Thread: Tire Pressure Monitoring Systems for Trailers
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Old July 11th 18, 04:00 AM posted to rec.aviation.soaring
AS
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Default Tire Pressure Monitoring Systems for Trailers
On Wednesday, July 26, 2017 at 11:32:12 PM UTC-4, Eric Greenwell wrote:
Eric Greenwell wrote on 7/26/2017 8:18 PM:

I would not expect units intended for cars to the range to work well with a trailer.


... intended for cars to HAVE the range ...

--
Eric Greenwell - Washington State, USA (change ".netto" to ".us" to email me)
- "A Guide to Self-Launching Sailplane Operation"
https://sites.google.com/site/motorg...ad-the-guide-1
- "Transponders in Sailplanes - Dec 2014a" also ADS-B, PCAS, Flarm

http://soaringsafety.org/prevention/...anes-2014A.pdf

Picking up that thread again. I purchased a system on Amazon capable of monitoring eight wheels via externally mounted pressure/temperature transducers and used it for the first time on a trip from SC to NM and back (1,500 miles each way). https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0...?ie=UTF8&psc=1
I had the tires rotated and re-balanced before the trip although the tech at the tire shop mentioned that the monitors made hardly any difference (He ran a tire with and without a monitor on the balancer)
Setting up the pressure and temperature limits is pretty straight forward. The receiver - mounted with the supplied suction cup on the windshield - didn't seem to have any problems picking up the signals from the trailer. The display toggles through each tire about once a minute or so. One battery charge kept the display/receiver unit going for the whole trip. The transducers go to sleep shortly after no rotation is detected to save their batteries.
It was reassuring to see that the tire pressure was holding steady within 1/10 bar. It was also interesting to see the tire temperature rise and fall as road-and wind conditions changed. The unit warns when there is a slow leak well before the lower limit is reached by trending the pressure readings..
When the trailer is being detached, it can be 'un-linked', so the unit only looks for the tires of the tow vehicle.
All in all, I think a TPM system is cheap insurance against a blow-out. One saved fender and tire will already pay for the system.

Uli
'AS'