RVBusiness, March/April 2019

According to Jerry Maffetone vice president of engineering for ASA Electronics the available cargo value is shown as part of a simple equation that subtracts measured total vehicle weight from the vehicle GVWR Background colors change from green to red when values exceed set limits and popup warning messages are displayed when a potentially unsafe condition is reached so users can simply load the vehicle and wait for the system to tell them if they are within safe operating limits or not Its simple and effective The LoadSafe design and engineering group included from left Keystones Mark Bullock and Jeff Snyder Sanjay Patel of ASA Electronics Mark Nave and Sam Lievore seated of Dexter Axle Jon Brock of Keystone David Heitzman of MORryde and Jerry Maffetone of ASA Electronics M A R C H A P R I L 2 0 1 9 RVBusiness 21 an overloaded condition will read in red Once loads are reconfigured LoadSafe requires just 20 to 30 seconds to recalibrate and display the new numbers The project originated a little over four years ago and weve been working on it ever since Mark Bullock senior vice president of engineering for the Goshen Ind based towable manufacturer told RVBusiness Its an onboard weighing system that tells the customer how much weight is on the trailer at any one time and also factors in hitch percentage and hitch weight So you get axle weight you get hitch weight and then you get the percentage of weight thats on the hitch This is all important information that we felt the customer doesnt have easy access to today Working in partnership with a close group of Elkhart Ind based suppliers ASA Electronics Dexter Axle and MORryde the proprietary system utilizes a series of sensors to provide weight information through the RVs iN Command onboard monitoring system that was developed jointly by Keystone and ASA Electronics and released in the fall of 2015 As with the release of iN Command once green lighted for production the system will be exclusive to Keystone for a specified amount of time and will be initially available only on Keystones fifth wheel lines Theres a lot of weight and theres a lot of cargo capacity on those types of vehicles and are probably the biggest single product in terms of not really knowing how far youve gone with your cargo added Jon Brock a member of Bullocks engineering department When youre talking 3500 to 4000 pounds potentially of cargo going into a trailer its not easy to keep track of where youre at So we feel like high end fifth wheels and fifth wheel toy haulers are the logical starting point While hesitant to talk specifics because a lot of what weve created and developed is either on a patent application or its proprietary and we dont want to get into too much detail on how were doing it Bullock noted that in the broadest sense the system utilizes sensors at the axles and at the hitch Basically were weighing the unit where the trailer touches the ground he added We initially started with the landing gear possibly as a location to try and gather weight data but went instead to the hitch because we felt like we gained extra knowledge We could give the customer hitch percentages and ranges to make sure that theyre okay there Getting there however was apparently an arduous process Weve been in the trailer axle and running gear business for more than 60 years so this project seemed very relative to what we do said Sam Lievore product engineer for Dexter Axle We started out with an initial concept a strain gauge idea that placed it more isolated in the final product Unfortunately that created a susceptibility to some external forces So after a year or two of trying to proof the concept we found ourselves back to the drawing board Then we were able to come up with a concept for a product that allows things to be included or added to our axle that has a very consumer friendly design as far as serviceability Its very repeatable and its something that is easier for us to include in our manufacturing process and its one thats proved itself and will continue to as we look forward to potential production Similarly MORryde Chief Engineer Dave Heitzmann noted the project presented a few initial stumbling blocks when creating the systems weighing components on the hitch We said wed be very interested in a way to determine the load on the hitch of the truck but we manufacture the pin box So I created a model and saw the highstress regions on our skid pad where the kingpin projects out and it made sense that we could install strain gauges in this area I tested it with a vice and as I started putting load on I started to see a real nice linear ramp up on the voltage We Mark and I were both very encouraged but shortly after that we realized that the strain gauges bonded to the axles werent the way to go he noted So we went in a different direction and it just evolved into what we have today Added Bullock The axles are a suspension component that have a lot of movement in them How to accurately gather weight related information from an axle assembly is where most of our time was spent in the first two years And I would say that that was probably our most difficult challenge being able to get a system that we were comfortable in the weight ranges that we were seeing and that the reporting was correct in a way to do it that worked for Dexter Axle to be able to manufacture and for us to be able to install All of the data from the weight sensors noted Jerry Maffetone vice president