Anyone Using Ikamper Roof Top Tent?

Discussion in 'Other Gear & Equipment' started by Andrew Cushingham, Jun 15, 2020.

  1. We’ve got a family of five and are thinking about getting a 560 with a rooftop tent. Looking at the Ikamper Skycamp 2.0. Has anyone tried fitting this on a 560? Cary said he installed one on a customer about a year ago.

    Would also love to put a Batwing awning on the other side and we are looking for creative ways to carry up to five mountain bikes.
     
  2. dirty6

    dirty6 Ranger

    We use a RTT on our 560, but it is a Tepui, not one of these that you’re considering.

    The question that stands out to me with this Ikamper is whether or not the ladder bears weight, or if the entire weight of the RTT is carried by the roof rack. Most hard shell RTT solutions don’t use a ladder or use a non-weight bearing ladder, which means the tent plus sleepers all produce a weight burden exclusively on the roof and structure of the vehicle.

    For a pickup truck bed, this works. Cary was careful to advise us when we bought our 560 that the roof should bear no more than 250lbs (when static-not when driving-that weight is lower) based on the structure of the camper and variables like the tongue jack.

    Our 3 kids weigh a total of almost 350 pounds plus the tent itself weighs another 50-ish (been awhile since I added it up). Of course, that adds up to more than 250 pounds, you might be saying. But! - since our tent has a weight bearing ladder, the ladder takes half the weight burden, which means we have about 200 pounds on the roof structure and 200 on the ladder.

    So the big questions you might want to explore:

    * How does this Ikamper distribute the weight burden of the tent plus occupants?
    * If all the weight is on the roof structure of the vehicle, how much weight does that add up to for your family?
    * And if your family is currently under that weight limit, at what point will your rapidly growing children accumulate so much mass that they will overload your roof top tent solution? In two years or twelve years?

    I can’t speak to the batwing, though there is a poster on this forum who has one installed on his CI. I will say this: we had considered getting a more standard ARB awning for “my side of the bed.” The Tepui RTT already creates an effective awning on my wife’s “side of the bed.” I figured a second awning would be useful. However, over time we have learned that the RTT awning already makes the camper so wide that many camp spaces, particularly at RV parks, can be challenging to squeeze into. Adding another x feet of width to the footprint with an ARB awning would be nice, but it would also not be practical in many of the campsites we have stayed at. As it is, I often have to squeeze out of my door because the non-tent side of the trailer is tucked up really close to its boundary in order to make way for the tent to hang off the opposite side of the trailer. I can’t imagine how much footprint we would need to deploy our RTT and a batwing.

    Also, dang, that thing is expensive. We got a Tepui that came WITH a zip-on annex enclosure from REI for an eyelash more than 1500 bucks.

    Also also, i have no clue about bike hauling.
     
    Van_and_Terri likes this.
  3. Cary Winch

    Cary Winch Camp-Inn Staff

    That is actually backwards. The weight ratings we list on our website (the load number varies depending on which rack option) are dynamic weight ratings which is the load going down the road. This is the weight rating we need to be concerned about for the structure and the load carrying capability of the rack. The static load is significantly higher and also is really dependent on which roof rack bars and how the load is attached to the rack. There is no set number for the static load, each load bar seems to have different results for load on the racks. Likely you will bend a load bar well before having concern for the structure of the camper.

    That being said, a roof top tent with a good set of roof rack bars like the HD bars on a 560 can easily handle two full sized adults in it. I actually run a Yakima RTT on my 560 that belongs to a friend of mine so him and his wife can travel with me to events. Handles this just fine.

    Cary
     
  4. dirty6

    dirty6 Ranger

    I think...I think you’re describing it exactly as it is in my head. I don’t think I have it backwards as much as I might have it poorly worded. I “think” in parenthetical phrases a lot (a confounding style - at times) and sometimes that muddies up what I’m trying to say.

    let me try again - for my 560 and the roof rack we have on it, we were advised that the static load should be no more than 250 pounds, which could be safely doubled if the the ladder of our tent bears weight.

    The dynamic load limit of our rack is lower than 250 pounds, but once I verified our tent was safely under the threshold I stopped worrying about it and promptly deleted all that numerical data from my brain storage assembly.
     
  5. Cary Winch

    Cary Winch Camp-Inn Staff

    Dirty6, Sounds good. The description you have here is very helpful to all. The ladder helps, units that are not supported partially by a ladder I would want to limit the load which I believe is what you are explaining, which is correct.

    Cary
     
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