Prolly irrelevant since you've had one before... but I haven't found anything as push-button as the fancy F45. I still won't be doing it - much as I want to - because of all the times we're scraping our way between trees that scratch up the van right where that thing would be. I wish there were some other options... but I think manually attaching is my only option.

 

We have had our F45 on our van since I built it 6 years ago. It gets bashed and abused by trees and brush on our off road adventures and still looks and works like new.

 

We have the powered version with their light kit as well. The light kit is hooked up to a dimmer switch. We use the light a lot and I don't think we'd use the awning as much if it wasn't powered. I've been looking at the magnetic mounts from Owl as another option for securing the legs. If I could have justified it I would have went with the fancy legless ones.

 

Just ordered the roof support beam for our F45S. Thanks for the Owl Vans pointer on the magnetic mounts. Those look slick!

With my budding Fusion 360 skills, I'll try to clone those feet. A simple pair of them to my door is $136 from Owl which seems awfully pricey for what they are.

 

We have 3 different awnings. We have a F45 and it is great for quick and easy to use. No it does not cover the door completely but if it is storming that much we put it away anyway. We have some very night tie down ropes for it but when the winds get strong I do not like it out anyway. We also have the add on wall that goes on the outer edge so it creates more shade and a little privacy.

Next we have a moonshade and this is great for when we are nest to a tree or something and cannot pop out the awning. It also will go over the back door if we want it there or on the left side or as a free standing lean to awning. I wish I had the larger version.

Last we have a Dragonfly and this thing creates a lot of shade plus covers the side door in rain and can handle lots of wind. If we are staying in 1 spot for a couple days this is the one to use. Take a little more work to put it up but not bad.

At this point if I was only going to have 1 awning option it would be the dragon fly or the large version of the MoonShade.
Don't get me wrong the F45 is great but I do not think it is the best and it is also way more expensive.

 

...
At this point if I was only going to have 1 awning option it would be the dragon fly or the large version of the MoonShade.
Don't get me wrong the F45 is great but I do not think it is the best and it is also way more expensive.

Which Dragon Fly do you have?

 

Since we have the F45S installed and quick deploy ready, I'm thinking this Dragon Fly awning extension could be pretty nice (better than the Fiamma wall).

Lame forum software doesn't let you post youtube links with time offsets. So workaround to relevant section below.

https://youtu.be/qT92W8fqgF8?feature=shared&t=120

 

Has anyone tried the F45 Eagle, the powered legless ones?

 

That might be nice but almost $3000 is very pricy.

 

I made my own with an 8x10 tarp, 2 pieces of 10' EMT conduit, 2 expanding paint sticks for sides, and another 2 for legs. Takes about 3-4 minutes to set up, but cost about $50. At the time. The telescoping paint sticks make the tarp drumskin tight.

 

We've had RVs with awnings for decades, and probably only used them a dozen times. We're in the wet PNW and we would sometimes open them only a few feet just to cover the door from the rain. Most awnings on the Transit wont cover much of the door.

What we've found is that far more often than not we don't want to sit next to the van. We're typically at a campsite, or Harvest Host style spot, and want to sit around a fire pit, picnic table, or a nice view spot. Or the sun is on the opposite side of the awning. Or want to sit off the end of the van, not the side, like at most of the adventure van expos.

We've found that having a shelter where we want it is far better than it always being next to the van. Plus we may also drive away from our campsite multiple times a day, so setting up and taking down a shelter/awning each time is a non starter.

I looked at the Dragonfly Tarps and they are super cool. But at the time (last year) they didn't have a good free-standing option. Same with the much cheaper MoonShade. They both want to be attached to the van (or possibly a tree).

If you watch any overlanding videos and are ogling all the roof mounted tents, batwing awnings, tables that mount onto a tire, kitchens that pull out from the rear, hammocks hanging off the roof rack, etc. Then you may get a lot of use out of a vehicl-attached awning. For our style of camping, we wouldn't get much use out of any of them.

Having said that, I'm still considering an awning on the van, but only if I can come up with an adequate solution to cover the door. Even if it only gets use once or twice a year.

 

We've had RVs with awnings for decades, and probably only used them a dozen times. We're in the wet PNW and we would sometimes open them only a few feet just to cover the door from the rain. Most awnings on the Transit wont cover much of the door.

What we've found is that far more often than not we don't want to sit next to the van. We're typically at a campsite, or Harvest Host style spot, and want to sit around a fire pit, picnic table, or a nice view spot. Or the sun is on the opposite side of the awning. Or want to sit off the end of the van, not the side, like at most of the adventure van expos.

We've found that having a shelter where we want it is far better than it always being next to the van. Plus we may also drive away from our campsite multiple times a day, so setting up and taking down a shelter/awning each time is a non starter.

I looked at the Dragonfly Tarps and they are super cool. But at the time (last year) they didn't have a good free-standing option. Same with the much cheaper MoonShade. They both want to be attached to the van (or possibly a tree).

If you watch any overlanding videos and are ogling all the roof mounted tents, batwing awnings, tables that mount onto a tire, kitchens that pull out from the rear, hammocks hanging off the roof rack, etc. Then you may get a lot of use out of a vehicl-attached awning. For our style of camping, we wouldn't get much use out of any of them.

Having said that, I'm still considering an awning on the van, but only if I can come up with an adequate solution to cover the door. Even if it only gets use once or twice a year.

I understand your issue with not wanting to be right next to the van but when camping in hot places it is nice to have the shade to sit in when relaxing and that is most of the use of our awnings. We did use it last month in Yellowstone while cooking and it was raining at the time so we quickly put the awning out and had shelter from the rain.

 

I'm in the Southeast, we do most of our travel in places where there isn't a lot of wind, and actually, not all that much sun. Often we're in forests, like the Smokey Mountains or the Ozarks.

For me, I want an awning for a quick shelter, and the quicker you can put it up the better. Pushing a button while standing at the slider watching the rain fall would be awesome. I do agree these things are expensive, though.

Often we'll have rainy days where it'll rain all day long but without serious winds. It's nice to have somewhere outside that's dry where you can take your shoes off, leave the muddy boots outside. We like to throw down two plastic carpets, one wet, one dry. You walk in with the muddy shoes, take them off on the wet carpet, and step to the dry one in your socks.

Looking at a lot of these other options, they really start to look like the tents that I'm putting up right now. Actually, the Moonshade looks an awful lot like the $80 Walmart special I use right now , I could just bungee it onto the side of the van and call it a day. Robot or human?. I'm building a van because I'm not really interested in setting up tents anymore.

 

I'm in the Southeast, we do most of our travel in places where there isn't a lot of wind, and actually, not all that much sun. Often we're in forests, like the Smokey Mountains or the Ozarks.

For me, I want an awning for a quick shelter, and the quicker you can put it up the better. Pushing a button while standing at the slider watching the rain fall would be awesome. I do agree these things are expensive, though.

Often we'll have rainy days where it'll rain all day long but without serious winds. It's nice to have somewhere outside that's dry where you can take your shoes off, leave the muddy boots outside. We like to throw down two plastic carpets, one wet, one dry. You walk in with the muddy shoes, take them off on the wet carpet, and step to the dry one in your socks.

Looking at a lot of these other options, they really start to look like the tents that I'm putting up right now. Actually, the Moonshade looks an awful lot like the $80 Walmart special I use right now , I could just bungee it onto the side of the van and call it a day. Robot or human?. I'm building a van because I'm not really interested in setting up tents anymore.

You are right on the moonshade. I purchased one of Amazon for $110 years ago for the side of my Honda Element Ecamper. It is a lot like a tent. The standard F45 with the crank only take a couple minutes to setup. I like having the legs I can put down and tie down for winds. The unit without legs has no support and anything to fight wind so I would think it is not very durable. You can always add a motor to the standard version for about $500. I thought about this and put a remote on it so I can be outside while it is coming out to put the legs down.
If you are mounting it to a rack on a high roof you will really want the added wall on the end to get more shelter as the awning is high up there. The shelter wall is easy to put on and tie down. I will be adding lights to mine in the future.

 

my Fiamma 45S covers the door, and with the 8020 roof rack it’s strong enough to shred 1 inch branches on back roads. I have to regularly go up there and rip the branches out of that area where it catches between the roof and the rack.

I don’t ever leave my awning up in wind. I used to use a 10 x 10 tarp attached with four eye bolts to my roof rack, two Kelty poles, had it staked down with four stakes, totally bomber, and long windy day came and shredded the whole thing.

With the Fiamma, at least I can take it down quickly.

 

my Fiamma 45S covers the door, and with the 8020 roof rack it’s strong enough to shred 1 inch branches on back roads. I have to regularly go up there and rip the branches out of that area where it catches between the roof and the rack.

I don’t ever leave my awning up in wind. I used to use a 10 x 10 tarp attached with four eye bolts to my roof rack, two Kelty poles, had it staked down with four stakes, totally bomber, and long windy day came and shredded the whole thing.

With the Fiamma, at least I can take it down quickly.

Picture? Which size F45S and do you have a long or extended van?

I'm guessing you have a bit of a 'spinnaker pole' sticking out over the passenger side front window in order to fully cover the slider?

 

Thanks. Encouraging to hear that despite gathering some greenery regularly, it has held up for you.

 

I have had awnings on every van I have had since 1979 and would not be without. Last two vans I have been Transit 350 HR Ext. with Fiamma manual crank awnings.

The 2019 did not have a roof rack and awning was roof mounted and I built a custom mount forward for additional support. The new AWD 2024 has a roof rack and awning mounted to the side of that. Now that I have a roof rack I would never be without and the awning is much more secure and stable mounted directly to the roof rack. Both awnings were mounted back and tight to the roof so rain does not waterfall between the awning and slider door side of the van. We use our van in the rain so want the leg supports and have tie down storm straps to secure it in the wind. If wind very strong and very heavy rains we would roll it up. Other than that the primary reason we have it is to protect us from the rain, we like to cook and eat outside and have a portable table we set up under the awning if we cannot get a picnic table under. I can deploy the awning, drop the legs and set it up alone in minutes. I am in the process of rigging a side tarp one the forward side for additional protection. I see suggestions for Dragonfly or MoonShade and will check those out.

 

I love my Dometic 9500. No legs, just cantelivers out, so it's super quick to deploy and stow.

 

Right now I'm pretty happy to use the largest Moonshade on the side over the slider and I made a retractable pole to support it over the sloped roof at the front.

It therefore covers the whole side of the van including the slider door when opened and the front passenger door. I have the 130 WB so it covers more in my situation.

The retractable pole uses two sizes of EMT galvanized conduit, the smaller one nested inside the larger one and a screw clamp.

I am hoping to add a F45S but mounting it to a Prime Design Alurack is a problem I'm still working on. Plus it won't cover as much area as the Moonshade. But it will be faster to deploy. I can't find any examples of Alurack mounting of awnings and am thinking of starting with a 8020 beam onto the undersides of the crossbars or the sides of the rack. Not having worked with 8020 before, it's still theory.

 

We (had the shop) put a 45S on our Sportsmobile. In 2004…. Sportsmobile installed it with the forward bracket about nine inches in from the warning sticker. After about fifteen years of use it started to not retract the very last quarter inch on one end and required a good smack to get it to seat properly. Still worked great other than that. So I have mounted the new one to the Transit about the same way. Ask me in 15 years if it’s the same.

 

DIY Van makes nifty blocks to mount your awning to the side of the van so it’s not so dang high off the ground. You have to ask for them, they aren’t in the web site