Tweet
Hi Guys, I've been thinking about this for a while and I'm wondering if there's some mechanically or electrically minded people on here who can explain why it won't work. It seems to me that it shouldn't be difficult to upgrade the top of the range tyre pressure monitoring systems to include a tyre deflation function, programmable from the display.
There already exist some pretty fancy wireless systems that send the pressure readouts wirelessly back to the in-cabin display. Some seem to be set up inside the tyre before it's fitted and others are screw on replacements for a tyre cap. Presumably they keep battery charge somehow using the energy of the wheel's rotation to recharge their batteries.
What I'm picturing is either a screw on one, or maybe a complete replacement for the valve stem, with a little actuator in it that can depress the valve stem and start letting out the air. You're driving along at 35PSI, you're heading for the sand, you dial in that you'd like to drop to 18PSI on the display and the actuators depress the stem and start letting air out. They'd have to be smart enough to stop it every 10 seconds or so to check the pressure and then keep going or something but that doesn't seem too difficult. Sure it'd be slow, but not much slower than a set of Staun's and if you could kick it off when you're still 2k's from the cutting, you'd get good at timing it just right.
I get that it'd never work for re-inflation but surely a little actuator wouldn't be that much harder to add to the fancy TPMS's to allow for deflation on the move.
I'm assuming there's some simple principle somewhere that I'm missing that means it won't work because no-one seems to have invented them yet. Maybe there isn't and I've just given someone the start of a multi-million dollar 4wd accessory empire (if that's the case, I'm hoping whoever gets rich off it will sling me a set of freebies as a thankyou) but I suspect it's more likely there's some good reason why it hasn't been done yet. Let me know your thoughts.
Tiny
There already exist some pretty fancy wireless systems that send the pressure readouts wirelessly back to the in-cabin display. Some seem to be set up inside the tyre before it's fitted and others are screw on replacements for a tyre cap. Presumably they keep battery charge somehow using the energy of the wheel's rotation to recharge their batteries.
What I'm picturing is either a screw on one, or maybe a complete replacement for the valve stem, with a little actuator in it that can depress the valve stem and start letting out the air. You're driving along at 35PSI, you're heading for the sand, you dial in that you'd like to drop to 18PSI on the display and the actuators depress the stem and start letting air out. They'd have to be smart enough to stop it every 10 seconds or so to check the pressure and then keep going or something but that doesn't seem too difficult. Sure it'd be slow, but not much slower than a set of Staun's and if you could kick it off when you're still 2k's from the cutting, you'd get good at timing it just right.
I get that it'd never work for re-inflation but surely a little actuator wouldn't be that much harder to add to the fancy TPMS's to allow for deflation on the move.
I'm assuming there's some simple principle somewhere that I'm missing that means it won't work because no-one seems to have invented them yet. Maybe there isn't and I've just given someone the start of a multi-million dollar 4wd accessory empire (if that's the case, I'm hoping whoever gets rich off it will sling me a set of freebies as a thankyou) but I suspect it's more likely there's some good reason why it hasn't been done yet. Let me know your thoughts.
Tiny
Comment