Hi

I have another method which would work using tried and trusted technology - I wrote the software and helped develop it a couple of years back for garage door openers!

Basically you would have another keyfob (which you'd need for your idea anyway) which when activated just cuts the engine. The only downside to this is that it would only work up to about 100m so would be no good if you were well away from your car and return to find it missing.

Hang on, you've got me thinking now though! You could make the keyfob transmit a "I'm here" code every 5 minutes or so that the receiver is always looking for, if the receiver doesn't get it then it activates the cut off. That way the engine will stop between 1 and 5 minutes from when the car leaves the keyfob.

Rich

 

I love this idea in principle

Some practical considerations would include:

1. Legal / safety
What are the safety implications of deliberately cutting a vehicles engine when it is potentially driving on the public highway. Are there circumstances where this might be dangerous to other road users? Is it legal?

2. Cost
A pay as you go mobile isn't too expensive, but you'd also need to factor in development cost, the cost of the rest of the kit, installation and some profit for the developer / installer.
How would this compare to other off the shelf products currently available?

3. Stopping the car is one thing, but how would you find it?
Would the police trace the mobile phone signal to recover a stolen car?

4. This system relys on the owner to take some positive action before it works.
You need to know your car is stolen before you would activate the system - difficult if you are on holiday or away from your car for a few hours/days.

5. What happens if, when you ring the phone you repeatedly get the answering machine?
Is the signal bad because the phone is in a bad area?
Has the phone been discovered and switched off?
Does the SIM card need resetting (I've experienced this before on my previous mobile.)
- I'd be getting seroiusly frustrated if I kept getting the bloody answering machine!


I don't mean to dampen the idea, because I think it's brilliant, but I'd want some sensible answers to the above before parting with my money.

Hope someone who knows how picks this up and runs with it...

Rich

 

That sounds cool... if the keyfod were small enough you could put it in your jacket or pocket and then anyone else driving the car off would stop once out of range or if you were not in the area in the first place would mean you have another immobiliser.

I still cannot believe that I cannot booby trap my own car..
Obviously there is risk of injury if I forgot but that would be my look out.. have to make sure the keys were out of kids reach etc..
but something like if you don't do something before turning the key they you get a electric shock.. if you then still don't do something (type a code in or what ever) then you get a bigger shock... etc...
Bit like the flame throwing African car alarms...

 

One option would be to use a pager, rather than a mobile, they are often much easier to reach than a mobile (different comms method as I recall).

As for the legality of stopping a car, I don't imagine the effect would be any different to mechanical failure of the car under normal circumstances ?

I think I mentioned this before though, the one thing you would have to be careful of, is when the thieves wise upto systems that require human intervention - if you are in your car, or in your house, given the lengths they seem to be willing to go to- what is to stop them taking you and the car ? Surely you'd rather they take the car, and leave you with your health intact ? Scary, but feasible.

Nasty word we seem to be living in :-(

- Jon

 

good thoughts guys... the only issue with pagers are that they are not guaranteed delivery, whereas SMS is... I think calling the thing would be the best bet.

Rather than stopping the thing what about applying a rev-limiter via phone? i.e. not over 1500 rpm...

Matt.

 

They still get away with the car though mat...

stopping it has got to be the best idea.

Do they still do alarms that page you on tampering?

 

What if someone dials a wrong number while you are halfway through a hard corner at 80mph? Some old biddy cant get in touch with Edna, subsequently, you burn in a dich!



Pager idea is better

Paul

 

Personally I'd rather they just got away with the car, rather than there being any risk of them coming back to demand that the immobiliser be defeated. Remember, if they take the car with the keys, then they know where you live.

I'm not even sure about having the car recovered with a tracking system - if you get it back, what's to stop the same thieves taking it from you again? It's fine if the thieves are caught along with the car, but more risk than it's worth otherwise IMHO.

The best system I heard about was one which had a hidden camera pointing at the driver, which could send images to the police via the mobile phone network. The number of professional thieves prepared to steal cars using guns has to be quite small, and habitual criminals are often known to the police. The camera provides evidence to catch the criminals themselves, which is far more important than recovering the car, IMHO.

Andy.

 

I still like my idea of cutting the engine once the car is out of range of the keyfob - and it would be easy to also add in the camera module (so could be optional). All it would have to do is take the pic when it disabled the engine and store it in the device. Then when the car was recovered (if it wasn't burnt out of course!) the picture could be downloaded.

Just another thought...

Richard

 

SMS is guaranteed delivery? On what planet?

Ever tried sending an SMS on New Year's Eve? Or, for the romantics out there, on Valentine's day? You should receive it within a day or so...

Some good ideas here. Should I say blackjax once more?

 

Mattski

Although pagers are fire & lose, they have a far better range as they use a very low frequency in the radio spectrum. They work in tunnels/car parks/buildings. National coverage is better too & I actually got paged 25 miles inside Southern Ireland, inside a stone building with 3ft thick dry stone walls, which shouldn't be on their coverage chart

Might be a more cost-effective solution, as the technology is common, widespread & the units themselves comparatively cheap.

Also, you would be better off making a data-call into the unit via a modem as you have a positive connection (like a phone call) and you can receive information back, which might help you make a wise decision (like not when they're doing 120mph). Idea would be to "instruct" the ECU to reduce the flow of petrol to the engine gradually, so that it would come to a stop gradually, or you could restrict it to 20 mph & use GPS to inform the police of it's location.

Such a unit, which is DIY for fixing in & running etc, is available. Cost is c. £750 (inc VAT) unfitted & without SIM. Does GPS as well. The programming & interaction with the scoob would have to be looked into by someone more knowledgeable than me

I'll find out exact costs, fitting instructions (if any) etc & report in...

 

You can achieve an 'unauthorised use' cut out fairly simply using a toggle switch and a bi-metallic strip with heater (the kind that used to be used in the back of fuel guages or on intermittent wipers.) Take the wire that feeds the fuel pump - put the toggle switch on it somewhere concealed, add a second feed for the fuel pump - put the bi metallic strip on this. When you start the car, flip the switch and everything will run fine. When scumbag steals your keys he wont know about the switch - the fuel pump will be running from the feed containing the bimetallic strip and heater. The current running through the heater bends the strip and the fuel pump stops. It will start again after a couple of minutes, but will cut out again after a few seconds. The lowlife should be well away from you by the time he breaks down, but wont get too far, and would be unlikely to come back as he will think it is mechanical failure.

I have fitted similar devices to both cars after having the scoob stolen last year. They have proved effective in the my dearest mother-in-law borrowed one car while we were on holidays and had an AA man spend several hours trying to get it going.

While your anti-theft system is unique it is difficult for anyone to bypass. Once it becomes mass produced, it must be standardised, so someone can figure out how it works and therefore how to break it.

 

http://www.rfsolutions.co.uk/products/radio/pager.htm

Thanks

Gavin

 

This is easy to implement, however, I believe that you cant (legally) disable a car whilst it is moving. It has to be stationary or below a certain speed, so it needs a little more thought.

Personally, I'd use a pager and cut the supply to the fuel pump.

As regards SMS, these can take hours to come though as has been pointed out. I believe some tracking systems use SMS! Discuss!

 

that sounds perfect ! anyone want to take up the challenge with this? ( I can solder but thats about it )

Matt.

 

howardb

Some tracking systems do use SMS - correct.

They use it to "awake" a dormant unit. Sometimes initial reply is via SMS, before a data call is initiated.

They also use it to "advise" of unauthorised movement to the base, before a data call is made in.

After that, its a data call for location purposes.

SMS is currently better than it was this time last year with more capacity.

 

What if you could set the device (the one with the phone) to only disable the car once it has stopped or below a certain speed. There must be someway of getting the speed of the car electronically (he says hopefully). Once you have got the signal it should just be logic when to trigger the actual imobiliser.

Chris

 

bttt...

I had a word with some guys at work (Electrical Engineers) and they think it's a good idea and should be pretty straightforward...

M

 

Two ideas I remember reading about that I quite liked:

(i) Making use of the fact that human beings have a particular amount of electrical resistance and can actually pass a small (harmless) amount of current from finger to finger. Before setting off the driver touches two separate (unique to each car) places in or around the cockpit. This inactivates a time delayed immobiliser (say five minutes which would allow the thieves who couldn't know where the spots are out of your way) so you can continue unhindered on your journey. Downside is of course you would look like a complete weirdo every time you did this in front of regular passengers.

(ii) A very clever invention I saw on a Tomorrows World special many moons ago: coloured water. It contains up to five different completely transparent (to the human eye) dyes that are sprayed on the thief (say from the dash somewhere?) following some 'I've been stolen' signal. He's now marked with strongly adherent ultraviolet dyes that can be seen easily under a blacklight and analysed in the lab. As you can have thousands of different combinations of each concentration of dye, the water can be specific to your car and would be a nice way of getting round the whole "weren't me guv'nor" issue. Both would be very cheap DIY options, if you could buy the water stuff off the shelf that is.

As for the mobile phone ideas, I agree with the other people here, it would be safest immobilising after a good five minutes and only when the car has come to a halt.

 

keep it up guys

ok... the phone thing sounds a _potentially_ bad move so what about this...

I would hope that most of us have tracking devices of some kind so why not make use of that plus a ScoobyNet developed system as follows.

1. The car gets taken by scum, tracker activated and police called etc etc.
2. The car has the ScoobyNet unit that is armed when the car is taken. It waits five minutes (or a user-configured Time Until Active). Anytime after the TUA has expired the car waits until the car has dropped below a user defined speed (i.e. 20mph or whatever) upon which it cuts the fuel, arms the immobiliser and does it's stuff.

The thing I like about this idea is that it's automatic (does blackjax work the same?) and could be quite easily done I would have thought. This could be extended tho, during the 5 minutes the car is running the scum think they have got away with it, but during this time the system has taken photo's of them via a hidden camera.

Is this too much like Blackjax?!

M

 

cletterridge,
is this what you was thinking of?
http://www.smartwater.com/

ray t

 

wire up some sort of camera as well, that takes pictures? be rather groovy! so when u call up it takes a snap shot and slowly slows down. Or make it much more evil, muhahahha.

 

getting a speed trigger from a scoob is a piece of ****. I just tap into a wire on the ECU to use a square wave pulse output to drive the TSD rally software i run on my laptop when doing the rallies in the states.

It would be very easy to get a 12 Volt powered mini PLC and programme that to take the speed input and use a timer count to open a contact in the PLC that had the fuel pump power through it.

If you didnt do a particular thing that the PLC is expecting within another timer limit you programmed then the thing could then shut the fuel supply off the next time the speed trigger dropped below 20MPH or whatever you set.

I am running the TSD software acuarate to 0.001 seconds of calculated location so the acuracy is there.

All you need to do this is a small PLC (programmable Logic Controler) and someone who can programme ladder logic. (i used to do this and sell the little buggers 10 years ago, they must have moved on big style since then!) These things are tried and tested and used on high speed automated production lines the world over, they are not expensive.

Why am i telling you lot this rather than making the bloody thing??

 

here you go, they still make the little blighters. These are the worlds smallest PLC's. Thinking back they need 24V to power them but thats no big deal.

http://www.keyence.co.uk/products/program/kv/kv.html

 

Hi John

These days PLC's don't seem to get used that much as PIC micro controllers are that cheap and easy to use that they have taken over! They are a doddle hardware wise (1 cap, 1 resistor, and some rough power) and are fully programmable, as you can tell, I think they're great and have used them quite alot ;-)

Richard

 

Ray T,
Yeah that's the stuff. However, they seem to be using it just to spray the car, not the crim? My feeling is that no matter what device we use to stop our cars mid-theft, the carjacker will always just leg it and make a beeline straight for the next car, leaving yours at best thrashed from cold and at worst wrecked.

Wouldn't it be nice if after they had messed with your car, you had managed to mark the words "I am a Car Thief" in huge bold unwashable letters across their forehead? Rather than just aiming to make the cars difficult to steal, I think we should also aim to make it impossible for the criminals to get away with it.

 

Totally silly idea I know but....

Link up a mobile phone, PDA & pair of webcams to the car. When the car is broken into, the phone dials up a web connection and provides webcam feeds showing pictures of who is in the car, the second cam shows where the car is heading (so the police can find out where they are)

In addition, the numberplates could be on hinges so that when the system is activated, they fall down and reveal flashing lights, and "stolen vehicle" in big letters.

Hey, just fit the car with the phone and have it automatically phone the police (probably does the same as a tracker so not worth it!)

My favorite - watch for the car alarm system in "Robocop" where the car thief is electrocuted.

 

why not just do the reverse, and make it so it will never go higher than 20mph? and then slowly decrease the max speed over a time of 3mins?

 

told you it was a while ago!

 

What about linking something which does a 'safe' engine shutdown to the trackers. Some of the newest all singing and dancing trackers have 2 way communication, so the tracking company could just activate the shut down mechanism.

Something like the way Clifford's shut down would be a good idea, once the brake pedal is depressed then the engine will be shut down.

(i dont know if any of the trackers have this feature, but its just something that popped into my head)

Also if it was done with the tracking company then they wuld beable to liase with the police about when to do the shut down etc too.

Ian