Pretty sure I have Smartire receiver problems

[jackd]

I have about 1K on my Smartire setup and I'm convinced I have receiver problems. I just need confirmation that it's not just me or my install.

Everything seems to work out of the chute in the morning. I start out and almost immediately I sense both wheels and I can push the button and the unit cycles through the displays and everything looks normal. I installed the receiver on top of my Sirius antenna with some industrial strength Velcro and it is at an excellent viewing angle. I have some signal loss so I decided to move after a few days but I had intermittent problems so I wanted to get things identified before I changed the parameters..

After about an hour the button stops working.. however I can get it to work sometimes. Once the button stops working I notice that one or more of the readouts contain the two dashes that are there at setup. I always get tire pressure but either tire may or may not give me one or more of the four other readings.

I never get an error code. I began to think it was heat related because the unit is exposed to direct sun and it's black. I moved it to a shady spot under my Sirius antenna on my BMR shelf and it didn't recover. I powered it off and it initialized correctly after a wait as I was stopped like I expected.. A little longer than I expected but within 9 minutes it was operational without movement and I had all readings and the button worked.

Has anyone had similar problems.. i.e most notable is the button not activating a display sequence. I'm not happy with relative pressure.. but I'm happy with the cold start of day tire pressure readout.

Any comments?

[DanMartin]

Try turning off your Sirius radio. I had this problem for over a year before I gave up and took the radio off. Now it works all the time and never a problem.

Mine would quit working after 10-15 minutes. But start up again within 5-10 minutes if I turned off the Sirius. Placement did not seem to matter. I moved it several places.


Dan Martin
Houston, Tx

[motorhead]

I just got back from a 3700 mile trip & had a chance to fiddle around with the smartire unit ..... Same issues as you are having :(

All is good unless I manually checked tires running specs by pushing button more than 3 times over the day ( Without stops to reset tires sending units )

After the @ 3 rd button push, NO display info shows up & only the icons of both tires are lit.

If you stop for @ 1/2 hour & allow sending units to shut off , then all comes back online just fine.

Moral to the issue ... :) Trust that the unit is working correctly after the first manual check, then FORGET about it !!

Regards.
Scott

[jackd]

Try turning off your Sirius radio. I had this problem for over a year before I gave up and took the radio off. Now it works all the time and never a problem.

Mine would quit working after 10-15 minutes. But start up again within 5-10 minutes if I turned off the Sirius. Placement did not seem to matter. I moved it several places.


Dan Martin
Houston, Tx

I will definitely try this.. I didn't think that I would have interaction with the Sirius unit. This is just the kind of experience that I thought I could get from this board.. :D

How far away did you try to move it? I have mine on my BMR shelf.

[jackd]

I just got back from a 3700 mile trip & had a chance to fiddle around with the smartire unit ..... Same issues as you are having :(

All is good unless I manually checked tires running specs by pushing button more than 3 times over the day ( Without stops to reset tires sending units )

After the @ 3 rd button push, NO display info shows up & only the icons of both tires are lit.

If you stop for @ 1/2 hour & allow sending units to shut off , then all comes back online just fine.

Moral to the issue ... :) Trust that the unit is working correctly after the first manual check, then FORGET about it !!

Regards.
Scott

Great info. Combined with Dan's post I should be good to go..

I still am questioning the pressure differential. Seems to be different all the time. Did you experience that? I would think that the pressure differential would always be what the unit expected... not +2 onetime or -1 another.. Maybe it is the problem of the interaction. ?? :confused:


I did see a check condition.. on that one I got a pressure differential error and then I could not see the differential.. that was only once. But maybe I missed the others.. The check light went off immediately indicating that the error went away. According to the doc..

[DanMartin]

I started with both on the brake reservoir,moved to GPS mount and then to clutch reservoir. I could not believe that there could be an interaction between the two units. Freq's are wrong. Smartire tech support says I must be wrong. I use the unit every day and as long as the Sirius was off the Smartire worked every time.

Deviation....don't pay attention to the deviation when you start off. It seems to be stored from the last use. Wait 5-7 minutes and push the button then.
Mine starts off with a 3-4 neg deviation and comes back to + or - 1 after 5-7 minutes.

Dan Martin
Houston, Tx

[motorhead]

Differances in pressure differential I paid no attention too because altitude & air/road temps were so radically differant day to day.

The most off of normal was scooting accross Nevada at 75 fully loaded pulling the trailer during 102 degree heat. Rear was set at 48 cold, smartire showed it at 56 #'s running 158 degrees at -4 #'s .... Elevation @ 6000 feet.

Once home at 1500 feet, tire was at 46 #'s cold ... This after a 3700 mile romp with NO adjustment during trip !!

:p Still learning what it's telling me, most interesting is the MAJOR increase of pressure with altitude & heat !!

Regards.
Scott

[jackd]

Deviation....don't pay attention to the deviation when you start off. It seems to be stored from the last use. Wait 5-7 minutes and push the button then.
Mine starts off with a 3-4 neg deviation and comes back to + or - 1 after 5-7 minutes. Dan Martin Houston, Tx

I noted that it got there after the tire warmed up a little but thought that was part of the variances. I have to run to New Jersey for work tomorrow so I try out the 'fixes'. If I have work arounds and I know why... I feel better about the anomalies.

[jackd]

Actually I was looking around and I found this post (http://www.bmwlt.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2583) by beemerlt. It kind of describes why I am seeing so many different things. I will try to set my tires with a 68 ambient degree temp and 42/48 pressure and see if everything works like advertised.

When I changed tires and installed the Smartire transmitters and did the initial pressure set with my altitude sensitive pressure gauge I did not pay attention to the ambient temperature of the air in the tire. I usually get very good miles out of my BT020s but it is a struggle and takes a lot of effort. My last rear got 20k and the front took 14K. I took them off because the lowest measure point was 2mm.

This post may also give a reason for all the different results that people get with tire pressures and also why I get so many differences with tire pressure. This time I initially thought I had a leak but know I know that there was just an ambient temp difference from the last tire check.

[jackd]

Ran today for almost 1.5 hours out to NJ without the Sirius Radio on and the Smartire worked as advertised for all but the last min. When I stopped I checked again and I was missing one of the readings.

On the return home I checked more often (OCD) and I found it didn't work after an hour.. Then 15 minutes later it started working again. Might be a noise problem where the receiver can't properly hear the transmitters.

Now I'll need to set the tire up for 42/48 at 68 DEG F. and forget about it!

Thank guys!