Vehicle Tracking: A Beginners Guide

gazman · Sep 26, 2016

they are dead easy to wire in. However make sure you get a 2g sim card. 3 ones will not work. A asda sim card works well.
depending how far you want to go they will work with just a perminant live and a earth which is quite easy to do and hide.
If you want to you can wire in a perminant live, a switched live and a earth and if the ignition is turned-off on it will text you.

John03 · Sep 26, 2016

gazman said:
they are dead easy to wire in. However make sure you get a 2g sim card. 3 ones will not work. A asda sim card works well.
depending how far you want to go they will work with just a perminant live and a earth which is quite easy to do and hide.
If you want to you can wire in a perminant live, a switched live and a earth and if the ignition is turned-off on it will text you.

Its not the wiring in thats the issue with this system but how to wire it in and hide it without a potential low life being able to disable it before it can warn you that your pride n joy is being nicked.

John03 · Sep 26, 2016

Al2O3 said:
Hi John03, I've just bought one of the trackers off Amazon. Arrives Tuesday. Had to take the plunge with something.

Mine has arrived and has a Giff Gaff sim card with £5 already loaded on to it, now I just need time to get it installed

Al2O3 · Sep 26, 2016

gazman said:
they are dead easy to wire in. However make sure you get a 2g sim card. 3 ones will not work. A asda sim card works well.
depending how far you want to go they will work with just a perminant live and a earth which is quite easy to do and hide.
If you want to you can wire in a perminant live, a switched live and a earth and if the ignition is turned-off on it will text you.

Cheers, gazman. Why won't a 3G card work? Any idea?

John03 said:
Its not the wiring in thats the issue with this system but how to wire it in and hide it without a potential low life being able to disable it before it can warn you that your pride n joy is being nicked.

Yeah, the basic wiring will be straightforward. I'm sure it'll get more complicated if you want to make the most of it's capabilities. I'll probably need a few pointers then!

Mine hasn't arrived yet and so I've still to read the manual/installation guide.

Al2O3 · Sep 27, 2016

Mines arrived today. It's got the £5 Giff Gaff card too, so might as well start with that and see what the coverage is like up here. The wiring does look relatively straightforward, even for a non spark like me. I think I'll go with the door trigger, ACC on trigger and wire to the existing alarm siren. Think I'll miss out the fuel cut off.
It says the SIM needs to be activated in an unlocked phone. Are most peoples not tied to a network? Mine is

John03 · Sep 28, 2016

Al2O3 said:
Mines arrived today. It's got the £5 Giff Gaff card too, so might as well start with that and see what the coverage is like up here. The wiring does look relatively straightforward, even for a non spark like me. I think I'll go with the door trigger, ACC on trigger and wire to the existing alarm siren. Think I'll miss out the fuel cut off.
It says the SIM needs to be activated in an unlocked phone. Are most peoples not tied to a network? Mine is

Yup same problem with the SIM I've asked around and found a mate who has an old unlocked phone that only powers up when plugged in, but guess what he dont have the charger anymore but another mate does, so gotta do some running about to bring the two together.
Door trigger a great idea, but I'm looking to see if there is a spare connection on the relay that is triggered by the door switch to switch on the interior light.
Really tempted to connect up the fuel cut off too but I will need to check out the wiring to the pump.

Al2O3 · Sep 28, 2016

John03 said:
Door trigger a great idea, but I'm looking to see if there is a spare connection on the relay that is triggered by the door switch to switch on the interior light.
Really tempted to connect up the fuel cut off too but I will need to check out the wiring to the pump.

I was just looking at the wiring diagram and it show a door trigger wire (green) Only one though? But, thought it's one more trigger to send me a text.
I'm not sure what you mean, does your interior light not come on via the door switch anyway?
The way I read it (which will be wrong) the relay was for wiring up the fuel cut off. I don't fancy that. Having read the warning I'd be worried about the Landy grinding to a halt on the A1 and an innocent driver running in to it.

John03 · Sep 29, 2016

Al2O3 said:
I was just looking at the wiring diagram and it show a door trigger wire (green) Only one though? But, thought it's one more trigger to send me a text.
I'm not sure what you mean, does your interior light not come on via the door switch anyway?
The way I read it (which will be wrong) the relay was for wiring up the fuel cut off. I don't fancy that. Having read the warning I'd be worried about the Landy grinding to a halt on the A1 and an innocent driver running in to it.

NO no no I was talking about the relay thats already fitted to the vehicle for switching on the interior light assuming it is done through a relay and not just fed straight from the door switches.
Good point about the fuel cut off, think I'm going to wire mine up on my work bench first to give it a full system test before wiring up to the landy. I'm pretty sure it will be safe but maybe there is a way to make sure its over ridden but only by the owner/driver and not a thief.

Disco1BFG · Sep 29, 2016

You could always use the live feed to the interior light to switch a relay as well - and the relay would then switch the input to the tracker doodah ( high or low, as required.....)

John03 · Sep 29, 2016

Disco1BFG said:
You could always use the live feed to the interior light to switch a relay as well - and the relay would then switch the input to the tracker doodah ( high or low, as required.....)

I could but then not everybody is good with vehicle electrics, nice easy option but also something else to go wrong?

Disco1BFG · Sep 29, 2016

John03 said:
something else to go wrong

I know what you mean, but good relays last for years and years and years - and by "good" I mean the ones out of the D1 scrapper in my yard - which is already 20 years old; as and when I modify stuff - I am raiding it for the denso relays, and the socket they go in to make fitting/replacement easy.

Know anyone local with a D1 they are scrapping ?

John03 · Sep 29, 2016

Disco1BFG said:
I know what you mean, but good relays last for years and years and years - and by "good" I mean the ones out of the D1 scrapper in my yard - which is already 20 years old; as and when I modify stuff - I am raiding it for the denso relays, and the socket they go in to make fitting/replacement easy.

Know anyone local with a D1 they are scrapping ?

nope

gazman · Sep 30, 2016

John03 said:
Its not the wiring in thats the issue with this system but how to wire it in and hide it without a potential low life being able to disable it before it can warn you that your pride n joy is being nicked.

You need to use your imagination. There are a few places you can wire them in and hide them as the defender uses a switched earth so their are power feeds in quite a few places.

Al2O3 said:
Cheers, gazman. Why won't a 3G card work? Any idea?

Yeah, the basic wiring will be straightforward. I'm sure it'll get more complicated if you want to make the most of it's capabilities. I'll probably need a few pointers then! Mine hasn't arrived yet and so I've still to read the manual/installation guide.

no idea but I have a preloaded 3 sim card that just refused to work

John03 · Sep 30, 2016

gazman said:
You need to use your imagination. There are a few places you can wire them in and hide them as the defender uses a switched earth so their are power feeds in quite a few places.

There was a chap on here that had a few nice words to say to me when I stated the bleeding obvious, were is he now...........

no idea but I have a preloaded 3 sim card that just refused to work

How did you preload them? did you use an unlocked phone or just top it up on the providers web site. I'm probably stating the bleeding obvious now but the instruction for the GPS tracker do tell you to register the SIM card on an unlocked phone before putting it in the GPS and use the unlocked phone to phone your own phone.

Al2O3 · Sep 30, 2016

John03 said:
How did you preload them? did you use an unlocked phone or just top it up on the providers web site. I'm probably stating the bleeding obvious now but the instruction for the GPS tracker do tell you to register the SIM card on an unlocked phone before putting it in the GPS and use the unlocked phone to phone your own phone.

That's what it says. I'm asking around to see if anyone has an unlocked phone.

.

John03 said:
NO no no I was talking about the relay thats already fitted to the vehicle for switching on the interior light assuming it is done through a relay and not just fed straight from the door switches.
Good point about the fuel cut off, think I'm going to wire mine up on my work bench first to give it a full system test before wiring up to the landy. I'm pretty sure it will be safe but maybe there is a way to make sure its over ridden but only by the owner/driver and not a thief.

Hmmmm, So the door trigger wire could go to the interior light live?

John03 · Oct 1, 2016

Al2O3 said:
Hmmmm, So the door trigger wire could go to the interior light live?

yeah that should be ok, I was just thinking about using the vehicles relay if one is fitted just to eliminate any small chance that the GPS overloaded the interior light circuit which is connected to the alarm system and may cause a false alarm trigger.
Pretty sure that I'm over thinking the system but I just wanted to make sure as my neighbours get pretty wound up when I accidentally set off my landy alarm, it is very loud

John03 · Oct 1, 2016

Al2O3 said:
That's what it says. I'm asking around to see if anyone has an unlocked phone.

Have you had any luck with your SIM card?

Al2O3 · Oct 1, 2016

John03 said:
yeah that should be ok, I was just thinking about using the vehicles relay if one is fitted just to eliminate any small chance that the GPS overloaded the interior light circuit which is connected to the alarm system and may cause a false alarm trigger.
Pretty sure that I'm over thinking the system but I just wanted to make sure as my neighbours get pretty wound up when I accidentally set off my landy alarm, it is very loud

Having little electrical experience (all I have is self learned) I'm not hindered by over thinking the system

My lack of knowledge does mean that I can't understand why there is only one door trigger wire when cars have more than one door.

John03 said:
Have you had any luck with your SIM card?

Dead lucky John. One of my sons decided to stay home last night and it turned out his girlfriend's phone is unlocked. Used her phone to register it. I'd already set myself up with a Giff Gaff account, but it's easy to set one up if you haven't. It asks if you want to subscribe to a 'goody bag', but if you scroll down that page there is a top up only option right at the bottom. I still had to add the minimum top up which is £10, so my card now shows £15 credit. Should be ready to go.

John03 · Oct 1, 2016

Al2O3 said:
Having little electrical experience (all I have is self learned) I'm not hindered by over thinking the system My lack of knowledge does mean that I can't understand why there is only one door trigger wire when cars have more than one door.

well your right, but I think each door wire goes to either a central point, which feeds onto the interior lights, or and I'm kinda hoping it does they are all fed to a relay that then triggers the interior lights. The only problem I can see with wiring it up to the light itself which is perfectly do'able and safe is the GPS will not trigger if the bulb has failed. The relay would switch even if the bulb has gone and thus trigger the gps, and I was kinda hoping that somebody on here would have jumped in by now and said weather or not there was a relay. Sorry due to work load I havint had time to look at the gps, never mind fit it or my new radio and next week I have my new series style doors arriving and her indoors has a pile of odd jobs waiting for me too.....its nae wonder I drink

John03 · Oct 1, 2016

Good news on your SIM card although I'll have to check out the GiffGaff website coz I'm pretty sure I was paying £5 a month

Al2O3 said:
Dead lucky John. One of my sons decided to stay home last night and it turned out his girlfriend's phone is unlocked. Used her phone to register it. I'd already set myself up with a Giff Gaff account, but it's easy to set one up if you haven't. It asks if you want to subscribe to a 'goody bag', but if you scroll down that page there is a top up only option right at the bottom. I still had to add the minimum top up which is £10, so my card now shows £15 credit. Should be ready to go.

Vehicle Tracking: A Beginners Guide

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