Designing a hard-shell rooftop tent

[BigChief]

If anyone was interested, I found a 3D model of a blimp online and modified it to remove the fins and cabin and everything. It seems to match "the template" pretty well except I haven't figured out how to give it a flat bottom yet.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/n2eymm7j2u...mline.skp?dl=0

[freebeard]

I'd listen to Frank Lee, not the nay-sayers. Look at the bubble top on the van in the top of this picture:


http://www.cheaprvliving.com/forums/Thread-Thoughts-on-older-camper-vans

It would be a superior solution to your pylons. With a flat deck at the 'mid-line, you could put camper jacks in the fillets over the daylight opening.

You'd need to think about ingress/egress. Maybe a rear bulkhead that makes a ramp that swings down over the decklid? Here's a picture I drew in 19-mumble-mumble:


It could be adapted to your situation.

It seems to match "the template" pretty well except I haven't figured out how to give it a flat bottom yet.

The Cd appears correct. Select everything below the mid-line and then delete or collapse the architecture. Make sure the bottom is closed. and then reduce the vertical dimension (be it Y or be it Z) to maybe 10%. This is a pragmatic deviation from the theory — the approach and departure angles are accommodated, and champhering that sharp edge will 'bellmouth' the underbody.

On the motorhome pictures I posted I preserved 2 of the 6 courses of triangles and flatted the rest. The motorhome pictures are based on a 6-frequency octahedral shape defined with 8x19 or 162 vertexes. Your blimp model appears to have 36x24+2 or 866 vertexes.

[aerohead]

[freebeard]

Forget your P-38 belly tanks. That's the one to have. I wonder if it's less than 8ft wide.

[Fat Charlie]

Originally Posted by BigChief

I saved up enough to either buy a really nice RV, or buy a really nice car and put a camper on top of it.

Now that you've asked why, I'll ask "why not"?

Well, equipping a luxury sportscar to be a camper makes for neither a good camper nor a good luxury sportscar. I fear it and would hate to take a corner in it. Vehicle dynamics aside, there's no way you could attach a huge sail like that securely to the sheetmetal without damaging the sheetmetal when enough stress is placed on it.

Have your cake and eat it, too:
Teardrop Travel Trailers by Camp-Inn
Little Guy Teardrop Trailers | be different.
Micro-Lite Trailers

Then my quick Google came up with this:
Manufacturers | The Small Trailer Enthusiast
Page down to the teardrops and there are a ridiculous amount of small manufacturers of tiny campers. You'll be off the ground, have better insulation than a tent, you can run electricity and duct you climate control- and still have your luxury sportscar the rest of the time.

[ennored]

Originally Posted by freebeard

Can't resist....

[freebeard]

Originally Posted by Je Suis Charlie

Well, equipping a luxury sportscar to be a camper makes for neither a good camper nor a good luxury sportscar. I fear it and would hate to take a corner in it.

OP's last post was permalink #41. We've never heard the design brief and so have no information on why the 20ft long 8ft diameter shape is required, how many occupants, whether they need to be able to walk past each other on the floor, & etcetera.

My own solution is a 2-door sedan with

a single driver seat, passenger backrest in right rear
an L-shaped deck that's six feet long for sleeping
Koolatron cooler/heater
curtain rods w/ no curtains,
12v DC/USB outlets

It corners pretty well for a 45-year-old car. At least since they repaired the frozen-up steering gearbox I got from driving through the soup at Bonneville. That put me into a guard rail on black ice.

[Fat Charlie]

Dan Aykroyd's solution:

I've never actually had a really cool car that I could fit comfortably into. So I think I'm gonna buy me a Winnebago. With a big kitchen, water bed, big kitchen...

[freebeard]

He must like big kitchens.

There's an interior design for my tricycle motor home. I've never modeled it, but there is a hot tub or water bed ahead of the front wheels, a Cptn Kirk command chair and half-circular desk in the tail and benches with fold-up station wagon 'tail-gunner' seats in them in between.



Gull-wing doors on both sides instead of the slider.