Leveling with Automatic Jacks
I made a "wireless rv level" unit (search it on amazon) which displays your left-right and front-back level on your phone. Moving forward I have created a hardware interface to basically control the up/down for an electric jack, which can be controlled by the App, either automatically (based on the RV LEVEL's data stream) or manually.
Most auto-levelers I've heard about typically adjust both right jacks or both left or both front (when there are two) or both rear, always in pairs, as I think it should be. But are those jacks able to detect when they actually touch the ground (in the case where one touches first, does it know not to keep pushing, possibly causing a twist?).
Does anyone know if/how they are getting feedback from the jacks to determine if a jack has made contact or not, and do the auto-leveling jacks have dual sensors to detect if one corner is raised more/less compared to the opposite corner? Some levelers and apps say they can tell you which corner to raise or lower, but, technically, that would require two physically separate sensors to be able to measure the difference (the twist). A single sensor only measures in one spot and can not detect a twisted unit.
Do you even WANT the ability to control jacks individually? Do you care to detect the twist? To me it seems the jacks should be independently controlled with power-feedback on each jack to detect when and how much force is being applied on each independent jack, indicating ground contact, at which point they can be raised and lowered in pairs to maintain a square unit.
I'd love to hear your comments on hour Yours works, and how they could work better for you. I am currently working on it with my popup trailer, which hardly needs a jack but I am installing one on the front and integrating it with the App. You can download the app on Google Play, free, it works without the RV LEVEL hardware as well by using the phone's internal sensor so you can see where I'm going with this. madebyjoe.net has links to the existing hardware and app.
Thanks for your input.
Most auto-levelers I've heard about typically adjust both right jacks or both left or both front (when there are two) or both rear, always in pairs, as I think it should be. But are those jacks able to detect when they actually touch the ground (in the case where one touches first, does it know not to keep pushing, possibly causing a twist?).
Does anyone know if/how they are getting feedback from the jacks to determine if a jack has made contact or not, and do the auto-leveling jacks have dual sensors to detect if one corner is raised more/less compared to the opposite corner? Some levelers and apps say they can tell you which corner to raise or lower, but, technically, that would require two physically separate sensors to be able to measure the difference (the twist). A single sensor only measures in one spot and can not detect a twisted unit.
Do you even WANT the ability to control jacks individually? Do you care to detect the twist? To me it seems the jacks should be independently controlled with power-feedback on each jack to detect when and how much force is being applied on each independent jack, indicating ground contact, at which point they can be raised and lowered in pairs to maintain a square unit.
I'd love to hear your comments on hour Yours works, and how they could work better for you. I am currently working on it with my popup trailer, which hardly needs a jack but I am installing one on the front and integrating it with the App. You can download the app on Google Play, free, it works without the RV LEVEL hardware as well by using the phone's internal sensor so you can see where I'm going with this. madebyjoe.net has links to the existing hardware and app.
Thanks for your input.
