Clever tire valve cap
This just another example of: 'why didn't I think of this, and make a million dollars by taking out a patent on the idea?'
The idea is so simple, and so great—which is often the case with great ideas. It's nothing more than an air valve cap that has a red LED that goes on when your tire pressure is too low. It's called the P-eye pressure sensing valve cap.
Full story here...
- Permalink | Comments (6)
- Posted by: Bob Holland April 16, 2008, 4:00 AM
- Categories: Car Tech
What simple idea
so what do they do when cars use different pressures?
I've seen these before.
Cah - To answer your question, they're adjustable. You can set at what psi you want the LED to go off.
That's pretty cool, but it may be too late - TPMS are already required to be built-in to new vehicles. They can target 2007 and earlier models, I suppose.
Also some TPMS systems don't tell you which tire is low, so this could still help you get it figured out in a hurry.
If it were cheap, I'd put them on my car. Anyone know if this already on the market and what it retails for?
I don't know how safe this would be. There has been a similar device on the market where it has a clear cap with a red and green indicator inside. Screw it onto your valve stem like this one. If the red indicator shows, then the tyre has lost air. Sounds great, right?
Except a motorcycle magazine tested them (as that would be an ideal application) and they found that the extra mass on the valve stem combined with the centrigual force at speed caused it to stretch and the valve indicator cap's seal to the stem would leak. This resulted in a major loss of tyre pressure at high speeds.
This looks like the same type of product, but with an LED. I bet it's heavier than the older design...
^I agree. There have been various types of these valve stems over the years and they all seem to leak.