted by DeepWater

We were planning to screw plywood back to the inside walls and then attach the E-Track to the plywood but that would leave the E-Track raised on top of the plywood. Are you suggesting we attach the E-Track directly to the metal wall substructure first and then fit horizontal strips of plywood between the E-Track to make the metal surface of the E-Track more or less flush with the plywood?

I wouldn't worry about trying to make things flush with the walls. I think it would only be the floor that could give you issues with raised track getting in the way. (Note: I'm a programmer. What do I know about loading trailers?)