We live in a rural area where several break ins occurred last summer. Each occurred shortly after the person left home. My driveway is gated at the highway and the house is directly up the hill 120 yards from the gate. There is no electricity at the gate. We have no garage so it’s easy to look up the driveway and tell if we are home if anyone has cased the house and knows how many cars we have.
Last night after dark about 8PM, someone pulled up to my driveway gate and stopped for about 30 seconds. Then, they pulled out and drove slowly to a neighbor’s driveway, pulled in and turned around. It drove back to my driveway and stopped again, dimming the lights and sitting for about 30 seconds before pulling out and driving down the road slowly the same way it originally came in. What’s really suspicious about this is that this has happened before. There’s no light at the highway so all I could tell was that it was a full size car and probably older because it had 2 square tail lights on each side.
One suggestion on another forum was to set up an infrared deer camera by the gate. That might get an IR photo of the car, but it wouldn’t get the tag number.
Another suggestion was to set up a motion sensor light because light is the bain of criminals, which brings me to my question. I need a good hi-power motion sensor LED light that can run off a battery or some sort of solar power/battery setup. My thinking is if I automatically light up the gate and maybe put up a video surveillance sign, it would cause potential criminals to look for an easier mark.
you may want to buy a game camera - although the car may or may not trigger it because infrared motion is usually what triggers them to take a picture. maybe the exhaust will trigger it.
Get some motion detector flood lights on the house, and find someone you know that has an alarm system with a current account (not ADT if possible) and see if they can order you some signs and put them up by the gate and house. All of the battery powered /solar lights I have tried that I could afford failed quickly. If you have money then maybe you could afford a high end remote lighting system, and your own alarm system .
Sure does sound suspicious to me. Glad you became aware of it and can do something to prevent a possible break in. Unfortunately I don't have any experience with solar flood lights but I can tell you that you should invest in a new set of 4 cells to go with the SRK if you get one. You do need a matched set. Get them from Kumabear or Fasttech and get all 4 cells at the same time to help ensure they are all from the same batch and therefore pretty well matched.
The SRK will easily light 120yds out but if you really want to hit them with a lot of light to not only identify anyone hanging about the gate and/or blind them to discourage them from doing it again I'd recommend a thrower instead. The SRK is great if you wish to sweep your property for suspicious activity but if you just wish to light up the gate to identify cars or people then you should get a thrower. There are lots to choose from but an STL-V2 or similar torch would work great and use the cells you already have.
Check out their store for bulk buy options and bundles.
Full Disclosure: I am a former employee of the company that designed these lights. Feel free to ask me questions about how they work. They use Li-poly batteries that are serviceable.
Thanks, JohnnyMac, I checked FastTech and Manafont for the SRK STL-V2. They don’t have it. I’ll keep looking. I really want to do business with someone reputable and these are the best two I have found so far.
It will light up the gate sufficiently from the house deck to see the car, but not well enough to tell the make or model from 120 yards away. I assume the stl-v2 is brighter/more spot?
I’m thinking of mounting an LED motion sensor light on the post by the padlock at eye level and point it directly at where the driver would be sitting. I’d think that would be intimidating to a potential thief.
Deer cameras will probably trigger on a car, and they can capture a license plate if it’s angled right.
There is a lot of variation in the deer camera market; buying them is hit or miss. I got a good one for my dad, however I have no idea what model it was now. it took great shots (count the points on a buck from 40 ft or more) It also had a video option that he doesn’t use but worked well. One downside; it ate four C batteries in a month with daily activity.
With the Fandyfire’s the model of it is STL-V6 and Fastech does have it. The light you currently have is a C8 and while it throws much better than a p60 host I still don’t consider it a thrower even though there are some here who insist on thinking it is. It’s a great light, just not a real thrower.
They can send images to your phone if you get an ip camera, ie it’s connected to a wifi. A game camera will captue the car, and can have a flash or infra red.
Problem with a game cam is that they can be stolen, your best bet is to angle and calibrate it to take video when its triggered. There are several on the market and it shouldn’t be hard to find one.
I would call your police department and let them know there has been suspicious activity at a certain time and have them do a drive by a few times.
An ip or webcam might be the best option for capturing them inside your house. You could also get a couple of fake cameras and set them up outside, they look real enough and run around 15 $.
I hope the car doesn’t build up the courage to attempt anything.
“Are you leaking too much of your real life online?
Thieves and predators constantly search Facebook, Twitter, and Google+ for telltale information. Think before you post! ……
…
… you’ve revealed something about yourself, usually in a public place …. Hackers have tools that scour websites and news stories, then bring back links relating to people. ”
Shorter: those targeting tools used to track your location and feed you ads? Bad guys use them too. Computation is dirt cheap nowadays, astonishingly cheap, and information about you is available far beyond what it should be.
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PS — I’m interested in the question too. Our block has had several back doors kicked in on weekdays, possibly by people who knock on the front door and then go ’round the back if nobody answers.
I’d really like to see someone come up with a neighborhood-watch system so everyone involved could put a camera on their driveway or back yard that would both archive images on motion detection, and also let anyone in the neighborhood group watch their neighbors’ cameras to call in any suspicion.
It should work. The front of a car gets hotter than an animals body temp due to the heat soak from an engine that is approx. 220 degrees. Especially an older model like he mentioned.
I suppose you are correct about that. I don’t have one but from what others say that may be a good recommendation. If it doesn’t perform the way he wants he can always easily return it, too.
I would have to disagree, as long the cells are close, you should be fine due to the cells being in parallel especially if they are protected. Now I wouldn’t recommend 2 3400 Orbtronic with 2 real capacity 1000 *fires(but then again, who would really recommend *fires for anything )
The SRK could also be run off of 1 or 2 cells if you absolutely needed it to.
Thanks Hank. The original post has been edited. It’s suspicious in that this has happened before. I think a bright light in the face from the gate post along with a CCTV camera (real or dummy) would do the trick. I’m concerned that someone might think we’re gone, but my wife would be home alone. If I’m home alone, it’s a different matter.
I can do a defiant vs stl comparison in a couple of hours for you. Both are un modified as yet and I was planning on having a play anyway. We’re pretty light poluted here sobit takes much more output to make an impression than a rural area.
I think the best idea was listed above, with a tweak. Id go with a rifle and night scope over the claymores much less mess to clean up. :bigsmile:
Consider adding lighting the length of your driveway w/ motion detectors at each end. Handy if you go out in the evening and puts the thieves on notice.
A SRK or similar light is good even if you can’t ID the car or license #. If the driver is up to no good, getting blasted w/ that bright a light will spook them big time. ‘They lit me up like noontime, they could see me and the car, time to get out of Dodge!’…
A cheap laser pointer is handy too, just strap it under your light so it looks like a laser designator. You’ll hear squeeling tires for a long long time when a crook gets a taste of coherent light.
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… I’m still new to LED flashlights. The brightest light I own is an UltraFire CREE xml u2 like this one 
If it doesn’t perform the way he wants he can always easily return it, too.
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