Recently one of our members had his posh BMW stolen from outside a shopping mall in Beijing... There's nothing more frustrating than having something stolen (Bike/Car/Bicycle)... That sinking feeling when you walk outside and realise that it's no longer where you parked.. "I was just gone for a few minutes"... "I just turned my back for a few seconds"... etc etc... anyway it's gone and there's nothing you can do since witnesses don't care to be involved and in all honesty no one gives a toss...

You go home with fantasies of going back in time and lying in wait with a crowbar..... But... what if you could find your stolen bike? The technology has been with us for years... expensive cars have trackers built in... Okay people let's do something about this, let's teach these bike thieves a lesson, let's not lose another bike to these wankers!

Enter the cheap Taobao GPS tracker!

Here's the link (posted by Snev313in the X5 thread): http://item.taobao.com/item.htm?spm=...itiative_new=1

I decided to go for the 188RMB option (one above the cheapest, includes a simcard with a year of subscription... I should have gone for the 208RMB option as it includes a relay that's useful as I'll explain later).

Here's what arrived:

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The unit itself (it's tiny.. look at the sim card for scale), a sim card, the wiring loom... an instruction sheet in Chinese and a manual in Chinese... Oh let's not forget the double sided tape and cable tie!

Before reading the instructions, I decided I'd try it out to see if it worked... so I pulled it open, took a look (it's basically a cellphone broken down and made into a very cute little PCB... here are the pics):

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I decided to insert the sim card and then hook it up to one of the many bike batteries I have lying around to test it...

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The lights came on and started to blink... I was well chuffed... seemed like it was working... then the lights went out... my fist thought was "Piece of Chi***se shit, broken already?", I unplugged the cables, then plugged them back in again.. still no lights... I changed the battery... still no lights... I was about to start trying to send it back when it dawned on me... hang on a second... this thing probably has a backup battery built in, and it probably turns the lights off to conserve power...

Okay, so I called the sim card number from my phone... it rang and the lights came on! Bingo this thing is awesome... OK, how can we get it to work.

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In the next part, I actually get it working and activated!

- Continued shortly!