Aero RV Belly Pan(s)

[orbywan]

Pan 4

Thanks everyone for the comments and encouragement.

This pan was a challenge because the A/C condenser is mounted parallel with the body on the driver’s side and blows air out the bottom of the pan. I went to a local construction/demolition resale company and bought a couple of long louvers and joined them together so the condenser can vent hot air out the bottom.

I’m also hoping air coming from the front grille area will exit here if it doesn’t have the opportunity to do so before it gets this far.

The white thing in the second to last photo is a video camera. It keeps an eye out for rocks stuck in the left duallies when off roading. It also checks ground clearance, and is a video version of a low tire pressure sensor system. This gives great piece of mind when you’re running down the road and wonder if one of your duallies is going flat. I run a quad monitor that does split screens so when I’m off roading I can run the left and right dually cams side by side on the monitor and check them periodically as we go down the road. These two cameras have saved my tires from damage from stuck rocks many times.

This vehicle also has a pan and tilt camera on the back, two on the roof (one looking forward and one looking rearward), and one on each side mirror. That’s what I do for a living so this vehicle is a rolling test platform for cameras.

When I test drive this the first time with the new pans on it, the left and right dually cams will be my eyes underneath to make sure the various pans are holding together on the freeway.

The last shot is of my attempts at limiting the air coming in the front grille and openings. I have a secret weapon for testing minimal air openings. A couple of years ago when I bought this vehicle I fabbed a sprayer tube and mounted it in front of the radiator in case it ever over heated hauling my toys in the mountains. It’s tapped into the coach water supply and uses the coach water pump to pressurize the system. If I overdue the grille closure all I have to do is turn on the sprayer and the temp drops like a rock. I love it.

Next up is the center pan, and the dreaded rear differential.

[BamZipPow]

Are yer cameras have DVR/recording capability? Might make it easier to pay attention to the road instead of glancing at the monitor to see the pan status.

What make/model are these tilt/pan cameras? Got any specs?

[KamperBob]

I felt geeky adding one camera to my camper. You have a veritable plethora of them!

[lunarhighway]

looking at the last pictures it seems dams in front of the rear wheels might be a good idea too., given their size, perhaps half a bucket would be an easy way to go about it.

get a cheap black cement bucket, cut it in half and remove the bottom, and you have two curved black dams that you can attach with L blrackets to the undetray.

perhaps something similar can work for the front tires at well.

but i like what you've done so far!

[orbywan]

Originally Posted by BamZipPow

Are yer cameras have DVR/recording capability? Might make it easier to pay attention to the road instead of glancing at the monitor to see the pan status.

What make/model are these tilt/pan cameras? Got any specs?

We have mobile DVR's that we integrate into systems like these, that might be a good idea, although I'm used to quick checks on the monitor to see what's going on.

The pan and tilt cameras are built by my company, Total Vision® Products. We're in the middle of getting shipments out for the day but I'll be glad to send you some specs on the cameras this afternoon when I can breathe again. You can also see more info at www.totalvisionproducts.com. The site is a little behind at this point but will be updated soon. Thanks.

[orbywan]

Originally Posted by lunarhighway

looking at the last pictures it seems dams in front of the rear wheels might be a good idea too., given their size, perhaps half a bucket would be an easy way to go about it.

get a cheap black cement bucket, cut it in half and remove the bottom, and you have two curved black dams that you can attach with L blrackets to the undetray.

perhaps something similar can work for the front tires at well.

but i like what you've done so far!

When time permits I'm going to build some wheel fairings for the rear duallies and eventually for the front also. I just bought a copy of Hucho's book on aerodynamics and so far have been disappointed that it doesn't go into more details about the three things I am the most interested in at this point, which is front air dams, belly pans and especially wheel turbulence.

I say so far because I've barely scratched the surface so maybe the info is there and I haven't found it. Don't get me wrong, I think it's an awesome book.

I'm going to construct some wheel fairings using Three Wheelers construction technique, which is fiberglass over foam. I think that's the only way I'll effectively achieve the shapes I want to build. Hucho's book says the air at the rear wheels is coming at each wheel set at about a 15 degree angle from the middle. That's throwing an interesting curve ball in there, not sure what I'll do about that.

I think wheel turbulence on dually vehicles is considerable and so far somewhat ignored so I'm looking forward to that part of the build. I've incorporated mounting points on the pans in the back so I can build 'clip on' wheel spats, pants, whatever you want to call them. That way when I get a chance I can do some A/B/A testing to see how effective they are, and so I can take them off easily when it's time to play in the dirt again.

The hardest part of the pans build starts this evening, next up is one more somewhat easy pan and then the differential. I feel like this segment will be the difference between better than nothing and hell yes.

[slowmover]

Impressed by your dedication to such a large-scale project.

[orbywan]

Originally Posted by slowmover

Impressed by your dedication to such a large-scale project.

Thanks. Dedication, I believe that’s spelled o- b- s- e- s- s- i- o- n.

[slowmover]

It's what we say (controlling our facial expressions) to keep the women and children from backing away . . . .

[BamZipPow]

Originally Posted by orbywan

We have mobile DVR's that we integrate into systems like these, that might be a good idea, although I'm used to quick checks on the monitor to see what's going on.

The pan and tilt cameras are built by my company, Total Vision® Products. We're in the middle of getting shipments out for the day but I'll be glad to send you some specs on the cameras this afternoon when I can breathe again. You can also see more info at www.totalvisionproducts.com. The site is a little behind at this point but will be updated soon. Thanks.

I guess I would be looking fer a 3-4 channel DVR/monitoring setup. Nose, left/right on the aero cap, and an open channel fer portable monitoring.

I like wired cameras so I ruled out wireless setups fer now. Not sure I'd be willing to invest $1k in the system...