GPS Tracking For Your Jeep

OldButStillJeeping said:
If you're like me, you've put countless hours and spent crazy money on parts for your Jeep.
I starting using a GPS tracker in my Jeep, RV, and Polaris RZR.
It certainly gives me peace of mind knowing where my junk is. And if you hide it well enuf, the police will be able to recover it within a day.
These are relatively cheap, considering that just a winch on your Jeep maybe cost you $800 or more. Lots more.
I use a unit called Trak-4. There are others like it, and some may be better. But I'm just giving you fellow jeepers a heads up if you haven't looked into it.
These cost about $50, and about $80 for a year's monitoring.
It's not 'real time', but scheduled tracking via GPS or cell. So you can't track your kids driving habits. But it's a lot cheaper than ones that are real time.
I'm not affiliated with Trak-4, I'm just throwing this out there.
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I have a plug-in GPS tracker that I use to track my teen driver. The application is easy to use and the instructions are simple and easy to understand. It keeps track of the vehicle's position, how long it has been parked, and the speed of the vehicle.
 
isisaac said:
I have a plug-in GPS tracker that I use to track my teen driver. The application is easy to use and the instructions are simple and easy to understand. It keeps track of the vehicle's position, how long it has been parked, and the speed of the vehicle.
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Just be aware, some states are now outlawing some of these trackers because of their stalker laws. And their crazy assed ex husbands and wives...
 
wranglerFanatical said:
How do you find the Mastrack? Are there any subscriptions?

I've been researching options, I narrowed it down to one from fleetracker, otherwise one from gpyes here: https://www.gpyes.com.au/purchase
Can anyone review the gpyes one?
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Yes they have 3 month blocks you buy and I found it was really accurate if I did a 2 minute update where is sends the location every 2 minutes and you can geofence and it will send a text or email or text when it is crossed.
 
mrblaine said:
Frank was one of the first that taught me that theory and practical application are not always the same thing and sometimes you can wholly violate theory with a practical application if you understand what is happening. One discussion revolved around the use of lower current relays like the Bosch 5 pin standard 40 amp and combining them in parallel to handle 80-100 amps of current. Of course the theorist told him he was full of shit with all the standard "You're gonna die in a ball of flame" if you try that shit. Frank being Frank set up a test station with a timer, a relay, bank, and a load. He set the timer to switch the relays under load 1 time per minute for many days and after a set interval, he would stop and check the resistance across the contacts and then put them back into the test. He logged every interval and every resistance reading and when it got up to some amount equivalent to a person's lifetime of relay use, they were little worse for wear.

Even then the theorists insisted that using lower rated electrical devices in parallel was a bogus idea and never to be done. Then I happened across this and several other examples. Interesting and backed Frank and his approach to things but still didn't shut them up.
View attachment 78938
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I guess these same theorists do not understand how THHN or stranded wire works. We should just wire everything in solid wire. 🤔
 
mrblaine said:
Why do we use stranded wire?
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I should have known better than to challenge Gandalf, and I let my finger punch through before adequately thinking it through.

We use stranded to have a conductor that is flexible, and resistant to splitting. 10GA solid vs 10GA stranded, solid will carry a bit more current than stranded. Stranded suffers from phenomenon known as skinning. At higher frequencies the field around the outside of the conductor causes resistance, lowing the allowable current through conductor.
 
astjp2 said:
Higher amp load per given wire gauge, at least in the aviation world...
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It would be interesting to see that guide and how they calculate it since it is not easily located on the web. Nor is there any clear proof to back that up. And, I'm not saying you are wrong, it is just hard to find that answer.
 
motomick76 said:
I should have known better than to challenge Gandalf, and I let my finger punch through before adequately thinking it through.

We use stranded to have a conductor that is flexible, and resistant to splitting. 10GA solid vs 10GA stranded, solid will carry a bit more current than stranded. Stranded suffers from phenomenon known as skinning. At higher frequencies the field around the outside of the conductor causes resistance, lowing the allowable current through conductor.
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Skin effect happens with all conductors but the rest is why we use stranded for automotive. Simple flexibility.
 
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mrblaine said:
It would be interesting to see that guide and how they calculate it since it is not easily located on the web. Nor is there any clear proof to back that up. And, I'm not saying you are wrong, it is just hard to find that answer.A
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AC43.13-1b, not sure of the chapter right now, and there is a Boeing spec that is used for stripping the insulation from aircraft wire and it lists the commercial gauge as a smaller gauge than aircraft wire, for a given current capacity. When I was taking crimp and solder school, we were taught a lot of aircraft peculiar wiring and soldering info, no rohs for the specs I was taught to. Lead alloy solder, gold plated crimps. Tim
 
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mrblaine said:
Skin effect happens with all conductors but the rest is why we use stranded for automotive. Simple flexibility.
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And, you won't get skin effect on a DC circuit, that only affects AC. (albeit only with high frequencies and great distances)

In DC, solid wire will outperform stranded. But @motomick76 hit the nail (partly) with flexibility. The other reason is redundancy, if one strand breaks, the other strands will share the current of the broken one.
 
Artsifrtsi said:
And, you won't get skin effect on a DC circuit, that only affects AC. (albeit only with high frequencies and great distances)

In DC, solid wire will outperform stranded. But @motomick76 hit the nail (partly) with flexibility. The other reason is redundancy, if one strand breaks, the other strands will share the current of the broken one.
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See, this is where it gets all fucked up. I am only aware of the problem with audio cables in high end car audio and discussions thereof. I was not aware that there are any AC circuits in 12V DC car audio. Yet, if you look, skin effect is righteously discussed.

Is that because the speaker motor is shoving current back the other way when the cone pulls back? Or is the circuit switching polarity to pull the cone back?
 
mrblaine said:
See, this is where it gets all fucked up. I am only aware of the problem with audio cables in high end car audio and discussions thereof. I was not aware that there are any AC circuits in 12V DC car audio. Yet, if you look, skin effect is righteously discussed.

Is that because the speaker motor is shoving current back the other way when the cone pulls back? Or is the circuit switching polarity to pull the cone back?
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Audio signal is voltage that has a frequency/s applied... basically. All sound is, is frequencies. DC is a flat voltage with zero frequency. The speaker moves back and forth, because the voltage varies between +/- voltage.

So, @mrblaine you are correct about skin effect on the wires, but that will only affect wires between speaker and amp/source.

Car audio does add the complication of DC to power it all.

I know others will probably say I’m not right, blah, blah... but this is the very basics.
 
If a GPS tracker notified me that someone had stolen my Jeep, I wouldn't be notifying the police once I found it and the people who stole it.
 
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