At 04:55 PM 8/27/00 -0400, Eugenio Cebollero wrote:
>Greetings all....
>
>Today I was introduced to a new product that I thought I might share w/ you
>all in light of recent thefts and other misc vandalism. Recently, I got a
>2nd job working for Sears automotive dept and part of the training they
>provide was on one product that I seem to be sold on....the new Diehard
>"Security" anti-theft battery. This isn't your typical car battery. It has
>"smart" features, like auto shutdown, and anti-theft mode that "arms" itself
>like you would a noisy car alarm. In a nutshell, it integrates a kill-switch
>the prevents thieves from stealing your car. It just seems like good piece
>of mind insurance...coupled with a noisy alarm system and I'd say you've got
>your car on lockdown.
Well, I looked at this thing, but it has several problems:
1. They will still break in and steal your stereo and all your
goodies regardless of this battery or not.
2. Sears must be marketing this thing to chicks since it has a huge
nasty remote that would only fit in a womans purse. Add your regular
alarm remote and you would end up with one leg much bigger than the
other from carrying so much weight in that pocket.
3. The starter kill is built into the battery. So if you decide
to drop it into an SUV, any professional thief might bring a spare
battery and do a quick swap.
4. YOu still have to have your car broken into before a thief discovers
that it won't start (and you still have a heap of broken glass).
5. The design is pretty much a current limiter. It won't let the
battery put out enough Juice to get it to crank the car over. Too
bad if you have a stick and the thief figures out how to bump start
it (I'm not sure how big of a current limiter it has, so it might
put out just enough juice to keep your radio stations and clock running).
What I would do to improve?
Make a security add on battery. Make it so you can use a alarms remote
(or even a hidden switch) to get the circuit to trigger. What it does is
limit the current on the battery (so you can't get enough current to start
it). Hit a switch, and you have an extra layer of security without the
redundancy of another remote, and another reciever.
Juan
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