Anti theft GPS

[Chargeride]

My friend put a tracker in his caravan, it was stolen and he informed the police it was in a nearby travellers site.
Amazingly they recovered it, the insurance company stored it and returned it to him completely stripped of everything except the cupboards, and then wouldnt pay out because he wasnt insured for internal fittings theft.

He would have been fully paid out if it had never been found, he doesnt bother with trackers anymore.

Thieves will strip the bike and leave frame and battery somewhere, then go back for it if it isnt found.

 

[Taylor57]

These trackers are indeed great ant theft tools, but what would you actually do if your bike was stolen? Assuming you succeed in finding it's location and call the police, you are at the mercy of that local police jurisdiction, which may or may not respond to such a report. In my rural location for example, unless a life is in danger, my local LEO's usually don't have the resources to deal with a stolen bike.

If you trespass on private property to recover the bike yourself, you become the thief and can be charged accordingly. you could also risk bodily injury from the original thieves.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not knocking these products. They are great for some. In many urban areas, where bike theft is a big problem, these trackers are much more effective, but not so everywhere. In my case, where I live & ride, the money is better spent on bike insurance.

Yeah, I hestiate in installing a tracker/chip whatever due to that very fact-so my bike gets stolen and I track in down. Then what? I knock on the door and get punched in the face? I tend to not let my bikes out of my grasp or sight. Im going to Santa Barbara and Ojai next week for a concert and I plan on taking my Gravelster. You can bet she will be in my room with me at night.

 

[TomD]

So you would rather have no options than options? Why? Because you don't trust yourself not to do something stupid? OK, I get it. That's why I don't carry. I've never needed protection. Better to have smaller balls and use your brain to maximize life expectancy when things escalate, than have something at your disposal that statistics demonstrate will lower your life expectancy. YMMV. That said, this is different. Putting a GPS tracker in your bike doesn't necessarily make your balls bigger. It gives you options, and what you choose to do with it is up to you. You can get charging alerts to unplug your battery when it gets to 80%. You can leave your bike locked outside a store without stressing as much, knowing you will get an alert if anyone starts messing with your bike. You may time to stop a theft in that scenario. Or maybe a thief will just laugh at you and take it anyway. But you guys go ahead and keep posting the same tired stuff over and over, about how it doesn't work for you, because you don't want to spend less than $100 to add something cool and useful to your bike. Whatever works for you.

 

[TomD]

Another thing to mention. You'll need the TK419 version with the external battery. You can buy it directly from the manufacturer. You can't use an external battery without rewiring the internals of the GPS. And the internal battery only lasts 4 or 5 hours. If you ever take the ebike battery to charge at work, then you'll need the external GPS battery to keep tracking past 5 hours.

To get the external battery to work on a regular TK419, you'll need to open it up and cut the internal battery wires. Then connect them to the 7th and 8th wires exiting the GPS. Make sure to desolder them from the PCB first and connect the ground/positive wires in the correct orientation. The 7th and 8th wires are the same color so be-careful not to accidentally reverse the polarity. After I made the modification and connected a 1500 mah 3.7v lithium ion battery for RC cars, the GPS lasts over 50 hours without external power. It even recharges automatically when the GPS is powered by the ebike battery.

Thanks for the tips. I ended up doing this for my older TK419. I originally bought the version without external battery, then ordered a second tracker (B version with external backup battery) with an extra backup battery for my first tracker. As you note, unless you have the B version, it won't work without modification.

I did some testing with my meter, and concluded that all you really need to do is desolder the 7th wire and hook it up to the + terminal of the internal battery (the 8th wire is ground, so you don't have to do anything with it). Wiring it that way, as opposed to disconnecting the internal battery, means you can still use the tracker without external battery. Of course, don't use anything but a 3.7V external backup battery, not good to hook up batteries in parallel unless they are the same voltage!

Edit: after more testing, I'm not sure I can recommend this hack for safety reasons. I noticed my device got very hot when charging the external backup battery. This doesn't happen when charging the built in battery. Perhaps because it's charging 2 batteries in parallel, although I had fully charged the internal battery. My TK419 B does not get hot when charging the external backup battery, only slightly warm. I suspect eelink has some additional safety mechanism built in to the "B" version. I'm not sure it's worth risking a fire with catastrophic consequences vs. just purchasing the "B" version from eelink.

 

[Taylor57]

So you would rather have no options than options? Why? Because you don't trust yourself not to do something stupid? OK, I get it. That's why I don't carry. I've never needed protection. Better to have smaller balls and use your brain to maximize life expectancy when things escalate, than have something at your disposal that statistics demonstrate will lower your life expectancy. YMMV. That said, this is different. Putting a GPS tracker in your bike doesn't necessarily make your balls bigger. It gives you options, and what you choose to do with it is up to you. You can get charging alerts to unplug your battery when it gets to 80%. You can leave your bike locked outside a store without stressing as much, knowing you will get an alert if anyone starts messing with your bike. You may time to stop a theft in that scenario. Or maybe a thief will just laugh at you and take it anyway. But you guys go ahead and keep posting the same tired stuff over and over, about how it doesn't work for you, because you don't want to spend less than $100 to add something cool and useful to your bike. Whatever works for you.

I hear what you're saying Tom, I just don't ride enough in general to even monkey with adding a chip. I have enough trouble finding my car after I play golf!

 

[TomD]

Sounds like you need one for you car! You could always get something like this for your car if installation is too much of a burden for you. Either way it would only be pennies a day to monitor.

 

[JeffMD]

Thieves will strip the bike and leave frame and battery somewhere, then go back for it if it isnt found.

No one cares for your bike parts. They want to sell it as is as a working bike to someone for 40-400 bucks and be gone with it. Not house all your cheap accessories and try and ebay them used for 5 bucks each.