Tyre pressure sensor

[Graham]

tyre pressure sensors that you can fit to the wheels seem to be available at decent prices, has any one tried them, or are they just a road car gimmick and not up to life in a race car or accurate enough

cheers
G

[scoobydude]

In my experience they are a waste of money for the most part. The exception is if you are using run like st on flat tyres. Other than that you'd be better off just checking tyre condition and pressure periodicaly.

Edited by scoobydude on Tuesday 30th June 18:15

[egomeister]

There shouldn't be any issues with accuracy, if anything they should be as accurate as a decent tyre pressure gauge.

Some of the road car pressure sensor solutions are a bit gimmicky though such as that used by BMW amongst others (clever use of data from the abs sensor rather than true pressure measurement)

[COLONEL_SMITH]

The TPS they build at work only go on race cars so there are some that are up to the job. You probably have to pay alot for them though..
http://www.mclarenelectronics.com/Products.asp?sub...

[Graham]

well the tyres get checked everytime we pit, but seeing what there doing on the track can be very helpful. As i can then diagnose a problem on track..

for example a lot of rubber build up can feel like a puncture leading to a costly delay for an unneeded pit stop.. a pressure monitor would show no loss... etc so lots of uses..

some of them are showing +- 3psi so no use but others get down to +-1psi which is probably just enough.. and a 3 sec update.



I just wondered if anyone had tried using them
G


this one

http://www.tyresave.co.uk/smartire.html

does temps as well ( no accuracy data) but might not go low enough starting at 20 psi

Edited by Graham on Tuesday 30th June 18:28

[anonymous-user]

I've just bought one of those to try out on my road car for curiosity sake, should have it working by next week.

spec in the manual states pressure 0 to 76psi range, +/-1psi accuracy, temperature -30c to +120c range. +/-4c accuracy

The alarm level for low pressure has a user definable range from 20psi to 50spi, below 20psi it will still read but will display an alarm state. The alarm level for high pressure has a user definable range from 30psi to 60spi. The alarm level for high temperature has a user definable range from 60c to 99c.

Edited by johnfelstead on Wednesday 1st July 00:44

[Graham]

Id be really interested to see how you get on.. in theory they could be really useful, although practically on a race car you'd need a number of sets of sensors paired to the same monitor.. although with my tyre budget maybe not !!!!!

i've seen one tonight quoting a +- 5psi... too..

cheers

G

[anonymous-user]

Just got this fitted this week, have to say its' working well so far. It reads 1psi below reality, but consistently so, so thats within spec and not a problem to use as a reference. It's fun to see how the pressures and temps differ depending on which tyre is in the sun whilst parked and also fun to see how the temps come up when you take a corner under load then drop back again when running off load, it seems fast in how quickly the info updates.

It's a bit of a gimmick most of the time of course, but is a nice little addition for if i do a trip to the 'ring, with the added bonus of having alarms if i get a slow puncture which isn't easy to feel on the stiff sidewall tyres i have on the car.

[mybrainhurts]

I hear the factory Renault ones cost an arm and two legs to replace...

[stifler]

How much was the set you are running John, if you don't mind me asking?

[egomeister]

I'm surprised at some of the low levels of accuracy quoted for some of the devices - +-3psi is pretty poor but i guess its aimed at the road car market rather than motorsport.

I suspect this is an indication of the confidence in the calibration process rather than the hardware itself.

[anonymous-user]

I paid £135 as part of a group buy, details are at http://bbs.scoobynet.com/group-buys-356/772921-gb-...