Community Forums

motojavaphil · 07-22-2016, 12:14 PM

Acquiring our new to us Cameo and reading about the carnage left behind by China Bombs I decided to invest in a TPMS. My current tires are Marathons made in China to boot and are a year old. Preparing myself for the $300-$500 dollar price I went to eBay and discovered an $85 dollar system with four valve stem mounted sensors and a small monitor for the TV. The sensors are battery powered and the monitor is either solar or DC powered. The unit was shipped from China and took awhile to get here. Once here I set my pressures on the rig at 80lbs psi and installed the sensors. The monitor showed 78 psi on all tires. Close enough for me. The monitor reports high pressure, low pressure, high temperature, low temperature and low sensor battery. It also reports fast leakage. The monitor is small and almost requires reading glasses for these old eyes but does not require lots of room to install. It charges via a solar panel on the back of it or thru the use of a PowerPoint plugged into the cigarette lighter.
Being retired and on a limited budget I decided to take a chance on this at this price point. We are planning a trip in August so will get an idea of overall functioning hopefully without deflation!

Rickeoni · 07-22-2016, 01:11 PM

Do you have a link?

motojavaphil · 07-22-2016, 03:16 PM

Rick , I found mine on eBay. Search Carchet TPMS.

dayle1 · 07-23-2016, 12:34 PM

My understanding is that this system is intended for cars, not trailers as the distance may be too great for receiving signals from the tires on the highway. Also, it only has a single acceptable tire pressure range, meaning you can't use it to monitor the truck tires at say 80 psi and trailer tires at say 65 psi. Finally, while it supposedly can read pressures above 100 psi, some users claim it tops out at 78 psi. You might try inflating a tire to 85 psi and see if that 78 psi number increases or not. If it doesn't, then it will not warn you of high pressure issues or even allow you to see pressures above 78 psi. Since pressure always increases during operation, if the display constantly shows 78 psi, then you will think everything is great, til

Finally, I don't think there is any published info on how frequently the sensors transmit 'normal' data to the display or how quickly the system detects 'fail' data and sounds the alarm. Have you tried removing a sensor to understand it's response time?

motojavaphil · 07-23-2016, 02:28 PM

Signal reception when mounted on my rig to monitor was positive. It also showed varied pressures such as 76, 75 psi. I corrected the pressures to 80 and it reflected 78 on all corners. I will be able to say more once we take our trip in August but it works as well as a more expensive unit I had on my motorhome at this point.

motojavaphil · 07-23-2016, 02:37 PM

The owners manual states 99 psi as the max which seems good for most towables. Like I said the price point of $85 may mean you get what you pay for but then again this is old technology and should be easily duplicated and be effective.

head gamez · 07-24-2016, 07:59 AM

I think it is funny that these boards are filled with people referring to the tires as China Bombs and complaining about the manufacturers skimping on tires to save a $. Yet now we have people skimping on tpms and going for a China Bomb Detector" to protect themselves from the cheap tires that the manufacturer installed.

Irony....

BTW. I'm not trying to start an argument. I just noticed the humor and irony in the situation.

motojavaphil · 07-24-2016, 08:42 AM

A bit of irony definitely was not lost on me 😀

jacknife · 07-24-2016, 11:10 AM

I would rather spend the money on good tires . That TPMS doesn't tell you that the cords just seperated and your tire blew out your wiring and some undercarriage , which will cost you a bunch more then a good set of rubber.