The Best/Easiest DIY Electric Bed Lift for Cargo Trailer, RV, or Camper Van 

Sounds a great design. Do you need two winches? Will appreciate if you can share more details and possible a video? Thanks!

@@fengguo8575 I used one winch motor (rated for 2500 lb. ) It is installed inline with the rod that winds up the straps. The rod projects straight out of the winch where the spool used to be. I actually modified the winch spool so that it could attach to a rod. My entire bed system is made to be light weight. A bed doesn't need to be very heavy to support up to two people. My whole bed system, which includes the mattress, bedding, frame, winch and strap winding system weighs less than 110 lbs. It is not using the other kind of winch system which has pulleys and cables everywhere. This winch is simply replacing the worm drive motor shown in this video.

Hey, what are the specs of the motor? How much load does it take? Do you have a link? Thank you and have nice travels!

@@beatrizgraca9333 its a .8 HP mini tarp motor I purchased on eBay.

@@beatrizgraca9333 he literally shows a closeup of the motor label at 11:04

Yeah that’s where I got the inspiration! This is basically a cheaper diy version since I think that one was still well over 1k$ when I checked if you can even buy it

Try $3000

Believe it or not, I actually haven’t had a chance to use the trailer because we’ve been busy building a house, but now that we’re finally done, I’ll try to get one soon

Yep that’s the plan!

Sounds really interesting, would be good to see a short video of it on your channel if you ever get the chance in future 👍

There’s a several reasons not to do that: First, if you do that, you have the shaft with straps wound up above the bed/mattress which prevents you from going all the way up. You have to leave room for the straps to spool and the motor. So you loose about 3-4 inches. Second, you would then have to mount the motor and shaft to the wall/roof which means more hardware, you would have to have some wall mounted bearings and a motor mount. You would have to mount it in the center overhead, otherwise it would be in the corner so you would have 90deg pulling angles instead of 180 (which counter each other). 90deg pulling angles wouldn’t negate eachother so you’d have to get a much stronger shaft. Also that would mean if you ever needed extra room, you couldn’t easily disconnect the bed and remove it. Lastly if your battery died with it down, you couldn’t use the strap mounts to lift the bed up and spin the ratchets to lock it to the ceiling. …a lot of thought went into all the pros and cons. I assure you there’s method bending my madness 😅

@@bren5279 well I have plenty of room and height so that’s no concern, this is a dedicated camper build so the bed will stay permanently. My thought was to build a small box along the ceiling to cover shaft and motor, I am not the first to think of this I am sorta copying a build that was done . My truck has an 18’ insulated box and is 8’ wide around 7’ high inside.

@@bren5279 as far as the loads on the shaft, this is an easy thing to address, it just needs a support bearing in the middle so the loads are not just on the ends of the shaft.

@@bren5279 I don’t follow you when you say if the battery died I couldn’t use the strap mounts…..why couldn’t I? I would think it would be better if the straps were both fixed to the ceiling, only for my design I am going to incorporate a manual back up, probably with a drill…..

@@bren5279 here a link to an example of what I was talking about. Seeing as how I have yet to build anything maybe you could look and give me a bit of feedback? Thanks. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-BzIKehEFsVk.html

only thing to keep in mind you whould double the load on each of the 4 point in the seling.

@Rusty72501 I really like this idea, but are you thinking to put the motor/shaft in one corner of the floor, run the straps for the far side up the wall, over a roller in the top corner, across the ceiling to another roller, then down to the bed frame? Because that would be a really long strap, with a lot of opportunities for problems. Or did you have another idea?

Yeah we’re going to use a holesaw to add a grid of ventilation holes

@@bren5279 I'm sure that'll work great. Pretty sure moisture will vent through a hole just as well as slots. Of course it's been a few months so now I need to re-watch your vid 😀 to remind myself your exact setup.

Yeah sorry every time I update it the items change so it’s impossible to keep it always up to date. It’s all reasonably easy to find stuff. I haven’t had any problems at all with the straps, and I ended up adding small track hooks for stops. Yep need to add holes for ventilation for sure

@@bren5279 great video! Will you do another video soon? Thank you for sharing!

Yeah the 50rpm is a hair on the slow side, but once you put the weight of a mattress and blankets on it, that’s probably about as fast as you’ll go without stepping up to a bigger heavier motor. If you wanted to go faster you can also use a slightly larger shaft to start.

Yeah you just use the regular whole straps and use the ratchet part to mount to the wall (taking it apart to remove the handle)

I have several times, the problem is Amazon links quickly go out of date or change :(

Thanks! Unfortunately my computer crashed and I lost the actual detailed parts list, but if you click the sketchup link, there’s a general parts list in the description. You can use the sketchup 3D file to get all the exact measurements of all the aluminum Tslot and order it off Misumi. That or just build whatever bed frame you want (wood steel aluminum etc) and just mount the motor and shaft part to that.