Video Transcript for TST Manufacturer Spotlight - RV TPMS

Hello neighbors, it's Brad here from etrailer. And today I have Chris from TST. And we're gonna be taking a look at some monitoring for your tires, not only for tow vehicles but RVs, campers. So Chris, let's break it down, and take a look at some of these products. Yeah, so TST is a TPMS. That is a commercial grade system that offers real-time monitoring of tire pressure and temperature.

So it is designed to fit various vehicles such as RVs, trucks, trailers, and pretty much anything that's towable. It offers early warning alerts for low pressure, high pressure, high temperature, and fast leak. So having a system like this is gonna greatly reduce the chances of catastrophic blowout. And because it monitors temperature, it's actually gonna give you warnings of a possible issue with your wheel bearings, with your brakes, et cetera. So extremely important safety feature to have.

So not only measuring tire pressure and heat is for safety, but there's also a lot of benefits that go along with that. So it's gonna improve the wear and tear of your tire, and help you with fuel efficiency. So it's not just gonna be preventing tire blowouts, but tire blowouts is actually the main reason why you wanna have a system like this. And the main cause of a tire blowout is actually high temperature, right Having a system like this, it's gonna give you early warning signs before your tire actually reaches the temperature where it's gonna experience a blowout. And here are some of the things that actually increases the heat of your tire.

It's actually low pressure, it's actually speeds, overweight, and also dragging brakes, overheating bearings. So one of the benefits of having a system like this, it's gonna actually warn you if you have wheel bearing issues or brake issues, which can cause you catastrophic events. So a system like this, yes, it's gonna monitor your tire pressure and temperature, but it's also gonna be able to help you if you have an issue with one of those things. Well and that's a great point, because a lot of times in a car, if a wheel bearing's going bad, I can hear it, but with a camper, you're not really going to hear that as you're going down the road. So if you have all your tire pressure at the same time, but one's consistently hotter, you can really pinpoint maybe the trouble spot.

Correct. And it could be, again, you have more weight on that one tire that's causing that tire to be warmer than the other tires. It could lead you to believe that possibly the wheel bearings or brakes, you have brake issues. So that's gonna give you an idea of hey, I need to check this tire and find out if it is the tire issue, or something else like wheel bearings or brakes. Now a lot of newer vehicles have TPMS sensors built into the tires from the factory, and a lot of times if you get low tires, especially winter time, it seems, as pressures drop, it's gonna give you a dummy light, and it says tires are low, but really not like a actual readout of pressure or active monitoring. That's not the case here, correct Correct, yeah. So this, TST's TPMS offers real-time monitoring of pressure and temperature. Temperature is the most important part. So most TPMSes that you find in vehicles, it's gonna give you just a universal tire inflation symbol saying one of your tires has an issue. Where our system, we're gonna tell you exactly what the issue is, temperature, or PSI, and exactly what tire has the issue. Outside of that, our system is a commercial grade system built for not only the RV industry, but also the truck industry. So it's gonna be extremely more reliable. The radio frequency that we use is more reliable. The product that we use is more reliable. So it's gonna be a lot more enhanced TPMS system. And traditionally, with vehicles, they're mounted inside of the tire. And that's not exactly the case with all of your applications. You do have something that goes inside but you don't have to demount a tire for these to work, correct Correct. Currently, we offer four types of sensors to capture tire data. So we have here three external sensors, the flow-through sensor, a hybrid sensor for marine vehicles, and also a cap sensor for RV trailers. We also have an internal sensor that wraps around the wheel inside of your tire, but it's not connected to your valve stem at all, creating a much more durable, and resilient TPMS system. Brad So let's kind of break down each of the sensors, and why someone would go with one. We have the internal sensor here. It looks like a large hose clamp. So this will go around the wheel, and monitor on the inside of the tire. Some of these are OEM-prepped from the factory of camper facilities, right Chris Correct. There's actually about 45 to 55 RV lines that currently come with our system factory installed. And a lot of them and most of them actually come with this internal system. So this is a band, a metal band that's wrapped around the wheel with a laser sealed sensor. A few ways where you can find out if your RV actually came with our TST system. So there's a green sticker that is usually outside of the RV that shows that your RV's prepped with our TPMS system. There's a hang tag that you can also find inside the vehicle and also a TPMS notice letting you know, it's a yellow notice letting you know that there's a TPMS system prepped on your RV. One other way is that actually a valve cap with the universal tire inflation symbol on it. So if you see that on there, it means that it comes with our TPMS system factory installed. So that's awesome. Take a look at your camper, and if you have any of that, you're already kind of halfway there. What would they need to do to complete that kit to make sure that it all works Okay, so once you get an RV that has our system factory installed, all you have to do is grab your monitor, follow the instructions to set up, and actually sync each one of the sensors inside each of the tires to your monitor, and then your system is up and going. Now obviously this system here is not gonna just monitor that trailer, you can also monitor your towing vehicle. So what we recommend is to expand your system. So you can come here to etrailer, purchase these external sensors that you can add to your towing vehicle, and other trailers that you may have. Our system covers up to 115 tires, and up to four vehicles. So you can actually expand the system and have everything in one dedicated monitor. And again, you're gonna have TPMS system on your vehicle, but it's not gonna be a commercial grade system that's gonna monitor everything that we monitor, which is temperature, pressure but also fast leak, yeah. So okay, if they are, as you mentioned, there's plenty of different settings in the monitor, so that way, if you have a fleet of things, you can set presets and get it all dialed in, hook up, ready to go, and have all that monitoring. But if it's not prepped with this internal band, the other way is to be adding it onto the valve stem itself, correct Correct. Yeah, so you have many options. So if you have an RV that doesn't currently have a TPMS system, you can purchase an aftermarket kit. You can buy an internal sensor kit if you like, but the most popular ones are gonna be the external sensors. And the reason for that, it's easy to install right onto your valve stem. They replace your valve caps, and they're also serviceable, so you can change the batteries, the O-rings, and it can last you a very long time. So looking at the valve stem style sensors, you mentioned that there's a hybrid, we have the traditional and then a flow-through. What are the differences and what applications would you use each of them in Okay, so first, the cap sensor. This one right here is a smaller sensor, and it's gonna be very versatile. You can use a metal or rubber valve stems, so that's the most popular one, and it's also serviceable. So it has a CR2032 battery that you can change very easily every two to four years, and also O-rings that you can service, so it can last you a very long time. The second sensor that we have here for external use is the hybrid or marine sensor. So this sensor is laser-sealed, a lot like the internal sensor. And this one can be submerged on the water. So great for your boat trailers. And the flow-through sensor is very similar to the marine sensor and the cap sensor but it has a flow-through valve, so you can actually adjust the air pressure through the sensor. Now because it's a little bit bigger sensor, and heavier, you are gonna need metal valve stems for the flow-through. But essentially, all sensors will do the same thing. So no matter the sensor, they're all gonna work with the same monitor, correct Correct. So all of our sensors will work with the 507 display monitor. And you can actually mix and match. So you can have some of the RV cap sensors, some of the flow-through sensors, internal sensors, it doesn't matter. I'm actually gonna demonstrate to you what you have to do in order to sync a sensor to the display, okay So if you have a display on, you're gonna press and hold the Set button until it beeps. (display beeping) And then you're gonna come here to learn ID by pressing the Plus button five times. Press the Set button to enter that mode. And I'm actually gonna, I start right here on the passenger steer tire for a towing vehicle. I'm gonna program the sensor to this position to demonstrate how to do that. You're first gonna see all Fs flashing. All Fs. It means an empty position. When it begins to flash, it's ready to receive a sensor code. You place the sensor to the bottom left corner of the display, and then quickly press and release the Go button. (display beeping) It picks up a alphanumerical code which is unique to each sensor. That code is actually printed on the sensor itself. And all you have to do now is press the Set button to save that sensor code to the display. Once it's saved, you can actually press the Plus button, and move to your next tire position, and repeat the process. Now we'll demonstrate what it sounds like once you have an alert, okay So I'm gonna go back to the home screen here. (display beeping) And as you can see, it's actually already reading the display, and giving you a low pressure alert. I pressed a button, and it can be any button to silence the audible alert. Visual alert stays until the issue is solved. So you have this monitor choice, as well as a gray scale, correct Correct. So the 507 display comes in two models. So one is the color display, this is this one right here. It has a few colors and the gray scale display, or monochrome display, which has a gray background and a black outline, for the towing vehicle section and the trailer section. And I like the visual display of it. You can see that there's mirrors on the towed vehicle and when it's all broken down, you can see all the different tires so you really know exactly where it's at. It gives you a nice visual cue, and that way it's specific to each tire. You don't have to go around checking which one is it, you know exactly which tire it's gonna be. Correct. This is a great monitor for you to have, because what's gonna happen is before a trip, you're actually gonna turn on your display, you're gonna see all your tires' icons. So let's say you have a motor home with six tires, you're gonna see six tires icon around the left section, which is a towing vehicle section. And then you're gonna have, let's say you have a tow vehicle with four tires, you're gonna see those four tire icons here. You can look for your pressures, allow it to connect to each one of your sensors, give you pressure, temperature, and you know you're safe to go on the road before you hit the road. So if I have sensors on my tow vehicle, and on my camper, but maybe I flat tow, or whatever it may be, you can have multiple different things. How does it know that I'm hooked up to a certain trailer Or maybe my flat towed vehicle, or something along those lines Okay, so with the 507 display, you can monitor up to four different trailers. So you will actually see a little number inside the trailer section, letting you know that that's that trailer. Either one, two, three, or four. So the way that the 507 works is when it's near all of the trailers, it will look for all of the trailers. But it will only connect to the trailers that are near, right And so let's say you have two trailers, and you hook up the trailer one, and you leave. After a while, it will stop looking for trailer two, and only monitor trailer one. So how does this work Is it Bluetooth Or does it, how do you get the information from the sensors on your tires to that monitor Okay, so we actually don't use Bluetooth. And the reason for that is because Bluetooth is a very short radio frequency that it's not very reliable. So what we use is a longer radio frequency that's more reliable, it's 433 megahertz. And that's how the sensor communicates to the display. We also include a radio booster that enhances that signal strength as well. Is a booster something that's required for every installation Yes, we consider the booster a vital component of our system because it enhances the radio frequency of the signal coming from the sensor to the display, and it protects you from possible interference and sensor reading dropouts. That makes sense. 'Cause as you're out on the road, especially as technology's advanced, there's frequencies all over, but that booster's gonna make sure that it stays consistent with just your monitoring system. Correct. So it's not just for distance. The main purpose of the radio booster is that it's gonna increase the strength of the communication. So as you mentioned, there's so much radio frequency in our roads today, so much technology communicating with each other. It's extremely vital to have a radio booster to protect you from that interference. So obviously these have to have power somehow to be able to send that to the monitor, and the monitor needs to be plugged in as well. So how does that all work And what's the lifespan on some of this Okay, so each individual sensor has its own battery. So we have two sensors that are serviceable, that have replaceable batteries. That is the flow-through sensor, and the RV cap sensor, okay Those batteries typically last between two to four years. So we recommend every couple of years or so, change those out. When it comes to the hybrid sensor, it has an internal battery that lays a seal and it will last you about four years. About the lifespan of your tire. That's the same thing with the internal sensor is a laser-sealed sensor that has a battery that will last you about four years, about the lifespan of your tire. Now if I'm storing my RV for the winter, should I take these off to save the battery Or can I just leave them on there You can actually leave them on there. We actually recommend to leave them on there because the battery will last a pretty long time, and we don't want you to risk of misplacing where each sensor goes, right You're supposed to label them, and know where they go, but sometimes you can swap them around and that's gonna create an issue, right But if you want to take them out, you can. These sensors are pressure-activated. So if you remove them, you will be conserving battery, and they will last longer. Brad Now as far as the monitor, how do you power that up Chris So the 507 displays uses a USB to micro USB charging cord. And it takes about two to four hours to fully charge it. Once it's fully charged, it can last for a very long time, a few days actually. So we highly recommend to fully charge a display before every trip, and you should have more than enough charge for a few days of driving. Brad And looking at how our monitor's placed, you have a dash mount as well as a window mount. So that way you can really get a heads up display exactly where you want it on your towed vehicle or your RV. Chris Correct. You have a few different ways to mount this display on your dashboard. You can use a rubber dash mount that's included. We also have a suction cup mount that you can mount to the display and put it on your windshield or side window. And you can also just simply place this on your middle console. So you have a lot of different options of mounting. Now you mentioned changing the batteries out on some of these sensors, but is there any other maintenance that's really involved with it I mean these are on tires that who knows what people are gonna be driving through And you wanna make sure that they're gonna be robust long-term. So is there maintenance involved with these So yes, with the serviceable sensors, which are the cap sensors and the flow-through sensors, where you have replaceable batteries, we also recommend you to change the O-rings that keep that sensor sealed and secure from outside weathering. So we always recommend that every time you change your battery, which is usually gonna be between two to four years, to also make sure you change those O-rings, keep those O-rings nice and new and fresh to protect your sensors from possible weathering and corrosion. And we have all those service kits available here at etrailer. So if you already have these, or if you're looking to get into these long term, keep that in mind that we do have all those parts to be able to service 'em. So huge thanks to Chris from TST for taking the time to kind of break down their systems. I think this is great, because at the end of the day, it's a big investment, whether truck, trailer, camper, whatever it may be, and being safe out on the road, especially when you're putting a lot of miles out there, that's gonna be the most important thing. I like the benefits that it offers. And I think this is something, I mean anything that you can monitor and have data points really paints the picture of long-term maintenance, and overall a great product. So thanks again Chris, for having us. It was a pleasure. Great product. So if this is something you've been looking at, if you're really worried about your safety, or just efficiency, whatever it may be, again, monitoring something is gonna go a long way while out on the road.