Educate me on Trailers

[sanddrag]

All good comments. Thank you for the feedback and keep it coming. The Ridgeline is a much larger truck than the Ranger (and has many well-designed nice features) but it's not a true body-on frame solid rear axle truck. The Ranger is mine and the RidgeLine is another mentor's.

It sounds like we definitely need some sort of interior walls.

[JaneYoung]

Who is going to pull it and where will you store it?

Jane

[ebarker]

here we go

Ford vs. GM vs. Dodge vs. Toyota

someone just needs a deep gravelly voice ..err don't know how to do that here..

[roystur44]

We rent a 6'x10'x 70" enclosed trailer for $28 Day. Rear ramp and side door, inside lights, lockable, inside tie downs, single axle. That's plenty of space to carry 2-3 robots and over 8-12 crates of gear and 15 batteries. We do 2-3 short travel, over night events per year which require the trailer. I've been talking to the guy who rents it to us and he may just sponsor us and let us use it. The rental place takes care of the maintenance and storage. The rental yard is close by. We pull the trailer with a V8 SUV and pack it with 4 students and a driver.

It's hard to beat that price and the convenience of renting. The rental place even has GPS locating devices if theft is a issue.

[Gary Dillard]

This is mildly tangent to the topic, but I amused myself with it so i thought I'd share it.

A few years back while living in Florida I decided I wanted to put up a small storage shed next to my house using one of the pre-fab kits from Home Depot. I checked with the local zoning board, who informed me that I would need a $250 permit, and full plans and site maps, and it would need to meet Miami Dade Building Code, 6 weeks to review it, etc. I then called the Florida Highway Patrol to find out what the design requirements were for a trailer. They said they didn't care, they just needed to know how much it weighed so they knew how much to charge me for a license plate.

So I proceeded to design and build a "trailer". I used a small storage shed from Home Depot for the basic frame, built it next to my house, and then proceeded to indefinitely design / build the chassis. If I ever finish it and I decide to take it on the road, I guess I'll have to figure out how much it weighs so I can get a license plate for it.

[treffk]

We generally use a U-Haul 5x8 or 5x10 trailer to bring our things to events currently. We used to use a sponsors trailer that was rather spacious so we stowed jackets and such in it during the day.

We suposedly have a trailer the school will let us have because it was wrecked. A tractor ran into if I remember correctly, but we have never seen it. I do not know if this is because we decided it wasn't worth the effort or they just are not forthcoming to allowing us to have it.

The one year we went to Championship(Atlanta) we used a sponsors trailer that I think was 14 to 16 feet long and a parent pulled it down while we flew. This worked out rather well for a reason most people wouldn't think of. We had everyone put their luggage in it, this avoided extra time at the airport and the extra cost. We took almost 40 people so this was a lifesaver for us.

One thing that I haven't seen mentioned in this thread is trailer locks to prevent people from stealing the trailer. With having a trailer that constantly sits where anyone has access it always has the chance of getting stolen, even at events! 1108 is one team in particular that had their trailer stolen from GKCR in 2009 or 2010 right off one of the teams vehicles. Trailers can be great but just be causious when leaving them around.

[Tom Line]

Originally Posted by Gary Dillard

This is mildly tangent to the topic, but I amused myself with it so i thought I'd share it.

Gary, that's hillarious. Doubly so because my brother in law did the exact same thing. In his case it was a 40 by 30 enclosure for painting boats. The township was not amused and came out to make him prove it could move. He jacked up all 4 corners of the structure, bolted wheels to it, then moved it a couple feet back and forth while they watched. He showed them that it moved, and they've been quiet (but quite upset) about it ever since then.

[rsisk]

Whatever trailer you purchase, make doubly sure you keep it secured. I give tips earlier in the thread based on first hand experience of losing a trailer with everything our team owned in it. Double door locks with hidden hasps, strong steel cable with heavy duty locks throu the wheels, locking lug nuts, hitch lock, paint the license number on the roof, and add an active tracking system. Finally, don't ever assume it is safe any time it is out of your sight

[mott]

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!