AG Tire Manufacturer MUST HAVE APPS & Sites

by | Jun 25, 2020 | Ag Tire Answers, Featured | 0 comments

MANUFACTURER’S ANSWER to

  • What are the 3 GO TO AG TIRE Apps & Website Portals you deem “essential” to increase tire productivity, increase yield, and maximize return on investment?
    • What info do they provide?
    • How do they work?

KEY TAKEAWAYS

MAXAM, In all cases, assuming the right tire size has been chosen for that wheelbase, the key to delivering the best performance is the cold air pressure for a given load.

MICHELIN, The Michelin tire pressure calculator enables precise air pressure set in accordance with speed and load, reducing soil compaction, and maximizing tire life…

TITAN, Our calculator is simple…The grower just types in the size of his tire, the load index, axle load, whether it is conventional, IF, VF and what application and hits enter and the program calculates the recommended inflation pressure for that application.

ALLIANCE, The ATG Warranty Wizard app is an easy-to-use tool that allows tire dealers and farmers to quickly handle warranty claims in the field with their smartphones.

CONTINENTAL, Continental has included a convenient Lead Calculator for the customers dealing with MFWD (mechanical front-wheel drive) tractors. This tool suggests if your selected front and rear tire combination is best suited for the mechanical ratio of your tractor (unique for each OEM), and ensures the front tires are always pulling the machine.

BKT, By opening the Tech Sheet for a tire, important information can be found on air pressures and weight carrying capacities. By selecting the speed of the tractor or equipment, air pressure can be selected on the slide bar to find the needed load carrying capacity.

TRELLEBORG, The TLC Plus takes the information for the basic level and combines it with a TPMS system that is connected to your smart phone, tablet or remotely, to quickly check your tires before heading out to the field.

Maxam Tire International
Greg W. Gilland:  VP of Global Agriculture

MAXAM has invested heavily in making our online support services customer centric and easy to use. These tools are designed to give our customers advice, technical information, inventory, and service support tailored to meet their broad range of needs. Our MAXAM customer website (maxamtire.com) is designed to provide product and technical information on our entire radial, bias and solid tire offering of products commercialized around the world. Our online system is supported in multiple languages to ensure we can effectively convey our value message worldwide.

In North America, we further provide online tools that include a secure proprietary portal that allows authorized dealers and customers to access the following services: ordering, inventory on hand, container delivery, balance of account, shipping information, invoices, bills of lading and product information. MAXAM’s vision is to provide business solutions that deliver value by helping our customers improve their profits through the utilization of our products and services. Part of achieving that vision is how we tailor our solutions to the AG industry providing timely information related to product availability, delivery and technical recommendations for effective use.

As the MAXAM online services continue to evolve, we have enhanced our website and portal to include an AG Tire Load & Pressure Calculator designed to maximize our customer’s return on investment. This new tool will allow our agricultural customers to effectively choose the right air pressure for any given tire load resulting in improved machine productivity while managing the tire’s gross flat plate, minimizing compaction and increasing crop yields.

In agricultural applications, tires are designed to deliver the optimal traction or flotation based on their size, load capability and compounding. Agricultural tires are specifically sized to fit the wheelbase of a vehicle chassis. In all cases, assuming the right tire size has been chosen for that wheelbase, the key to delivering the best performance is the cold air pressure for a given load. In order to achieve the right air pressure recommendation that will deliver the right footprint resulting in improved productivity and greater yields, you need to account for the tire load by axle or individual by the individual tire and as well the speed required to work the field or transport the equipment.

The below table provides the simple approach that is now automated in our new Agricultural Tire Load & Pressure Calculator:

The above example of our agricultural calculator factors either the estimated or actual vehicle machine weight or axle load to determine the best cold air pressure to carry the equipment load at a chosen operating speed. The above information is also available in our Agricultural Data Book and can be downloaded from our website or portal. Our Agricultural Calculator allows you to email or print out your recommended cold air inflation pressure for easy reference. Using the right air pressure will ensure you can achieve the maximum utilization of your tires!

Michelin Ag
David Graden: Operational Market Manager – Agriculture

The Michelin tire pressure calculator enables precise air pressure set in accordance with speed and load, reducing soil compaction, and maximizing tire life, as shown below, and found on the following link:  https://agricultural.michelinman.com/us/pressure_calculator/default

  1. Select Machine
  2. Add Load
  3. Set Tire: Size / Load Speed Index / Type
  4. Input Speed

Optimum Air Pressure is calculated!

At Michelin, we believe it is absolutely essential for Ag tires to contain the precise air pressure for optimum performance. In the past, I have used many different pressure calculators, websites, and sales tools to help me calculate this for my customers. Unfortunately, I have yet to find one place that does everything I need for every scenario.

Therefore, I prefer to use very basic tools- the Michelin AG Tire Data Book:  https://www.michelinb2b.com/wps/b2bcontent/PDF/Michelin_AG_Databook.pdf  If you will take a look inside the 2019 Michelin Agricultural Databook, towards the back, you will find instructions on how to determine necessary tire pressure (basically how to weigh the machine with/without loader or rear implement, etc.), maintenance guidelines, instruction to calculate mechanical lead, load-balancing calculation instruction, and even a few examples of weight per cubic foot of grains, produce, and fertilizers. All of this information is vital to setting proper tire inflation and achieving peak performance from your tires.

Let’s take the Michelin 480/80R50, for example. Your MFWA machine weighs about 35,000 lbs empty. Then, add a common fold up planter on the rear. In this example, I am showing you the air pressure recommendation at maximum speed, carrying the maximum load (folded planter) and the field only pressures. If your machine is outfitted with a central tire inflation system (CTIS), you could change these air pressures at the push of a button.

You would first need to take the empty weight of the machine’s front axle (15,750 lbs) and the loaded rear axle weight of about 30,000 lbs…..

Finally, based upon my experience, you may begin to see some power hop when the air pressures are spread more than 10 psi between front and rear. If you experience this, adjust the front air pressure up by 2psi and you should see improvement or elimination.

In summary, adjusting air pressures in accordance with exact weight, speed, application can reduce your air pressures significantly. Lower air pressures will lead to improved traction, reduced compaction, better yields and overall better performance.

As always, all Michelin Ag reps are equipped with the knowledge and tools to help you with all of this.

Titan International, Inc. (Manufacturer of Titan and Goodyear Farm Tires)
Scott Sloan: Ag Product Manager / Global LSW

In this day and age of the internet and smartphones the access to information and resources is unlimited.  Growers looking for “essential” apps or websites to use when dealing with tire related information don’t have to do much more than quick search on the internet and they will find a variety of sites that will help them to optimize their tractors tires.  As I travel around the globe I get asked on many occasions what should people look as far as what type of app or website.  Two things are typically the most important when it comes to tractor performance not only in the field but on the road and that is inflations and ballasting recommendations.

Most OE tractor manufacturers have their own websites to determine the proper ballasting packages for a specific tractor.  Most if not all tire manufacturers have tire pressure calculators on their website.  Our calculator https://www.tirepressurecalculator.com/ is simple to use and allows the grower to determine the proper inflation pressures based on his specific set up.  The grower just types in the size of his tire, the load index, axle load, whether it is conventional, IF, VF and what application and hits enter and the program calculates the recommended inflation pressure for that application.

By paying attention to proper inflation not only improves the performance of the machine which equates to less fuel consumption, but also extends the life of the tire.  Running at proper inflations will also improve output due to the fact that there will be less compaction and potentially higher yields.  It’s easy to walk by the tires on the tractor and if they look “okay” and not check them for that particular days task, this may be costing the grower in the long run.  Knowing and understanding proper inflation pressures and the affect they have on the bottom line is key to any operation.

Alliance Tire Americas
Brian Sheehey: Vice President – Marketing

At Alliance Tire, we’ve been working very hard on online resources that make it easier for our tire dealer customers and their customers—the farmers, loggers and others who rely on our products as they make a living—to get the most from their tires.

The ATG Warranty Wizard app is an easy-to-use tool that allows tire dealers and farmers to quickly handle warranty claims in the field with their smartphones.

It takes just a moment to download from the App Store or Google Play Store and set up an account. Then the app walks you through the process of identifying the tire, briefly describing the problem, taking a few photos with your phone, and filing the claim by pressing Send. It’s really that easy.

Nobody likes to have to make a claim, but making the process quick, simple and painless has really made it more pleasant for our customers, quicker for us to handle, and easier for all of us to put a claim behind us and get farmers back into the field faster than ever before.

The second online tool we are really proud of is our online load/speed tables. It’s simple to get onto http://www.atgtire.com, find your tire by model, type or size, and up comes the load/speed chart. Because we’re a global company, you can pick between US standard measurements like psi and mph or switch to metric.

What’s special about our approach is that the whole table is right there in front of you. That way, you can easily see how much pressure you need to carry a certain load at a certain speed. If you want to run at a lower pressure with that same load, you can just look at the table and figure out the speed you’d have to go. There’s no need to have to input different figures or refresh your screen to get that information. Basically, you can see all your options.

Those tables are going to be especially exciting as people adopt central tire inflation systems (CTIS). If you know your load and you know the speeds you want to run in the field and on the road, you can just check the chart, set your CTIS with the inflation pressures you need, and you’re off to work.

The third cyberspace tool we’re proud of is our blog page: https://atablogs.atgtire.com/   We’ve spent years building up a huge resource of customer stories, behind-the-scenes information, details on specific products, industry news, lighthearted features, white papers and more—literally, tire-related information from all over the world—and it’s all available free.

We want our dealers and their farmer customers to get the most from every Alliance, Galaxy and Primex tire they own, and great information is the best way to help make that happen.

Continental Tire Agriculture
Dana Berger:  Farm Project Lead – Continental Commercial Specialty Tires

Outside of equipment manufacturer manuals, there are several resources that can be essential to life on the farm. At the end of 2019, Continental launched an application, “Agriculture Tiretech”. The app is available for both iOS and Android devices and provides key calculations for load and air pressure. Continental also provides access to specific technical data to achieve the optimal performance farmers require every day.

In order to maximize the return on a large investment, we need to do our best to take care of the items we purchase. For tires, that means paying close attention to the working inflation pressure required to haul various loads, on the road and in the field. Inflation pressure has a direct relation to machine performance, soil compaction and fuel consumption. In the “Agriculture Tiretech” app, farmers can select what size Continental tire they are using (including VF technology), choose the tire load, scroll through the estimated driving speed on the road or in the field, and the tire inflation pressure will be calculated immediately. Beyond that, farmers can find quick technical facts for that tire size, such as overall width, overall diameter, static radius, rolling circumference and permitted/suggested rims.

Continental has also included a convenient Lead Calculator for the customers dealing with MFWD (mechanical front-wheel drive) tractors. This tool suggests if your selected front and rear tire combination is best suited for the mechanical ratio of your tractor (unique for each OEM), and ensures the front tires are always pulling the machine.

New technologies are on the horizon to support tire inflation from equipment manufacturers. Until Central Tire Inflation Systems (CTIS) are readily available from the manufacturers, our Agriculture Tiretech app is the best solution. End users are normally inflating tires to the maximum allowed pressure but need to keep in mind that each operation is unique. For example, fully loaded equipment at the beginning of cyclic operation requires higher working air pressure. Once the farmer starts in the field, the required working pressure will decrease as the load is decreasing.

Additionally, there are many other resources available to farmers through supporting tire and equipment dealers. Continental can and will offer support through our partners, as well as our local Technical Solutions team of engineers.

BKT USA, Inc.
Dave Paulk: Manager Field Technical Services

The BKT website is useful to find tires that will fit specific needs. Tires are broken down into three categories. By clicking on either the Agriculture, Industrial or OTR tires icon, the wheel diameter, and size can be selected. If the “Pattern” is known, that can also be chosen.

Once the tire is chosen, the following data and information may be found on the website:

  • Recommended Rim with Alternates (if any)
  • Section Width (distance from sidewall to sidewall with the tire inflated)
  • Overall Diameter (measurement from the bottom of the tire to the top. Tire height)
  • Static Loaded Radius (distance from the centerline of the hub to the ground. Important for planters and some tillage equipment)
  • Rolling Circumference (distance in inches that a tire travels in one revolution. Important for MFWD tractors)
  • Type (tube type or tubeless)
  • TRA Code (Tire and Rim Association Code for agricultural tires)
  • Load Index and Speed Rating (maximum load at the maximum speed a tire is rated at)
  • Version (Standard, special, steel belted, etc.)

By opening the Tech Sheet for a tire, important information can be found on air pressures and weight carrying capacities. By selecting the speed of the tractor or equipment, air pressure can be selected on the slide bar to find the needed load carrying capacity.

The “Technical Specifications” page shows all the above data as well as a description of the tire. It has the “Load and Inflation Tables” for the tire. This page can be printed if needed.

The Load Capacity tables are important. The Load and Speed Index Symbol for the tire is the rating at the maximum load and maximum air pressure. By using the above table, the correct air pressure for the weight and speed of the tractor and equipment can be used to eliminate potential tire problems.

The Load and Inflation charts are good for determining load capacities and air pressures at field speed and at highway speeds. Tires run at highway speeds need more air pressure to carry the same weight as when they are run at field speeds.  A multitude of tire problems are caused by not adjusting air pressures between the field and road.

If tires are over inflated, they can have too much slippage causing more cost in fuel, increased soil compaction (directly caused by inflation pressures in tires), and possible tire damage along with an increased risk of impact breaks.

If tires are under inflated, they will not carry the weight of the tractor and equipment which will lead to premature tire failure.

Trelleborg Wheel Systems
Norberto Herbener: OE Applications Engineer

Trelleborg Wheel Systems offer several convenient options to review our tire product solutions and technology capabilities through our website and mobile apps. We have the digital tools available to find solutions to your tire needs from Tire Book to Tire iBrochure and many more. In addition to the Trelleborg tire selection, we have extended our tire family with Mitas tires, where you can search for a specific tire size and technical information.

With these digital tools, you can start your tire search needs, including dimensions, load capacities, and inflation pressure. There are several factors to take into consideration when searching for the right tire size such as speed, cargo weight and PSI. The various apps will give you a quick lookup of important information needed to correctly choose the right tire for your application and requirement needs.

Going one step further, Trelleborg Wheel Systems has developed a system called The Trelleborg Load Calculator, or TLC Plus Load Calculator app. This app offers two levels of interaction, the basic TLC pressure calculator, that will calculate the correct inflation pressure based on information entered by you for a specific situation and condition. The TLC Plus level takes the basic level and adds live tire pressure monitoring allowing you to determine at a glance if your tire’s pressures are set to perform at their optimal level for how you will be using your tractor.

The TLC Plus app does require more information to be entered, compared to other load calculators available in the industry, because it simulates actual working conditions of your tractor. Besides just knowing tractor’s axle weights, the app requires information of what implement is being used, along with speed, ballast, tractor weight, etc. With this information the app will calculate the total axle loads and load distribution while the tractor is in motion. After entering the tire sizes, the app will suggest what inflation pressure should be used for each working speed to achieve optimal tire performance.

The TLC Plus takes the information for the basic level and combines it with a TPMS system that is connected to your smart phone, tablet or remotely, to quickly check your tires before heading out to the field. The app will check the air pressure in each tire and compare it to the optimal pressure determined in the basic level and shows you which tires need serviced. Besides determining the correct air pressures to optimize your tractor’s performance, the TLC Plus will continuously monitor your tires while in motion alerting you to any potential problems via your phone/tablet, and through the web if working remotely.

This TLC Plus Kit is available from any Trelleborg tires dealer and includes a small box called the gateway and four pressure sensing valve caps that are easily attached to your tires.

There are 4 simple steps to setup your TLC Plus System:

1. Create a main login including the farm ID – this will allow that several users (for example each driver, fleet manager, and service manager) with different login, to see the fleet information when inside your equipment or remotely. To help manage your fleet, the app will save your equipment configurations for easy retrieval and monitoring.


2. Enter the information for each tractor that is equipped with a TLC Plus kit and create a configuration of how it will be used. The Load Calculator app contains more than 5,000 tractors configurations and has 14 different languages to choose from. The app can retain multiple configurations depending on the season how it will be used with the optimal inflation pressure for each tire.

3. Each unit will be fitted with its own unique Gateway from the TLC Plus kit. This Gateway will receive the information of each valve stem pressure sensor cap of that unit. During setup, the gateway will search for the Bluetooth signals from the valve caps to pair them with the Gateway and you will have to assign manually what signal correspond to what tire for a correct identification.

4. After you completed the previous steps, you’re ready to perform the first pressure check. The app will show green for the tires have the optimal air pressure and red for the tires that need to be adjusted.

Once step 4 is complete, you can reap the full benefits of the TLC Plus app. From knowing your tractor is ready to go to work with tires set for optimal performance that minimize impact to the soil for improved yields, to the maintenance time savings of checking your fleets tire pressures at a glance. The TLC Plus app is just one solution Trelleborg Wheel Systems is bringing to your farm to meet your current and future needs.

Below is list of Trelleborg / Mitas AG sites & apps:

All information is provided in this blog solely to provoke thought. All deductions made from information on this site must be confirmed by Certified Ag Tire Dealer before use. Ag Tire Talk does not recommend anyone conduct tire service work with exception of Certified Ag Tire Dealer Professionals.

Subscribe

Subscribe

AG TRACK TALK

Visit Ag Track Talk