Our Ring 600 inflater is on the way out as no longer gives the correct read for air pressure so is always a bit of hit and miss. Is there anything better than the ring tyre inflater?
Air compressor pump
- Thread starter Buckman
- Start date
That’s what I do. I check and deflate to required pressure using an average of a mechanical gauge, Ring Digital and Schraeder type pencil gauges fir car or caravan tyres. The pencil gauge only goes to 50 psi but the others to or above 60 psi. Obsessed 😂
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Pencil type gauges are not more than an indication in my opinion. Many of the pressure gauges fitted to pumps are pretty poor quality and expected accuracy at say 65psi can't be much better than plus/minus say 3 psi.
As a retired Measurement and Control engineer this is a constant irritation to me, although I did retire with a good industrial pressure gauge which I use to check my more commercial gauges at around the working pressures required - hence the figures quoted above.
I don't know any easy way of getting your pressure gauges calibrated or checked for accuracy, unless you have access to one of known accuracy or some calibration equipment.
I fear the gauges at filling stations, although larger and more impressive, may not be any more accurate - perhaps someone can tell us whether they are actually check calibrated ?
Another factor to consider is the temperature at time of measurement. We all know tyres should be checked cold. I understand that a change of 5 degrees temperature will change tyre pressure by about 1 PSI. A tyre is black and will absorb heat relative to surrounding if exposed to direct sunlight and of course gets warm under running conditions. All these factors combine to confuse what pressure you actually have in the tyre and at what tyre temperature the manufacturers stated pressure applies.
Please don't get me started on the similar argument over home blood pressure readings relative to those in the surgery, although at least there is no serious temperature factor.
As a retired Measurement and Control engineer this is a constant irritation to me, although I did retire with a good industrial pressure gauge which I use to check my more commercial gauges at around the working pressures required - hence the figures quoted above.
I don't know any easy way of getting your pressure gauges calibrated or checked for accuracy, unless you have access to one of known accuracy or some calibration equipment.
I fear the gauges at filling stations, although larger and more impressive, may not be any more accurate - perhaps someone can tell us whether they are actually check calibrated ?
Another factor to consider is the temperature at time of measurement. We all know tyres should be checked cold. I understand that a change of 5 degrees temperature will change tyre pressure by about 1 PSI. A tyre is black and will absorb heat relative to surrounding if exposed to direct sunlight and of course gets warm under running conditions. All these factors combine to confuse what pressure you actually have in the tyre and at what tyre temperature the manufacturers stated pressure applies.
Please don't get me started on the similar argument over home blood pressure readings relative to those in the surgery, although at least there is no serious temperature factor.
I use a combination of Ring digital, Tire Tech mechanical and PCL pencil. The reason being that not all go to 60 psi caravan pressure and some fit the valves better and you lose less air.
But both the Tire Tech and PCL require interpretation as the scales are analogue. There’s nothing wrong with interpretation as that’s all we had for many years until digital came along but without calibration how do we know how accurate is the digital gauge.
Ive never had a vehicle four or two wheels show adverse tyre wear other than for alignment. I always check and inflate tyres when cold and without the sun on them. And just before departing for this trip I waited until Thursday morning to do tyres as I knew a cooler spell of weather was in the offing.
But both the Tire Tech and PCL require interpretation as the scales are analogue. There’s nothing wrong with interpretation as that’s all we had for many years until digital came along but without calibration how do we know how accurate is the digital gauge.
Ive never had a vehicle four or two wheels show adverse tyre wear other than for alignment. I always check and inflate tyres when cold and without the sun on them. And just before departing for this trip I waited until Thursday morning to do tyres as I knew a cooler spell of weather was in the offing.
A couple of comparison tests have shown that pencil gauges are more accurate and more consistent than normal retail needle or digital gauges - though none are as accurate as calibrated engineers' gauges.
I set my Ring inflator to 2.4 bar to inflate car tyres. Car TPMS show 2.4 bar. On caravan I set the Ring to 49psi and the Tyrepal TPMS shows 49psi when setting off. Over distance the pressure can increase to 54psi corresponding with rise in tyre temperature.
When I had an off road Pajero and sometimes tyre pressures had to be adjusted outside of Mitsubishi recommendations and 4-5 psi increase from cold after 30 minutes running was the rule of thumb.
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On our Shogun it was a right pain having to increase and decrease the pressure whenever you hooked up the caravan and later unhooked. The difference in pressure was significant.
Hi peeps, I’ve been using a tyre inflator that came with a merc sprinter, it’s now seen better days and I’ve looked at this thread and see that ring inflators get mentioned a fair bit, looking on amazon there seems to be various models at various prices, anyone got a recommendation as to a decent one with decent pressures possible and hopefully not going to wake the whole street when I use it.
BP
BP
I've just bought the Ring RTC6000 - It's battery powered and can be mains charged or run via 12v as a backup. Really handy not to have to faff with the cable when doing caravan tyres on the drive.
I can see the advantages as I cannot use the 12 v Michelin on the caravan. I use a cycle track pump which is quite easy as the van tyres rarely vary by more than a few psi and that’s probably due to ambient temperature variation.
I inflated all 4 corners of my car (+spare), my wife's car and the caravan after a drop in temperature in about the same time it would take to do my car with the 12v, due to the convenience of the cordless inflator. Even did my MiL's car when she popped round as they looked low on pressure. So handy.
How accurate is iit regarding pressure. Like the idea of it being cordless especiaĺly for doing the tyres when it is in storage.
I have a Tire Tek mechanical gauge, a Ring Digital and PCL pencil gauge to check tyres as the gauge on my 12 v electric inflator isn't great. I dont use all three consecutively but the Tire Tek has a deflation capability so I tend to slightly over inflate car tyres and then bleed down. Ive found the Ring doesn't seal to well on some valves so if Im not careful I finish up adding more air. I like the "review" of this new cordless Ring anything that saves time on routine checks is a positive for me.
Don't fall into the trap of thinking just becasue an instrument is digital or its got more digits in the display, its automatically more accurate than good quality analogue equipment. Most low cost digital devices (whether is pressure or temperature, humidity sound pressure, voltage current or whatever) can have the same issues regarding maintaining accuracy as analogue devices.
Accuracy is not the same as precision, Digital readouts allow you to see smaller changes in values, which is the precision bit , but unless the measurement device is calibrated against a known standard, the accuracy can be as inept as any analogue device.
Going Digital often means you can be more "precisely inaccurate"!
To be fair especially with electrical meters, they are generally better than analogue, but pressure is one area where to get a suitable reliable pressure testing meter for a gas appliance test and production line cost many thousands of pounds 3 decades ago.
Costs have tumbled as technology has advanced but a professional grade device will still set you back around a £1000 to day.
Tyre pressures are important , but as Roger L has pointed out temperature plays a significant part in the retained pressure. Also as a tyre is used the changes in road surface, accelerating and braking, cornering will all change the loads on the tyres quite substantially, so 5% to error is not likely to be significant in the short term. What is probably more important is to use the same gauge for all the tyres so any error will be consistent across the vehicle.
Accuracy is not the same as precision, Digital readouts allow you to see smaller changes in values, which is the precision bit , but unless the measurement device is calibrated against a known standard, the accuracy can be as inept as any analogue device.
Going Digital often means you can be more "precisely inaccurate"!
To be fair especially with electrical meters, they are generally better than analogue, but pressure is one area where to get a suitable reliable pressure testing meter for a gas appliance test and production line cost many thousands of pounds 3 decades ago.
Costs have tumbled as technology has advanced but a professional grade device will still set you back around a £1000 to day.
Tyre pressures are important , but as Roger L has pointed out temperature plays a significant part in the retained pressure. Also as a tyre is used the changes in road surface, accelerating and braking, cornering will all change the loads on the tyres quite substantially, so 5% to error is not likely to be significant in the short term. What is probably more important is to use the same gauge for all the tyres so any error will be consistent across the vehicle.
Let’s hope the £50 Diy blood pressure monitors, sat testers and glucose testers are accurate!
Many cars these days have TPMS as standard therefore you have two digital readouts that can be compared. Both the Ring readout and TPMS on car and also Tyrepal on caravan match up with reading on our Ring inflater.
I’ve always checked tyres weekly. That way I can spot a very slow puncture or defective valve, rim seal problem etc. It’s the trend that I’m looking for not the Nth degree of accuracy.
Can the battery be charged using the 12v in the car? If a lithium battery is not charged on a regular basis, eventually they go flat and cannot be recovered. Found that out the hard and expensive way.
I cannot see why a pounds here or there would make any difference so I agree with you. A TPMS on a car measures to the nearest whole figure and not to a decimal point i.e. .5.
There are two types of TPMS - one uses sensors in each wheel and gives the digital pressure in bar which may be converted electronically to Kpa or psi but the other relies on variations in rotational rate using the ABS sensors so can't show the pressure
It matches my dedicated digital pressure gauge - so, I can only say its as accurate as that! I do like it's convenience, only drawback is its a bit bigger than my last Ring635. The Shrader Valve screw is a PITA, so I've teamed it with a clamp-on adapter, don't need to compensate for pressure lost unscrewing the inflator.
The latter can give false positive pressure alerts too. Had that once.
Lithium batteries are very resistant to drain compared to NiCad. My DIY power tools last for ages without being recharged.
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