Do you really need ATC?
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Indeed. There would be something seriously wrong with the system (or your driving) if the ATC deploys that often that it would make any difference to fuel consumption or wear the brakes out prematurely.
It should never come on so brutally that the brakes are fully applied.
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Yes I agree it should only be a small increase in wear and only if you feel it tugging at you a lot- but any application will add to your fuel consumption it is a fact on a long journey it will add up. On the wear factor it may not be your van brakes that suffer it will more likely be your clutch or DMF - the latter is more susceptible to this kind of effect so if you can feel it so can that, just remember when you are towing your clutch and transmission are subjected to more stress - I also would add on this subject that those who push there outfits hard especially on speed risk a clutch and DMF failure earlier than you would imagine - I have dealt with a number of these premature failures and they are not pretty - about £600 - £700 to fix.
John Wilson
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I don't think anyone is seriously thinking about living with such an unstable outfit that an ATC system would be operating to the extent that it knocks out the tow car's transmission. Towing itself is bad news, but the scales are not going to be tipped by an occasional 40% application of the van's brakes when rolling through a rough CL field or leaving a roundabout a tad too briskly.
We are moving into scare mongering here struggling to find reason to denigrate what for most caravanners will find is an excellent additional safety aid.
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Hi
I,m sorry I could reply earlier I've been so busy. To reply to the last two posts. I have actually built a replica to the ATC from using simple Arduino lateral senses and the programming to perform what ever It needs - it is so cheap to build you will wonder how they charge £450 when the whole package only costs £50 - including a motor. If I wanted to build and use such a system I can do it easily. The reason I do not is because first it is based on electronics and motors. Also because it is totally unnecessary and cannot perform as reliably and offer the same levels of service as a mechanical system. You agree that there is always room for better solutions and this is one. Some have mentioned the car trailer ESP built into later cars. This electronic device cannot be replicated mechanically so has to be electronic,however, if you have this feature then this works brilliantly with my system - even the basic ESP is very workable, here's why when the car senses detect a lateral motion the system will operate individual wheel brakes to pull the vehicle into line, now if this was the caravan pushing the car rear end to the left it would apply the car left rear wheel and with my system the van right wheel would also be applied which swings the van nose to the right assisting the inline correction of the combination - the cannot be done if both wheel brakes of the van are applied since it would prevent the efficient realignment.
As I have stated before small sway is almost always correctable by the driver. it is when you get the sudden high velocity wind shear from large vehicles combined with strong side winds that are the very unpredictable situations that will push the van sideways to trigger the uncontrolled snake and if this is allowed to oscillate three times you could be in a very serious situation - ATC will only activate if it detects two full sinusoidal sways and then it has to try and retard the whole combination in fractions of a second - really.
My system will correct this in half a sinusoidal event without the driver noticing it has been applied. It does this using a powerful damping system combined with differential application of the van brakes.
John Wilson
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Hi
On an earlier post Lutz asked how can the van be travelling faster than the car when they are both close coupled - that is exactly where the problem lies, since something would need to give, so when the sway starts the extra energy induced in the van is transmitted down through the tires that then accelerates towards the tow vehicle, some of the energy is absorbed by the overrun damper and the rest is pushing the car sideways since it is at an angle to the car - it is also when the van brakes do apply to some degree momentarily. You can see this if you calculate the tangent slope acceleration using the derivative of f '(x) in calculus for various side forces and you can calculate the force applied to the brakes and also the force required to decelerate the van at any speed.
John Wilson
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