Building an Arctic - Cold Weather Pack

Just read Ski's last entry.I like the fact that the new cold pack had no condensation on it.Thats what I am mainly after.We don't do cold winter camping so my interest is in the times like at Yellowstone when the spring/fall night temps get into the mid to high 20's.We don't run the heater while we sleep.It's the condensation where my concern is.Even on our trip last monday down the coast,the night temp wasn't cold but we still had condensation.The long way here is that I like the fleece it will keep the moisture off the liner and fold up with it.Got to keep it simple.

Thanks Mark for starting this thread and the experimenting.

Frank
 
Thanks Mark for starting this thread and the experimenting.

Well, this is ski3pin's thread, actually. But I know what you meant. ;)
 
Well, this is ski3pin's thread, actually. But I know what you meant. ;)



Yeh got carried away.Ski has done a great job as well as you on the research.Lots of info to ponder over.His fabric or the fleece would both serve my needs.

Thanks to both of you.Keep the info coming.

Frank
 
Here's some more seat of the pants data after four more nights.

Overall, we love it.

Things we learned. It provides a warm pleasant feeling fabric on the inside. There still is condensation occurring on the interior surface of the sideliner under the arctic pack. We would do a little wiping when we opened the window flaps.

The Lady does not like closed in spaces and loves windows to be able to see out, especially while sleeping in the cabover. Three nights the arctic pack windows flaps were open in the cabover area with the clear vinyl closed. Those mornings the interior temperature was the same as the temperature outside - MarkBC, thanks for the info on inside outside remote thermometers. I would say this was equal to not having an arctic pack. One night it snowed, dense cloud cover, and dark as death outside. We kept all the flaps closed this night. In the morning it was 41° inside and 32° outside. so it is evident it does help to retain heat.
 
Here's some more seat of the pants data after four more nights.
Overall, we love it.

There still is condensation occurring on the interior surface of the sideliner under the arctic pack. We would do a little wiping when we opened the window flaps.

Thanks for the update, ski.

Yeah...no matter what insulation we use on the inside, there still will likely be condensation on the vinyl walls inside...unless somehow you have insulation that seals the inside from the walls -- insulation that keeps interior humidity from contacting the walls at all.

The only way that I can think of to prevent condensation (other than just having more ventilation) is to put the insulation on the outside, so that the vinyl is on the warm side of the insulation so won't be cold enough to condense interior moisture.
 
ski3pin said:
Much information we got through searching the forum posts here although photos of the finished product were hard to come by. I found four small photos on FWC’s website which I cannot find now to provide a link for you.
Click to expand...
While cleaning up an old desktop PC, I found this old email from Ben dated 7/27/2008 11:30 AM EST.

Mike,
Attached are some photos of the arctic pack. On your camper the length of the arctic pack on each side is 158". It is 25" in height and the windows have a 38" wide opening. The material is a polypropylene that is water repellant, breathable, mildew and rot resistant.
Sincerely,
Ben Burnett
Click to expand...
.

.

.

.
Mike

P.S. I did not get the Arctic Pack.
 
Ski that is some great work. I know this thread is a few years old but it resurfaced so I had to see what you two/four accomplished. Looks great.
 
thought i would bring up the cheap way we did our "arctic"pac
when we had our fw camper eagle.
we had a spare queen size comforter cut it to size,added velcro,
camper came from factory with velcro already installed,do not know if they do now.

worked great and when rolled up in a stuff bag worked as a pillow.

might have to make one for our north star pop up.

Les,lqhikers
 
An update -

Here are some photos of improvements on the way the fabric goes behind the lift panels. I now notch the bottom hem so it lies right along the edge of the lift panel. I also cut a notch in the fabric so it easily goes around the short bungee cord behind the lift panel that attaches to the sideliner. This allows a few more inches of material to go behind the lift panels and lie cleanly in place.

gallery_1902_252_144665.jpg



gallery_1902_252_11075.jpg



gallery_1902_252_4829.jpg



gallery_1902_252_25798.jpg




hope this continues to help folks.
 
Yes, very helpful.
We were feeling behind the lift panel and contemplating what to do about the bungee cord back there.
I hadn't thought about notching the bottom edge, but it makes sense.

Seattle Fabrics! Where is our shipment?
 
Day One into our arctic pac sewing adventure: we've completed four of the ten panels!
Everything is templated, and all fabric has been cut. Our Singer Ultralight, from 1946 has broken two needles and has been giving issues with twisting thread. Neither of us is much of a tailor. :unsure:

Our system is similar to the 'pinners and barkers, but we are breaking each side into: front, window, middle, window, back.
Those five panels are all sewn separate, with 1" overlapping velcro to adjoin them, in addition to hanging off the 2" top velcro and bottom 1" velcro.

All materials are from Seattle Fabrics, thanks to research by Ski. Our cost was ~$140 for all everything, including shipping.
 
Someone should (or could) make templates and instructions, etc. and offer them for sale and make a few bucks. Alternatively, those that can sew could make some and sell them! Seems like you could make a little bit of cash and these seem to be in high demand as the weather turns cooler.

Such a great job with those artic packs!
 
Yes, with my skills I'd happily make someone richer. I can sew on a button but thats about it. I don't even know anyone with a sewing machine. I got some Velcro today. Its a start :)
 
I've been interested in making an arctic cold weather pack too but haven't been sure what material to use that is light,flexible,and having sufficient r-value to make a difference. I recently discovered a product from Aspen Aerogel called Spaceloft. It looks very promising but isn't cheap. I'm wondering if anyone out there has any experience working with Spaceloft and what results they've had.

There are a few videos about the product and I've attached one that give you a pretty good idea of what it is.

 
Ronin,

Wow! The R value of Spaceloft is 10.3 per inch that is better than solid foam at R 6.6 per inch and a lot better then fiberglass at 3.6 per inch.

It is about $7.5 a square foot so pretty expensive, probably around $500 before shipping and taxes for enough material to make a cold weather pack.

Looks like good stuff.

I wonder how durable it is relative to folding? I'll inquire of my NASA thermal engineer colleagues at Goddard.


Regards,

Craig

Looks like good stuff.
 
You do not want to use spaceloft or any of the other aerogel insulations! They are essential a fiberglass batt, impregnated with an aerogel dust which gets everywhere and is horrible to work with, requiring gloves and dustmask. The batts are fairly stiff and would not work well for this application. I use this stuff for some very specific applications in a high altitude research project, and while it does work well, it is really unpleasant to be around unless it is fully encapsulated.

Also, consider the thermal loss out of the rest of the camper - there is no point insulating the soft sides more than the rest of the camper. I think the walls and roof of the camper have 1" foam insulation, but you need to add the conduction path through the frame, single pane windows and roof vents to the calculation, meaning the effective insulation is probably more like R-3 or R-4, so there is not much need to go above this for the soft sides. I have used 'warm window' insulation for a previous camper arctic pack, and it seemed to help a little, but did make the arctic pack more cumbersome:
https://www.fabricdepot.com/warm-window-insulated-shade
 
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