merl
Full Member
- Posts
- 2,103
- Likes
- 4,234
Here's a cheap little alarm that costs less than a tenner for motorhome owners who park their vans reasonably close to their house. It's essentially a wireless doorbell, the receiver plugs into the wall socket in your house and the transmitter (bell push switch) is modified slightly and connects into the cab interior light wiring, the result is that the bell sounds whenever the interior light comes on in the van.
Speaking to Carl at Outsmart The Thief virtually all break ins on Ducato/Relay/Boxers is through the drivers cab door where a 'prick' tool is used to puncture a small hole below the door handle, from there it's relatively simple to unlock the door with the tool, I know this to be true because earlier on in the year my van was attacked in this way. Another method is cutting a hole in the body just below the off side front light and accessing the wiring loom and again unlocking the van from there. With both of these methods the instant the van is unlocked the interior light comes on so this little alarm will notify you if someone has unlocked your van.
First you need one of these from Amazon. https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0BZDH9FXZ?ref=ppx_yo2ov_dt_b_fed_asin_title , It needs to be modified slightly, using a soldering iron is best, you could do it another way which I'll mention later.
Open up the push button, no screws it just snaps together and modify it thusly. Unfortunately I didn't take a photo of 'Before' so all you've got is the picture of the 'After' sorry.
In the picture you can see the bit's that I've removed and the connections added. The 2 twisty wire bit's on the left of the image form the battery terminals, after removing the battery these are removed and 2 short lengths of wire (the pink and green in my case) are soldered onto the points where they were removed from, you'll need a foot or so of wire. If you don't have a soldering iron you could straighten the twists out and cut the wires leaving about 10mm protruding from the board and connect onto these with a couple of small screw terminal blocks.
Next the tactile switch near the centre of the board needs to be converted so that it's permanently on, this is the switch that's operated by the large push pad on the bell push front panel. I removed the switch with a soldering iron and soldered a link in place on the 2 left hand pads.
If you don't want to solder then I'm sure there's a way to trap something above the switch so that when the case is re assembled it pushes on the switch holding it permanently down. Test it by plugging the receiver into the mains, the receiver should chime when you apply 12v to the 2 new wires (observe the correct polarity) you can use the original battery that came installed, yes it's a diddy 12V battery
All that remains is to connect it into the van. It's a while since I connected mine and again I'm sorry but I didn't take any photos but the interior light comes out pretty easily (I seem to remember a couple of screws but I could be wrong?) power at the light will vary from vehicle to vehicle but you need to find a 12v supply that's available ONLY when the interior light is on, this is usually a permanent negative and a switched positive that becomes 'live' when the door opens, some makers however switch the negative, in this case you'll find a permanent positive and another feed that goes negative when the door opens, a multimeter is really needed to work out what's what at the interior light but when the correct cables have been found then it's just a case of splicing into the wires and connecting the modified bell push with the 2 long wires you added previously, if space is limited behind the headlining for the unit then you may have to remove the board from it's case to save space, in this case then you've probably lost the option to retain the tactile switch and soldering will be your only option. If you do remove the case then insulate the board with tape and make sure the long curly thing that looks like a spring doesn't touch anything metallic because that's the antenna.
Range will depend on what your van roof and house walls are made of, foil backed insulation really cuts the range but no matter what it wont be anywhere near the 300 metres claimed, in my case I get about 30 metres, enough for most people I would think.
This little unit didn't prevent the attack on my van but it did make the thieves run off when I started shouting obscenities at them from the bedroom window, thus saving any further damage that would have happened as they forced the steering lock off and pulled the ignition barrel.
Good luck
Speaking to Carl at Outsmart The Thief virtually all break ins on Ducato/Relay/Boxers is through the drivers cab door where a 'prick' tool is used to puncture a small hole below the door handle, from there it's relatively simple to unlock the door with the tool, I know this to be true because earlier on in the year my van was attacked in this way. Another method is cutting a hole in the body just below the off side front light and accessing the wiring loom and again unlocking the van from there. With both of these methods the instant the van is unlocked the interior light comes on so this little alarm will notify you if someone has unlocked your van.
First you need one of these from Amazon. https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0BZDH9FXZ?ref=ppx_yo2ov_dt_b_fed_asin_title , It needs to be modified slightly, using a soldering iron is best, you could do it another way which I'll mention later.
Open up the push button, no screws it just snaps together and modify it thusly. Unfortunately I didn't take a photo of 'Before' so all you've got is the picture of the 'After' sorry.
In the picture you can see the bit's that I've removed and the connections added. The 2 twisty wire bit's on the left of the image form the battery terminals, after removing the battery these are removed and 2 short lengths of wire (the pink and green in my case) are soldered onto the points where they were removed from, you'll need a foot or so of wire. If you don't have a soldering iron you could straighten the twists out and cut the wires leaving about 10mm protruding from the board and connect onto these with a couple of small screw terminal blocks.
Next the tactile switch near the centre of the board needs to be converted so that it's permanently on, this is the switch that's operated by the large push pad on the bell push front panel. I removed the switch with a soldering iron and soldered a link in place on the 2 left hand pads.
If you don't want to solder then I'm sure there's a way to trap something above the switch so that when the case is re assembled it pushes on the switch holding it permanently down. Test it by plugging the receiver into the mains, the receiver should chime when you apply 12v to the 2 new wires (observe the correct polarity) you can use the original battery that came installed, yes it's a diddy 12V battery
All that remains is to connect it into the van. It's a while since I connected mine and again I'm sorry but I didn't take any photos but the interior light comes out pretty easily (I seem to remember a couple of screws but I could be wrong?) power at the light will vary from vehicle to vehicle but you need to find a 12v supply that's available ONLY when the interior light is on, this is usually a permanent negative and a switched positive that becomes 'live' when the door opens, some makers however switch the negative, in this case you'll find a permanent positive and another feed that goes negative when the door opens, a multimeter is really needed to work out what's what at the interior light but when the correct cables have been found then it's just a case of splicing into the wires and connecting the modified bell push with the 2 long wires you added previously, if space is limited behind the headlining for the unit then you may have to remove the board from it's case to save space, in this case then you've probably lost the option to retain the tactile switch and soldering will be your only option. If you do remove the case then insulate the board with tape and make sure the long curly thing that looks like a spring doesn't touch anything metallic because that's the antenna.
Range will depend on what your van roof and house walls are made of, foil backed insulation really cuts the range but no matter what it wont be anywhere near the 300 metres claimed, in my case I get about 30 metres, enough for most people I would think.
This little unit didn't prevent the attack on my van but it did make the thieves run off when I started shouting obscenities at them from the bedroom window, thus saving any further damage that would have happened as they forced the steering lock off and pulled the ignition barrel.
Good luck
I think there’s a business opportunity for you to make some Donut Tokens by Fitting this.
)
