A brand-new system from Matthews Brothers Engineering is helping to future-proof the bitumen spraying industry, while also creating new possibilities to tackle what is a changing equipment landscape.
A few years ago, Matthews Brothers Engineering (MBE) saw the writing on the wall when it came to traditional manual truck transmissions.
Major OEMs (Original Equipment Manufacturers) were shifting their smaller chassis to fully automatic transmissions.
Historically, MBE’s sprayers relied on manuals or more recently automated manuals because they could lock in a gear and hold a fixed road speed that directly correlated to engine RPM (revolutions per minute), an essential component for precise bitumen application.
Fully automatic gearboxes, with torque converters and variable relationships between engine speed and road speed, challenged this conventional philosophy, making them unsuitable for the job where a consistent and precise application rate is required. After identifying an emerging need within the market, Paul Matthews set about conceptualising what a solution could look like.
To begin, the business looked introspectively, taking key learnings as well as the basic concept of MBE’s ‘G-TAR’ system.
“Paul [Matthews] has seen many generations of the sprayer equipment and has been leading that charge. Just like G-TAR, Drive Sync is his brainchild,” Jake Hally, Matthews Brothers Engineering’s Service and Maintenance Coordinator says.
The team looked at G-TAR and asked what elements could be stripped back and adapted as the core logic for the new system.
They started on a workbench with a basic Arduino board and wiring, using G-TARs brain as the template.
Devising a user-friendly method of relaying the relevant information to the operator was a major breakthrough.
It was at this moment that ‘Drive Sync’ was born.
A brand-new system
Drive Sync was designed to recreate, in an automatic world, the control and predictability that manual/automated-manual setups provide for MBE sprayers.
The system monitors road speed, automatically adjusting pump RPM to maintain the target application rate without operator intervention, even when the truck’s gearbox and torque converter causes speed variations, such as climbing or descending hills.
“The system uses a series of LEDs to show the operator how close they are to their target road speed.
“The system will adapt up to 25 per cent below and 50 per cent above the target road speed, it’s crucial that the operator knows where these limits are and when they need to make adjustments.” Hally says.
Paul Matthews says this concept, and others previously – such as G-TAR – are the beneficiary of the businesses’ expertise, and willingness to listen and implement feedback.
“We have a dedicated team that know what the equipment needs to deliver and are savvy enough to figure out how to make it come to life,” he says.
“It’s basically listening to what operators need, or thinking the way the driver does. I’ve spent ages out on the job with the crews, just making sure the machine’s working properly. From that, I was able to learn about a lot of the difficulties they face every day.”
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Following the construction of the first proof of concept, Drive Sync iterations were quickly trialled and tested, with constant improvements made along the way, all focused on being as user friendly for the end operator as possible.
“It’s like having a new baby. You’ve got to nurture it, you’ve got to educate it. The more care and love you put into that system, the better it’s going to be when it grows up,” Matthews says.
As part of this process, MBE has hosted experienced drivers from across the country, to interact and test the system. These drivers have been given the chance to sit in the cab, run test passes and comment on the intuitiveness of the system. Such feedback has already led to design enhancements, such as the idea of an engine control or ‘lock’ button to make speed management more spontaneous on autlomatics, with more industry feedback to come.
With the addition of Drive Sync to MBE’s classic control system, the operator gets a more foolproof experience while spraying. The biggest advantage however is opening up the market to customers, allowing them to utilise a wider range of truck chassis’.
“This very much brings fully automatic trucks into play, provided they come equipped with a live drive engine PTO,” says Sally Rolfe, Operations Manager – MBE.
It was crucial to MBE that they could deliver a sprayer with the performance and precision that its reputation was built on.
Best of all, the system was fully designed and developed in-house, ensuring that expertise and support are never far away.
When talking about the industry need for this system Hally remarked, “it’s one of those features that people won’t realise they need, until they really need it. It’s an updated, more operator-friendly system and there’s still more to come.”
The first iteration of Drive Sync has been developed as an add-on to the classic switch-and-button control system, but long-term, the plan is to implement Drive Sync into G-TAR.
“G-TAR is our premier control system, the brains behind Drive Sync are already there, the next step is implementing what we’ve learned from this new project,” Hally says.
“Watch this space.”
The first iteration of Drive Sync also doubles as a tribute to a late friend of the business, as Hally explains.
“The first truck fitted with Drive Sync has been named Mr Leo in honour of Leo Van Oostveen. Leo didn’t work for us directly, but for years he was the sprayer calibration technician on our builds,” he says.
Van Oostveen was widely known throughout the Australian spray seal world and respected by all. “A good man” remarked Matthews.
“Naming that sprayer after him is our way of remembering the role he played in getting every sprayer over the line, as well as the special place he held in our hearts.”
This article was originally published in the June edition of our magazine. To read the magazine, click here
