"Medvedka", Bottles And Chains: 7 Lotions For Trucks You Haven't Heard Of

Recently, several videos were leaked on the Web, filmed in so-called traps for trucks with failed brakes. Impressed by this simple, but extremely effective and useful solution, we undertook to study what other amazing gadgets exist in the world of trucks and are almost never found on cars. And we found some very curious ones!

Automatic snow chains

Chains are a great way to improve your vehicle's flotation, especially in winter. Just hanging them is a real torment: to straighten them out, to install them correctly so that they do not slide to one side, tighten everything, drive through, tighten the loosened locks and sagging links again … We know from ourselves that while you pull them, you will smear yourself all over and curse everything. And it is even more dreary to hang chains on cargo wheels, because they are much larger and heavier! However, for winter driving for trucks and buses, an alternative to this hard labor has long been invented - automatic snow chains!

The device is simple: two pneumatic cylinders are placed on the drive axle, which, after pressing a button by the driver, press a disc with a dozen short chains to the wheels. The car drives, the wheels rotate and turn this disk, due to which the chains are thrown under the wheels, increasing the "grip" of the tires by about 30-40%. These "rotary" chains operate at speeds of up to 50 km / h and are designed to help on icy ascents and roads.

"Medvedka"

"Medvedka" is not only a creepy insect or the Russian anti-submarine missile system RPK-9, but also a slang name for a very unusual wheel drive. Scientifically, it is called the Robson drive - it is a steel toothed drum on a lifting mechanism. It is installed on trucks with a rear two- or three-axle bogie, where only one axle is driving: that is, with a 6x2 or 8x2 wheel arrangement. With the help of a hydraulic or pneumatic cylinder, the "bear" is lowered between the wheels, pressed tightly against them, and then everything is simple to genius: the drive axle turns the drum, and the drum turns the wheels of the non-driving axle, turning the 6x2 / 8x2 schemes into a kind of 6x4 / 8x4.

However, due to snow and ice on the wheels, the "bear" can slip, reducing the torque from the drive axle to the driven wheels. And you can't use it all the time, so that the steel "teeth" of the drums do not gnaw the tires. But as a temporary aid to a truck on a slippery slope, felling site or construction site, this solution is cheaper, lighter and more fuel efficient than another full drive axle.

"Medvedki" are popular in Scandinavia, they can be installed on almost any truck, and the Finnish company Sisu even offers "Medvedki" in the form of factory equipment for its trucks. By the way, Robson's drive is often used on snow and swamp-going vehicles, like the Russian Trom vehicle.

Portal auger snow blower

Very soon we are waiting for the "days of the tinsmith" and the familiar trucks with "caps" of snow on vans and trailers, from where it will generously pour onto the roofs of passenger cars along the stream. However, cleaning a hefty truck after a heavy snowfall is not a snowball to brush away from a nine. For example, a standard European 3-axle 13.6-meter semi-trailer has a roof area of about 33 square meters! And snow, depending on its thickness and consistency, can accumulate there from several hundred kilograms to several tons. But there are trailers and couplings even longer …

Cleaning so much snow by hand is long and dreary. Therefore, they came up with U-shaped stands for trucks, on which a snow blade, lowered by a cable to the roof of a van or trailer, is suspended.

But the snow it rakes falls almost under the wheels, and before the next truck arrives, the ramp must be cleaned again. So the Canadians went further and replaced the snow knife with an electric motor driven auger cleaner that shoots snow 6 meters to the side without damaging the roof of the trailer. The device is 15 times faster than two people with a shovel: they need about 30 minutes to clean the truck, and such a machine can do it in two.

Automatic coupler tipper

In the world of cargo transportation, bulk cargo (from sand and crushed stone to wood chips and grain) is transported not only on dump trucks, but also on ordinary trucks and semi-trailers. But how to unload such equipment if it does not have a lifting body? Easy - you just need to lift the entire truck or road train and throw it back!

In the United States, lifting ramps up to 30 meters long are used for unloading into bunkers or directly to the site: just for local long couplers and trucks. Depending on the platform model, trucks and road trains with a gross weight of up to 82 tons are lifted, lifting them at an angle of up to 63 degrees!

The driver leaves the cockpit during the ascent, but one can imagine what kind of sensations it would be - like an astronaut at the start. By the way, similar platforms (only shorter) are used in Russia. For example, at grain sorting stations.

Folding forklift "out of the box"

Carriers in Europe and America often hang a small forklift truck from the back of a van or trailer and carry it around. It will come in handy for self loading or unloading where there are no highly skilled unloading specialists or a cargo ramp. But a very weighty device noticeably lengthens the dimensions of the truck, heavily loads the rear axle, and in bad weather it is generously poured with water and covered with snow. And do not forget about the criminal component: it can simply be stolen.

Therefore, manufacturers of lifting equipment have already come up with a more interesting option - like a forklift, which fits entirely in a lockable box under the trailer!

To make the device so compact, they installed a folding cargo boom and abandoned the driver's seat, replacing it with a remote control. But the loader with a three-cylinder 35-horsepower diesel engine accelerates to 6 km / h, turns almost on the spot due to the articulated frame, has four-wheel drive (there are hydraulic motors in the wheels) and hydraulic supports. The loader itself, depending on the model, weighs 1.5-1.8 tons, and lifts 1.5 or 2.1 tons to a height of 2.85 meters. By the way, there is not only a wheeled, but also a tracked version.

Locomobile

Did you know that trucks can travel on railways? Specialized firms produce guide steel rollers, which are lowered onto the rails and prevent the machine from falling off the track. And the number of design options allows you to put on the "piece of iron" almost any car - even a pickup, even a hefty truck. This technique is convenient to use for the repair and maintenance of railway tracks. Moreover, the truck is universal: it can enter the rails from any side, and when the rollers are not needed, they are removed and the machine works on other objects.

And the truck can also work on the railway as a shunting locomotive, because the coefficient of adhesion of a rubber wheel to the rails is several times higher than that of steel wheels. And the most famous locomotive in the world is the Mercedes-Benz Unimog all-terrain vehicle, which, due to the all-wheel drive and axles with portal gearboxes, can haul a train weighing up to 1000 tons! True, the price tag for such a locomobile turns out to be transcendental and can amount to hundreds of thousands of euros.

Bottles on wheels

We left the coolest and most "high-tech" solution for trucks for last. Have you met trucks in winter with colored plastic bottles on their trailer wheels protruding from the sidewalls? It looks strange, but in fact it is the simplest home-made indicator that the wheels … are spinning!

Why shouldn't they be spinning, one wonders? There may be several reasons. So, after a long parking or spending the night in the cold, the brake pads of the trailer parking brake can freeze elementarily. When there is snow, ice or frozen asphalt under the wheels, the truck will not even feel that the wheel is skidding. You may not see it in the mirror, but the spinning bottles are much more noticeable.

In the same way, in winter, on the move, by the speed of rotation of the bottles, it is possible to understand whether the mechanisms for supplying the pads are wedging (wear, clogged with dirt), because of which, after braking, the pads do not fully retreat, they heat up and slow down the wheel.

Well, if on the move the bottle suddenly stopped altogether, then this is a "hello" from the power accumulator, which works both as a parking brake and as an emergency brake. As soon as the "energetic" loses air due to leaks (for example, a break in the air hose outside or a working diaphragm inside), the powerful expanding spring in it begins to press the pads against the brakes, until the wheel is completely blocked. And such a driver's trick will help to notice it in time.