Camper Build
I have started the process of building a pop up topper for my truck and thought I'd share the progress.
I will be videoing my progress on YouTube and you can find the very first video here:
My truck is a 2014 GMC Sierra 1500 and since it doesn't have the payload to accommodate a slide in camper, I decided to build a pop-up topper to stay under the GVWR.
Since I don't have the space or equipment to weld Aluminum, I decided to use 8020 Extruded Aluminum. Well, it's a different brand of Extruded Aluminum sold by Faztek here in Canada.
The camper will be a little heavier due to the extruded aluminum, but designing was a lot easier thanks to 2 free programs 8020 provides.
I used the 8020 version Frame Designer by Framexpert to design the camper as well as 8020's tech Toolkit to calculate the deflection from weight loading.
Both of those programs can be found here:
Frame Designer (8020 version)
https://www.framexpert.com/products/framedesigner/download/
8020's Tech Toolkit
https://8020.net/downloads/index/downloads
Here is the video covering my design process:
My Plans
I'm offering my plans free for people to download if you join my mailing list. Please be aware that these are NOT complete plans and that some items are just placeholders for the correct part that was not available in Frame Designer. One example of that is that I actually ordered 1560 (1.5" x 6") as my support beams, but they are represented as 1545. I am offering this for reference only and to help people get a better understanding of what I am building.