Hammock Insulation and a Thermal Camera

[FatherGoat]

My brother and I tested a few different pieces of under-insulation and captured the heat loss using a thermal camera. It was a windy 33° day so we were able to push most of our insulation beyond it's rating.

Under-insulation tested:

• No Insulation (baseline test)
• Reflectix Pad
• REI Stratus Inflatable Pad
• 40° Coleman Synthetic Sleeping Bag
• HammockGear Incubator 40° w/1oz Overfill
• HammockGear Incubator 0°

The tests went well and we collected a lot of useful and really cool data (pun intended). If anyone has suggestions to improve the methodology or if there are other tests you'd like to see just holler and I'll see what we can do.

As always, happy trails!



Direct YouTube Link

PDF Report w/stills and temperature points.

Raw thermal images for download.

[Slugger]

Thanks for the info! Nice to know how the options work out.

[12trysomething]

Very interesting test, thanks for sharing.

[lilprincess]

Very cool!

[Spark]

Well done. Have you examined the topquilts yet?

[FatherGoat]

Many thanks.

I have not made a top-quilt video yet but it is on my list.

The methodology seemed pretty straightforward for the UQ video, but I'm not entirely sure how to do the TQ testing. Maybe use the Incubator 0 as UQ protection for every test (baseline insulation) and take some top-down thermal video to capture heat loss through each different top-insulation?

[Wanderlost]

That's some really cool looking research. Please correct me if I'm misinterpreting things. According to this, just a layer of reflectix actually outperformed a sleeping bag or inflatable pad? That's very interesting. What was the ambient temp?

[FatherGoat]

That's some really cool looking research. Please correct me if I'm misinterpreting things. According to this, just a layer of reflectix actually outperformed a sleeping bag or inflatable pad? That's very interesting. What was the ambient temp?

Many thanks! The ambient temp was 33*F with a fair bit of wind.

I'm not sure the Reflectix was more effective than the REI pad or the Sleeping Bag. First, my brother rated each piece of insulation based on warmth and the Reflectix scored a 1/10 compared to a 5 for the sleeping bag and a 6 for the REI pad (subjective, I know).

On the Reflectix image in the PDF you can see heat emanating below the fabric of the hammock. Using the sleeping bag there is a bit less heat loss and using the REI pad there is hardly any heat loss underneath the hammock.

The spot temperature readings from the side of the hammock are useful but much more easily influenced by outside variables (wind, sunlight, etc). I added them to all the images to show how well a proper UQ insulates not only underneath the hammock, but up around the shoulders also.

[Wanderlost]

....

Thanks for the clarification. I figured I was reading it wrong. It's still great to see the advantage of an UQ over pads and even sleeping bags.

Thank you for sacrificing your butt for science.

[coachhahn]

So it seems the pad did better than the UQs?