TFBoxster

Hi Guys,

Has anyone used the new Race Logic tyre temperature monitoring system?

VBOX Tyre Temperature Monitoring System

Cheers,
Sean

ProCoach

TFBoxster

Hi Peter,

We run VBox HD2's in most of our customer cars so this system would integrate easily.

However we also run Motec C125 dash and loggers in most of the GT cars. I wonder from an engineering perspective which would be most useful? Integrating the sensors with VBox or Motec as per the kit here -

http://www.izzeracing.com/products/infrared-temperature-sensors.html

My inclination is to combine them with the Motec as being able to analyse the information along side other data provided by Motec (Lat & Long G for example) would be more beneficial. Granted the information isn't as quick to view but it should be more accurate and give a more complete picture?

Sean

ProCoach

Agreed. For the team with the engineering resources, your inclination would yield a better, more complete picture.

The sensors for both systems come from Caleb Holloway's company, IZZE Racing.

TFBoxster

Thank you and good to know.

How do the sensors compare with the standard Motec sensors that read a single spot (usually 3 sensors combined per tyre) on the tyre?

ProCoach

Matt Romanowski

The Texense and a few others like First still have the best sensor design and quality in my opinion and experience. Putting them into the MoTeC is the best way to go and will let you do much of what Jorge was talking about last year in the seminar.

The 16 channels is great, but you have to be able to reduce the data to actionable levels (which normally means not using them all!). Pierre from Texense has great experience and history working with the top level teams and tire manufacturers.

TFBoxster

Thanks Matt. That's exactly what I'm looking to do.

38D

Matt Romanowski

Great question! There are a few ways people handle it. You can use just one sensor, mounted at the 12 o'clock position on center. The axis of the tire stays pretty stable when turned, so this gives you one good spot. Next method is mount a CAN sensor or multiple single sensors on an arm in front of (or behind) the tire, mounted off the hub/spindle assembly. This turns with the tires and keeps everything aligned. Last is to mount a multichannel CAN sensor (like Izze used here), mounted in a way that it sees the tire as it is turned and then disregarding the readings that are not true. When using the multichannel sensors, there are a couple of tricks to get better readings by positioning the sensor in better ways. The Texense multi channel strips are very cool because they are flexible and can be matched to a fender liner or steered path.

If you look at many F1 picks of the front wing endplates and small plane endplates, you can see the small IR sensor built in. Same idea on a closed wheel car, but with fenders.

Joe Weinstein

I would wonder whether the sensors should be mounted at the 'top' of the front tire, so the turning doesn't cause parts of the tire face to be at radically different distances from the sensors, or whether they should be mounted in front/back of the tires so the suspension travel doesn't differentially affect the distance from the tire face to the sensors... It seems they should rightly be mounted on an arm which is attached to the wheel hub, so it simply tracks all wheel movement. Or a very smart tunable/mappable software module which combines steering angle and suspension travel to adjust the raw reading from each sensor based on the computed distance of the covered portion of the tire....

I would want to know within 5 degrees, at a frequency of at least 4 hertz, the temperature at an outer, middle, and inner portion of the tread face...

ProCoach

Top or front is preferred. Too much damage on the lenses if mounted behind.

The field of view and the median ride height should determine rest (mounting) spacing.

I've seen some AMod Solo II cars with that frame that turns with the wheel, but I'm not sure I have ever seen a GT car that uses a movable sensor array.

When you consider that the steered angle is very different from the steering angle, especially on the outside, loaded wheel and often in low single digits, you can get what you want without mounting gymnastics...

Joe Weinstein

Thanks! For autocross I highly suspect that causing a spike in tire heat, just for a second or two of overdriving a corner can cause the tire to be more 'greasy' (overheated) for the next 5 or so seconds.

Matt Romanowski

I'm not sure 4 Hz is what you want. When you figure out the number of revolutions at speed, that isn't very quick (IMHO). Plus, one of the benefits of the newest logging hardware is the abundance of memory. You can log things at high rates and then filter down if need be.

How does the Vbox units handle that? On the video it's obviously 30 (or 60) frames a second, so no more than 60 Hz. What about the data?

ProCoach

Default sampling rate for the IR system is 1, 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64 or 100 Hz (the last two optional, and 100 Hz only available for the 60 degree FOV). The VBOX will accept the highest default rate, 32 Hz.

The video frame rate has nothing to do with it. You're looking at strip charts, I hope.

The frame rate for the video is 30 FPS because it is two times 1920x1080 stream, P-I-P. More than adequate to quickly visualize it before you dig into the charts.