Hey guys, sad day here. One of my new buggies was stolen out of my driveway last night. I had left it outside after testing some work I had done to the front brakes, and had gone in to make dinner. One thing lead to another that kept me inside, so when it got dark, I moved one of my vehicles in front of my driveway to box it in for the night. I was too tired at that point to put it into the garage like I should have. Sadly they were able to maneuver it out and make off with it, sans the keys for ignition and gas cap.

For those of you in AZ but not Phoenix, and those in the neighboring states, can you keep your eyes peeled on your local Craigslist, FB Marketplace and other venues of sale? It was my green buggy that was taken:




BMS Sniper T 350 Buggy, Green
VIN: L0VUDAHZ4K0080007

It also has a stamped/cutout metal grill that says 'FANGPOWER' across the front, and a winch on the rear. All the other manufacturer decals indicate 'Fang Power', even http://www.fangpower.com, so you might try searching that.

I'd put in a claim with my insurance but it turns out I can't even put full coverage on the remaining buggy. Both had liability at the time. Progressive said they haven't certified the manufacturer, BMS as one they can offer comprehensive/collision for. So I'm screwed on that avenue.

Any help would be sincerely appreciated.

Thanks guys.

Sick people in this world.
I already told my neighbour's that if they catch anyone stealin shyte beat them to death. I see and hear nothing. My next door neighbour is an ex-cop and he just laughed. When he was building his house next to me, goofs actually stole his motorcycle, nail gun and compressor. He did get his bike back.

In your case does anyone live around you ?? Do they have door bell camera's or security camera's ??
Does DMV have highway camera's like we have here in Canada ?? Do they have vid they would share ??
You never know unless you go ask.
CO

Damn dude that sucks,had my pilot stolen and never recovered,good luck to you

Thanks for the feedback. I'd not thought to ask about the intersection cameras, literally every intersection has them. I'll have to research that. I'm not sure about highway cameras.

I do plan to add these to my remaining toys, and welcome suggestions for where to hide it on the Odyssey

https://www.amazon.com/SinoTrack-Portab ... 64-2587135

I've also ordered cameras, and I'm mounting d-rings to my driveway slab in the event I DO need to park one outside for the workshop space. I'll just chain it up out there, have it on video, and then track the bastards down.

Lessons learned

So sorry that happened. It's an eye opener for myself however, time to add some security.

sorry to hear about your loss, I'll keep an eye open for it. I have a question about the tracker, does that require a separate cell phone service, so how much does it cost per month?

Kuma,

Thanks for keeping an eye out. As far as the lojack, it does require cell service. It needs GSM service and won't work with CDMA (Verizon/Sprint/US Cellular). The GSM folks are the rest like AT&T and T-Mobile.

The lojacks need 2G service, which has been pretty much phased out by the big contenders. There's still a supporting network and a carrier that does these types of devices though. If you look at the 'frequently bought together', you'll see 2 sim cards offered, both by SpeedTalk Mobile. One of the cards is just a blank you can use to register an account, the other is a prepaid. I got the one that's NOT prepaid, I plan to setup an account. https://www.amazon.com/GPS-Tracker-Trip ... 64-2587135

The service is $5 a month for each tracker, with other options available. Here's a link to their tracker plans: https://www.speedtalkmobile.com/gps-sim-card

The $5 plan does not include roaming, while the $10 does. I just don't know enough yet to determine what will be a good fit for me. Looking at the coverage map, I should have coverage without roaming, so I figured I would try that to start, and then upgrade if I need to.

I got my first d-ring bolted down. My brand new hammer drill is NOT liking the hot supper I'm giving it though. I got 3 holes drilled on 2 battery packs, and the gear case was too hot to touch. I think I'll go rent one to do the rest, these are 3" bolts.

A little icing on the cake. The next homeowner will need a grinder to remove them



These are just for emergency purposes only, like if the Mrs. demands a big project that requires making room in the workshop.

I'm still adding the LoJack, exterior cameras and changing insurance companies. Geico doesn't seem to have an issue with BMS

Hey Guys,

Got a lead! One of my neighbors came forward with video, which I've passed along to the police, along with a timestamp of the incident, 3:18 am according to the video.


https://youtu.be/16L0E2GISwc


https://youtu.be/7CKBfp6gRQM

Hopefully they can see more details on the intersection cameras outside my neighborhood. These guys wouldn't have been able to leave and avoided the intersection cameras without taking a very elaborate route out, and according to this footage, they were hauling ass straight to the intersection in question.

We shall see.

On a brighter note, I got my tracking devices on Friday. I activated the accounts that day, stuff a sim card into each, and powered them up outside. Here's a shot of one to give you an idea of scale. The ID is blurred since it's part of the online login (no offence ya'll).



I saw on one of the reviews on Amazon that someone had to wait up to 72 hours for theirs to activate. Since I powered mine up and stuck it out side Friday, it should be done by Monday, right? I had verified the sim cards using my cell phone, I was able to send/receive SMS/phone calls via both cards.

In order to configure these trackers, you send commands via text message. So to set the APN, you text the code '803' with the passcode (default 0000) and the APN name, which for SpeedTalk is 'mobilenet' So the first command you SMS to the devices phone number is '8030000 mobilenet'. If the device gets it and acknowledges successfully, it will reply with a 'SET OK'. Over the weekend I'd sent that plus 'RCONF', which means 'read config', hoping either device will reply. Neither does.

Today during my lunch break, I gather up both trackers and my power supply, and start driving down to Ryan's house. My thought is that I'm not getting sufficient signal up at my house, and I'm hopeful that the closer to downtown I get, the better the signal. I'm no more than 5 minutes from my house, driving down the I17, when all the sudden my phone explodes with text message notifications, all 'SET OK' and the configuration results from the 'RCONF' commands.

I believe the magic sauce was the fact I had started driving with them. The GPS receiver saw the activity and in turn activated the cellular radio, and they both finally went online. I'm assuming this because both activated at exactly the same time.

So I flip around, and head back home. It would seem that I can get signal in my front yard, but not in the back yard since that's where I had started at. Also, I don't get signal in my garage at all, even sticking these things in the window.

Also, I was able to setup a consolidated account with the tracking website. I had emailed their support team with the ID numbers from my devices, and the username I wanted. They replied with a default password, and it worked right out the gate.

I can view my devices online, and I was able to see the history of my driving around, starting right where my phone went 'PING PING PING' driving down the road.

So what about power consumption?

Well your in luck! That was Ryan's first question as well, he has a motorcycle and a buggy he was interested in adding these to. So I grabbed my meters and pulled some data from one of the devices. This is by no means comprehensive, but it's at least a start.

So on standby, it was pulling .025 amps at 14.25 volts DC. When it would chirp every so often (not sure the interval), it would pull up to .060 amps.

The website lists it as having a 150mAh battery, that lasts 4 hours when no power is supplied to the device. According to Ryans calculations, that comes to roughly 0.5 W/h, or 12 W/h a day.

Running the numbers from my meters, standby alone is 8.55 W/h a day. So if you add in the chirps, then 12 W/h a day is probably correct.

So roughly an amp a day, sitting around in my garage. I'll need to be sure to plug these into trickle chargers while in storage. Food for thought

Overnight though, it should be no problem, assuming you have a healthy battery. Also, you have the luxury of a pull start should you need it, the BMS buggies don't.

I got the tracker installed into my remaining blue buggy last night. I hid it under some plastic, no metal in between it and the sky. I wasn't sure how it would behave installed. I knew the tracker would work while sitting on my front porch, I established that yesterday

So to test it I pulled the buggy out and just parked it in my driveway. My hopes was it would pick up cell signal and go online. I left it parked there for 5-10 minutes, and according to the sinotracker mobile app, it's still offline.

To verify it's still offline, I send it a 'RCONF' (read config) command, to see if it will reply. I also assume it needs to move around a bit, to wake up the cellular radio, so I grab the keys and just as I'm walking up to it to try taking it for a ride, my phone pings with the following:

ST-901,ID:91711XXXXX,UP:0000,U1:,U2:,U3:,MODE:GPRS,DAILY:OFF,POWER ALARM:OFF,ACCSMS:OFF,ACCCALL:OFF,GEO FENCE:OFF,OVER SPEED:OFF,VOICE:ON,SHAKE ALARM:OFF,SLEEP:OFF,APN:mobilenet,,,IP:45.112.204.217:8090,GPRS UPLOAD TIME 1:30,GPRS UPLOAD TIME 2:30,TIME ZONE:00

Woo Hoo! It came back online, while installed and after just pulling it out into my driveway!

OK, so lets see how it does actually tracking!


https://youtu.be/5DV6cPaLe8I

That's me buzzing from my house down to the gas station, filling up and returning through the outlet mall parking lot initially, just to see if it would recognize me veering off course.

I'm actually really excited to try this thing out on a trail, to see how it logs that. It's supposed to be able to record up to two years offline, so once I get back to civilization it should upload my trip.

BTW that's a screen capture I did using the built in Windows 10 screen recorder. If your interested, it's just 'Windows Key + Alt + R' to turn it on or off, and it will save to This PC\Videos\Capture.

And don't judge my mess of open tabs This is my work PC

Well that's a lead and at least a little something on your green machine.
Hopefully the Police will catch a break on intersection cameras.
Yeah those guys were really haulin trying to get outa there. Made some awful wide turns.
CO

you should see if there is any chance the intersection camera data is public accessible, I have found that the police don't really do much as you would expect by watching TV, maybe if someone were hurt. at least you should know what the time window is for them hitting the intersection, better act quickly I assume the video is on a loop and will be written over.

Kuma,

I did mention the intersection here to the detective who replied about the video, however I didn't ask if it was publicly available. It looks like we do have highway cams though, like CO mentioned.

https://www.az511.gov/cctv?start=0&leng ... dir%5D=asc

If I ever hear anything back I'll ask. I also gave a photo to the gas stations and Walmart down the street from me, in case they were stupid enough to stop and chain it that close, that sort of thing. I asked they just forward the info the the police, and gave names and badge numbers.

Meanwhile, I'm still up to no good, as far as my anti-thievery shenanigans.

I got my camera system I set it up last night in test mode and got busy talking to the Mrs and didn't get a chance to try it out till after work.

The fisheye that goes over the driveway was a bit of a hassle to get talking to the DVR, however once it started playing along it works really well. Here's a shot of it sitting on a table, in the corner of my living room. It captured the entire ceiling, just sitting there in the corner facing up.



I also happened to find a manual for the GPS tracker online finally, if anyone wants to see the extended details.



SO!

I've got D-rings on the slab out front, trackers for all the toys, cameras... now I need to sort out insurance.

Oh, and does anybody have any recommendation for a length of chain that would discourage the use of anything but a grinder to cut? Maybe a nice angry lock you like to go with said chain?

This might sound silly but I would have one of those motion sensor lights but it would not turn on a light.
It would actually be wired to a bell in the house. Anything moves in the driveway and the bell would ring.
Then I could go out and talk to them.
CO

CO I like your idea, however I think I'd actually marry the motion sensor with a push to my cell phone via my SmartThings hub. That way it's not a bell waking everyone else up, and I can use it to make sure the cameras are recording too.

I just need to figure out how to make that alert obnoxious and long, so I wake up... I'm one of those dead to the world kind of sleepers.

My wife also suggested a dog