Tracker wiring/location

[Knightrider]

For those who have trackers installed - where is a good place to wire them? I need permanent liver, ignition and ground.

I could go direct from the fusebox under the bonnet, but may not be ideal from a stealth or signal point of view?

 

[IainP]

Depending on the draw, which I assume would be tiny, my go to would be jumping off the wiring to the stereo. Has permanent live, earth and switched live.

 

[Knightrider]

Ideally needs ignition live, rather than ACC. Not sure if the stereo wiring has that?

 

[IainP]

It does, that’s how it remembers the stations

 

[Knightrider]

That's permanent live?

 

[IainP]

Yes, my last stereo drove me crazy, Guy hadn’t connected it up so I had to reprogram every time I got in. Quickly sorted.

 

[Pingu]

If your tracker is for your insurance, it may need to be installed by an approved installer, and be on 24hr tracking via a third party.

That said, it depends if your tracker will respond to cut wires. If so, you can run everything from around the ignition barrel wiring.

If it doesn't respond to cut wires, I'd hide it behind the modules behind the glovebox. There are plenty of possible connection points there, so the wires will be easy to hide.

If you can keep the wires steathy (i.e. they look like they are for something OEM), you could hide the module under the carpet under the driver's feet. This takes a serious degree of stripdown to install and find.

 

[Knightrider]

Not for the insurance - would have to be Thatcham approved for that. I'm trying to set up my own tracking server using Traccar for all of my cars. The device that I am using has a backup battery and does notify events such as loss of power etc.

I'd still prefer a more stealthy install though I think - probably somewhere under or behind the dash. I'll have a dig around with a multimeter at the weekend and see what the options are!

 

[Knightrider]

For anyone else trying this - ended up putting it under the dash. Just look for the following wires:

Green - ignition live
Red - permanent live
Brown - earth

The tracker I installed did have the option of using voltage as an ignition trigger (i.e.>13.2v = ignition on) but my Noco trickle charger gets to just under 14 volts so that was a no go!