Technical notes from our engineering work: how tire data reaches a controller, what breaks in the field, and how we choose hardware for a given machine.
A farm tyre runs on a hard road and in soft soil the same day, and the right pressure is not the same for both. Agricultural machinery is where that difference is largest - and where the site usually has no mobile network to fall back on.
"29-bit is not a marketing detail. It decides which filters your controller needs, whether your tool sees the frames, and where the mapping work lands."
The sentence that stops telematics projects is "we need your CAN protocol". Here is why we never ask, what we ask for instead, and four ways customers use it.
Most fleets measure the tyre's purchase price and call it cost. Here is a per-hour model with explicit inputs, so you can put your own numbers in and see which lever actually moves.
Where tyre-pressure data actually goes after the sensor, and how to choose between CAN, RS485, a 4G gateway and a third-party telematics unit.
A practical installation sequence for TPMS on mobile cranes - wheel survey, sensor form, receiver placement, pairing, and the checks that stop callbacks.
A field procedure for replacing a TPMS sensor without returning the receiver - what to record, how to pair, and how to prove the position is right.
Wide-base (super single) tyres cut rear sensor count from four to two, but the wider tyre makes the 433.92 MHz radio path harder. Here is what to specify.
A custom TPMS project is a sequence of decisions, not a catalogue order. What can be changed, what carries NRE, how the stages run, and what to ask before you commit.
Mining tires run at 9 bar and above, a mine combination can present 48 wheel positions, and a steel body blocks radio. How to specify a system that survives the pit.
A crane wheel map is not a truck wheel map, and port machines need their own specification. Wheel layout, fleet system interface and maintenance window planning.
RS485 with Modbus and CAN with J1939 suit different layers of a control system. How to plan the point table, polling, latency and alarms before you wire anything.
Bus fleet TPMS fails when data stops at the vehicle. How depot-level monitoring covers the inner dual, turns alarms into work orders, and scales to 1,500 buses a year.
How a CAN bus TPMS delivers per-wheel pressure and temperature into your existing PLC or telematics unit - 29-bit extended frames, J1939 message sets, documented layout you can map to your own DBC.
A repeater re-transmits the sensor's 433.92 MHz frame so wheels hidden behind steel still reach the receiver. Range, wiring and how to size it.
One receiver addresses 256 wheel positions, but that number rarely decides your project. Coverage, air time and repeater planning do. Here is how to size a system.
Industrial TPMS projects fail on the interface, not the sensor. Six questions and five data points that separate a real manufacturer from a trading company.
Internal or external is not an accuracy question — both measure to ±7 kPa. It is about who services the tire, how harsh the wheel is, and what your workshop can do.
224 wheel TPMS is an engineering problem before it is a sensor problem. How to plan receivers, repeaters, wheel maps and alarms on a 28-axle machine.
RS485 and CAN both carry tire data reliably. The choice is not about which is better — it is about what your controller already speaks, and who owns the polling loop.
A TPMS DBC file is the byte-level contract between the receiver and your controller. Here is what a usable one contains, what is usually missing, and how to check it in twenty minutes.
On an aircraft tug, tire pressure sets traction and coupling height. Why aircraft tug TPMS belongs in apron operations, and how to retrofit it across a mixed GSE fleet.
A reach stacker with a soft tire loses margin on a stability calculation, not just fuel. What reach stacker TPMS should monitor, how it mounts, and where the data goes.
Retrofit or front-fit? How RTG crane TPMS actually gets specified, what each path costs in a working yard, and the five interface questions that decide the project.
OEM or ODM for a private-label TPMS: who owns the design, the tooling, the firmware and the certification path - and which one fits a hardware brand, a fleet platform or a parts distributor.
TPMS PLC integration usually means one of two paths: a CAN module your PLC already has, or Modbus RTU over RS485. Here is how to choose, wire, poll and scale it.
±7 kPa is about 1 psi — under 1% of a heavy tire's inflation pressure. Here is where that is plenty, where it is not, and the error terms most buyers miss.
Internal sensors run 5–6 years or more; external CR1632 sensors at least 2 years. What separates them, what shortens both, and how to plan replacement.
Most TPMS integration projects fail at the interface, not the sensor. What to ask a supplier: message map, DBC file, who owns the scaling.
On a 160-wheel beam carrier one receiver cannot hear every sensor. Repeater placement is a geometry problem, and getting it wrong shows up as intermittent data months later.