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Mobile Lab Project:

Based on Dodge Ram 2500 Diesel Pickup Truck
& Wells Cargo EW2424 Trailer

Comments, Resources, and Hacks

Last updated: Apr 15, 2009

© 2005 by Steven K. Roberts
Nomadic Research Labs

April, 2009 Update

This project has moved occasionally to the foreground, but never stayed long enough to spawn real progress until now. Please see the Nomadness blog for updates on the boat and the relevance of the mobile lab (now under construction)... the basic issue is that my primary facilities are a 3-hour round-trip drive away from the boat. This is not a way to get immersive projects done, so I am moving the nucleus of the lab into this mobile platform.

I'll eventually bring this page up to date, but in the meantime, here's the original material about the acquisition of this rig about 4 years ago:

Background and General Plan (October, 2005)

As is my custom these days, any new project (or toy) that involves significant learning curves gets an associated web page. This one will doubtless become a family of pages, since a lot of integration work lies ahead in order to turn it into a useful mobile lab facility. We begin with a loose narrative covering the general experience of putting this system together, including comments on the various products involved.

The triggering motive for purchasing a machine of this scale was the need to transport a significant portion of my father's estate from Kentucky back to my home base in Washington state. Of course, that's something that could be done with a U-Haul, so a single cross-country move hardly justifies spending this much money (which, absurdly, is approximately equal in non-adjusted dollars to the cost of my first house back in the 1970s, a 4000 sqft Victorian). The decision to do this was further supported by the fact that I have a large-scale move coming up, as I will be selling the house and lab on Camano Island, buying a boat, and establishing a new facility somewhere near live-aboard moorage. I don't know any of the details of that yet, but it's out there in the future... and much cargo-hauling will be involved before it's all over.

Still, that's not compelling enough to justify a new diesel truck and spiffy trailer. The real motive for this is that I want to revisit something that I dabbled with in the mid-90s, but do it right this time: a full-scale self-contained mobile lab and development facility. Back then I had a rig of similar scale, but it was mostly devoted to hauling BEHEMOTH around the US on speaking tours; the lab/office components were secondary and rarely used. Now I'm facing a period of disruption, and don't want to lose continuity as I shut down my existing lab and find/build a new one... largely because I'm on a roll with Shacktopus and can't afford to let it to go stale while I fiddle around with buildings and schleppage.

The grand plan, therefore, is to build a decent modular lab into this new trailer, which will then allow ongoing development during the moving hassles, provide a robust demo platform when it's time to start taking my new baby to trade shows and other events, and serve as a portable shop while I am working on the new boat.

This corner of the Nomadic Research Labs website is devoted to the mobile lab project, beginning with the platform itself. Unlike a blog, where pure reverse-chronological ordering makes it difficult to jump in to a complex project narrative, this is organized by subsystems and components (updated throughout whenever necessary).

The Truck

I plunged into this knowing that I'd be hauling a Wells-Cargo trailer of suitable scale; I've had two of their units before (20 and 44 feet), so have a good sense of their quality. More on that in the next section, but it's important to know approximately what is to be hauled while shopping for a tow vehicle.

For about 10 years I had a '91 Ford F350 diesel dually with the 7.3-liter International engine... a good old reliable rig. Unfortunately, nobody ever told me about the need for special coolant additives to prevent cavitation corrosion, while at the same time I was heading toward the inevitability of a broken-off valve due to the engine's quirky non-lubricated seals. It failed abruptly one night with a mighty cylinder-destroying clatter, spelling the end of the truck: the cost of either a new engine or repair was roughly equal to blue-book value. I sold it cheaply to a friend who knows how to rebuild such things, and bought the first cheap car I could find on the island... an Isuzu Trooper. For a couple of years it worked well enough, but I never thought of it as a serious piece of equipment (certainly not something I would use for towing or cross-country adventures).

So the first requirement for the new tow vehicle was that it be something I could respect and treat as a tool, scaled to a trailer with around 10K pounds capacity. That called for a diesel-powered truck in the 3/4-ton range, not necessarily a dually, long bed to allow sleeping under a shell, with 4WD nice but not necessary. For a while, largely because of positive experiences with my previous truck, I tended toward a newish Ford with the 6.0 Powerstroke Diesel... but hanging around on various forums eventually convinced me that there were just too many scary issues with this engine (despite the Fords having a very loyal following). Also, during a test drive of a brand-new Ford F250, the odometer failed and a mystery cable was dangling by the brake pedal... not exactly inspiring confidence that "quality is job 1." No doubt a fluke, but it still put me off.

Meanwhile, I had been hearing over and over, from many trusted sources, lots of good things about the Cummins Turbo Diesel. I drove a used one that was sweet but expensive for its mileage, and then gingerly drove a new one that quite impressed me... although the dealership in eastern Louisville was awful: pushy sales manager lying to me about availability of units ("only 3 within 200 miles, and another guy is coming for this one tonight!") and refusing to give me a bottom-line price until I sat down and filled out loan paperwork. When I said I wanted to pay cash and needed a real number, he became even more obnoxious, and I later learned that they have a reputation for only being interested in doing their own 19% financing. That just about put me off Dodge entirely, but I called their corporate office, related the story to someone who seemed genuinely distressed to hear it, and let them query a few nearby dealerships with my requirements.

Shortly thereafter I was contacted by Derick from Gerdon Auto in Corydon, Indiana... who demonstrated during initial conversation and follow-up support that there is such a thing as an honest and pleasant car dealer. The whole experience has been positive, and he has gone out of his way to make the process as smooth as possible (including a few things well beyond the call of duty, like delivering the truck, handling the Washington State paperwork for that as well as the trailer, and giving me decent deals even when I didn't know they existed). Here's the new machine:

New Dodge Ram 2500 with Cummins Turbodiesel

Meet NEWT (New Expensive White Truck): a 2005 Dodge Ram 2500 (3/4-ton) Quad Cab Long-bed 2WD truck with Cummins Turbo Diesel engine

My Inner Geek is quite enjoying the technology of this thing, and I'm a daily reader of the Diesel Ram Forums. Knowing computers as I do, I confess I'm a little nervous about there being so many of them in here, but of course I was unable to resist the allure of a Scan Gauge to monitor the OBD-II port along with separate EGT/boost/temp gauges; I'm about to repackage it and mount it in the cubby next to the brake controller. There is a whole culture of hard-core warranty-voiders out there who "bomb" their trucks by adding controllers that cause the engine to produce vastly more horsepower and torque (still seems weird that it's all software these days), but I have no reason to do that; I plan to keep this for a long time. I also had an EVS-II security system added, and picked up an extra wireless key fob to allow the equivalent of an additional sensor loop input from the trailer.

Of course, gadgetry is irresistable, and I was a sucker for the RB1 navigation system with integrated Sirius satellite radio:

RB1 navigation and Prodigy brake controller

RB1 Navigation System at top, and Prodigy trailer brake controller mounted in dash cubby

This really makes driving fun... you enter the target address (or business phone number) and let it calculate the route. Progress is then displayed on a real-time map that changes to the display shown above when turns are imminent, and a pleasant female voice announces all upcoming events. Added comments Jan 18, 2006: I still like the RB1, but it would be very useful if the company had some sort of feedback mechanism where users can report routing errors. I found two in the Louisville area, and another here in the Pacific Northwest... driving from Camano Island to Port Angeles yesterday, it wanted me to take the Anacortes Ferry to Canada and then cross back into the US from Victoria! It also is completly wrong about Camano Island, and enroute back via the Port Townsend ferry it wanted me to take a second ferry from south Whidbey and then head back north. Simply goofy. I still recommend it, but you do need to take its recommendations with a grain of salt and your own map for confirmation of "reasonableness."

For the first trip (Kentucky back home to Washington), the only additional gizmology is a Cobra 75WXST CB radio (all built into the handset) and an Alinco DR605 dual-band ham radio. Down the road a bit, I'll add a docking unit for my Motorola V710 cellular phone so I can get a proper 3-watt signal to an external antenna (accommodation of this is why I chose that model phone, which isn't bad despite a poorly designed user interface and terrible camera). Naturally, of course, this will be a beta site for the Shacktopus mobile edition.

The truck is comfortable and a quiet joy to drive, and I'm seeing about 21.5 mpg without the trailer attached. Not bad for something that weighs somewhere around 3 tons. The interior is well-designed with lots of stowage, and it sure doesn't feel like a pickem-up, nosiree...

I have just installed (Oct 26, 2005) a Softopper, with the intent of making the truck bed something that accommodates sleeping (a tri-fold full-size futon and matching memory foam mattress pad were purchased from the friendly folks at FoamOrder.com). The neat thing about this topper is that it folds up and goes away when you don't need it... not as physically robust as the fiberglass ones, of course, but much more flexible. Here's the rig with the unit freshly installed:

Dodge Ram 2500 with Softopper

Note added Jan 18, 2006: I do like the Softopper, and it is wonderful to be able to make it go away when needed without having to call a bunch of guys to help lift off a big fiberglass monster. So far, the only downside has been the rear flap which is only held down with velcro... it dances around sometimes (especially when towing). Also, the adhesive velcro attached to the truck tailgate has rippled from cold and moisture, but I can't think of any better alternatives that don't involve drilling holes in my new truck. In general, it keeps things dry and is stable on the road. Visibility out the back is not great (I'd like side windows), but I like it.

The Trailer

As I mentioned above, I'm a long-time Wells-Cargo fan, having put at least 100K miles on a 20-footer and another 20K on a monstrous 44-foot fifth-wheel (photo). Driving the latter unit around the country gave me a whole new respect for truckers, although I did get fairly adept at pulling through gas stations, espresso stands, and campgrounds. It was a wonderful machine, with about 450 square feet of floor space, a king-size bed, 2 wireless video channels to the truck cab (interior and back-up cameras), excellent flow-through and powered ventilation, AC and DC power systems, fluorescent and 12V lighting, insulation, Microship and BEHEMOTH tie-downs, a rear door that dropped down to become a loading ramp, and the all-important cat door. The driver's console included a Globalstar satellite phone by Qualcomm, Icom 706mkIIg HF/VHF/UHF ham radio, Outbacker HF and Larsen dual-band whips, video receiver and monitor, security system, iBook stand with truck power and stereo interface, and the requisite CB for trucker chatter.

The new one will be even more geeked-out, but much closer to the former in scale: the Wells-Cargo EW2024 Express Wagon. I chose 4-ton capacity, fold down ramp door, internal E-track for fixturing, nose cone to optimize aerodynamics, and 7-foot headroom to minimize pain... as well as a few niceties like LED marker lights all around and flow-through ventilation. I heartily recommend these over RVs for custom mobile projects, since you can build just about anything into them without running into a cheesy substrate or destroying any remaining resale value. From a cultural perspective, these are also "safe"... I've never been hassled at camgrounds as I was (twice) in a converted schoolbus. These look upscale, so they don't make the Winnebago folks nervous.

Before doing the lab conversion, I'll have it retrofitted with insulation and windows... I have written twice to their customer service department about this via the form on their website, but no reply. (Amazing how many companies only pretend to have a web presence... I always enjoyed working with Wells Cargo the old-fashioned way, but I don't think they've moved into the Internet age despite a having a nice online catalogue. More recently, I wrote them asking about local dealers other than whoever was closest to my current zip code, and they didn't bother to reply to that question either; at least they're consistent.)

Here's the new trailer:

Wells-Cargo EW2424 Trailer

Tying the two units together is a weight-distributing hitch with sway control: the Equal-i-zer, which I purchased from RVWholesalers after reading lots of good things about it on the forums. Unfortunately, I let the guys at Tow Zone (Jeffersonville, IN) install it when I went to pick up the trailer, and instead of reading the instructions and performing leveling measurements (both of which I was urging) they fiddled with everything until it seemed to fit and sent me on my way... with the hitch head bolted into the wrong holes on the shank for the relative trailer and truck heights. I also discovered later that they had not installed the angle setting screw, so the slotted hitch head channel allowed it to move to its end of travel (putting the hitch ball at an absurd angle). The good news is that I caught this before actually taking a real load on the highway, and fixed it... all the while mumbling about having paid hefty shop rates for sloppy work (see photo of unit as it came from the shop: note gaposis between spacer rivet and hitch shank). The other good news is that the manufacturer is responsive and takes the time to answer questions; that goes a long way toward inspiring confidence.

For load management, I use a custom FileMaker database to track all the weights and centers-of-gravity, checking the distribution with a Sherline Trailer Tongue Weight Scale:

Sherline scale in use

It's amazing how much a single item can affect the center of gravity. A moment after I took this photo, showing 650 pounds of tongue weight, I rolled the spare tire to the back of the mostly empty trailer and the tongue weight dropped to 600. As the days passed and the trailer filled, the numbers more or less made sense (mass multiplied by distance from the fulcrum point equals moment)... until suddenly it diverged! I kept adding more and more weight to the rear, yet the tongue weight kept climbing... hitting 1400 with about 5000 pounds of cargo. It suddenly struck me that another phenomenon was manifesting itself: the suspension compressed to the point that the rear was resting hard on the drop-down struts even when I cranked the bow down for a measurement, so the effective fulcrum point moved from some vague area above the axles to the very rear of the rig. Fixing this suddenly gave me a touchy tongue weight of about 250, so I had to shuffle stuff around again. But at least it made sense.

At this writing (Nov 30, 2005), I'm about 2 days away from a cross-country drive with all this. One bit of packing advice to pass along: in every previous move, I just gathered all the free boxes I could find, packed 'em full with a corresponding inventory notebook, and did the 3-D puzzle game. This time, I built a database to track overall center of gravity, and found a local company that sells recycled boxes by the pallet-load. Working with two box sizes allows a much more efficient packing scheme...

Standardized boxes in the trailer in cargo-mode. By the time I was fully packed, it was nowhere near this neat.

This will all be irrelevant during mobile-lab operation, of course, but it's worth pointing out as a time-saver. So far, this has been the smoothest move ever.