Cheap Alarm Design

[pyrocam]

I came up with this last night.
REALLY REALLY simply. you take a switch (like a mercury switch or some sort of vibration sensor) and wire it up to a cellphone's 'dial' button with your number ready to call.
make sure it doesnt run out of battery by putting it on permanent 'charge' from the bike battery



Of course this would work but do so poorly. now a timing circuit ($5 components) would get triggered to start by the mercury switch and then just press the 'call' button once every 15mins. this means you can get the police to liase with vodafone and get an approximate area that its in. (to the nearest cell tower) but its definately not a bad plus to the plan.

basically as soon as your bike gets moved your phone rings. good for if its parked in town or in bed. attaching a siren wouldnt exactly be a bad idea either.

what I like about this plan is. if you can find some shitty old phone and car charger and buy some components for $5 you can make a pretty decent hack job alarm that will do a job similar to one costing hundreds.

and imagine this. you come across your bike.
you: 'hey thats my bike'
crooks 'uhhh no it isnt'
you 'oh maybe it isnt' *dial bike cellphone*'
bike: *ring ring*
-a few seconds later-
crooks 'argg my fingers for the love of god why are you cutting off my fingers oh woes me'

thoughts?

[Finn]

Good thinking McGiver but in reality the only weakness will be the ability of the police to drop everything they're doing to try and find your bike while on the move.

I've thought about this too and here's another option that doesn't require any installation what so ever...

[skelstar]

Good idea Cam.
What would you use for the 15min timing circuit. Im nit-picking but a 555 timer wont do a 15min period on its own. Youre right though...another $2 shift register/counter chip would do it.
Trick would be the liasing with the police and vodafone.

Good thinking though..

[MidnightMike]

This idea here could work too....

[pyrocam]

ability of the police to drop everything they're doing to try and find your bike while on the move.

yes I am aware of this which is why its only a small plus. I havent confirmed with vodafone but I might be able to sweet talk them into letting me know when I call them where it is.

THEN I can use my idea and your technology together vigilante styles and regain possesion of my bike.

it doesnt matter if blood gets on it, its already red.

[zeRax]

appeals to me cause u combine both methods, when phone rings u, you go out with baseball bat and fucking cave the culprits head in

[WRT]

I realise that you are looking for a cheap and easy design here, but why doesnt someone come up with a bloody GPS unit you can dial into, and it reports back its current position? I would happily pay a couple of hundy if I could get an exact location of where the bloody thing is at any given time. I know there is a system out there where you can pay a small fortune initially followed by another small fortune in the form of a monthly subscription to do it all online big brother style, but that doesnt really appeal.

This sort of unit (assuming its small enough) could be used for any number of applications, not only for tracking stolen or company vehicles, but for boats or trampers, anyone or anything that could get lost and need to be recovered. Hell, make it small enough and cheap enough and I'd get two spares, one for me keys and one for the TV remote.

But back to the bikes - it'd be great if you just called up the bikes current location, and then, without the police needing to pull anyone off traffic duties to chase up on it, you go round with a blow torch and a pair of pliers to kindly ask the people currently holding it for you if they could perhaps return it when they have finished with it?

[pyrocam]

I realise that you are looking for a cheap and easy design here, but why doesnt someone come up with a bloody GPS unit you can dial into, and it reports back its current position? I would happily pay a couple of hundy if I could get an exact location of where the bloody thing is at any given time. I know there is a system out there where you can pay a small fortune initially followed by another small fortune in the form of a monthly subscription to do it all online big brother style, but that doesnt really appeal.

This sort of unit (assuming its small enough) could be used for any number of applications, not only for tracking stolen or company vehicles, but for boats or trampers, anyone or anything that could get lost and need to be recovered. Hell, make it small enough and cheap enough and I'd get two spares, one for me keys and one for the TV remote.

But back to the bikes - it'd be great if you just called up the bikes current location, and then, without the police needing to pull anyone off traffic duties to chase up on it, you go round with a blow torch and a pair of pliers to kindly ask the people currently holding it for you if they could perhaps return it when they have finished with it?

my flatmates boss has done this to his car, you can track his vehicle on google maps its really pretty sweet. but he paid ALOT (I think in the $1000+ area) for it. a gps unit that hooks into a mini pc that uses a cellphone to report its location to his home computer.

the stupid thing is the site is publicly available and it lists his home and work co-ordinates so anyone can find out when hes not home and rob him.

oh he has taken of the home co-ordinates now
http://www.spudooli.com/map.php

also note the server in his house with all the other shit its freaking cool (or obsesive compulsive)

[Lou Girardin]

I've thought about this too and here's another option that doesn't require any installation what so ever...

Which reminded me of a customer we had at the alarm company, after three break-ins he wanted an alarm with an immobiliser and a pager. No siren, no flashers, no warning at all.
Just something to notify him while he waited inside with the 'deterrent'.