Someone was in my shop Friday night

[CurlyDave]

UPDATE They, Him or whoever was back exactly one week from the first time.

I would consider this a potentially life-threatening situation. Do you have any reason to believe he will stop with the shop if he is successful there? Why wouldn't he eventually move up to the house?

1. Driveway alarm ($20-30 at HF), give yourself the advantage of surprise.

2. Shotgun

3. If he parks far away and walks to your garage, a pair of dykes on the valve stems will quietly disable a vehicle, then call the cops.

If he confronts you he has just threatened your life...

 

[brin]

UPDATE They, Him or whoever was back exactly one week from the first time. I had a long week so I was sound asleep last night. I noticed this morning that someone had tried to pry the door open. My neighbor stopped by this morning to let me know that they spotted a car in my drive way last night at 11:07 almost the exact same time as last Friday. I called the Sheriff and a deputy came out. I know him but I was not impressed with him. I told him my neighbors had a decription of the car but he didn't seem interested. He said they would step up patrols in the area and I should put up some no tresspassing signs. I am sure that will keep them out. I think I will make a point of talking to the first deputy that I talked to. I was alot more impressed with him.

deere, The law enforcement personnel work for us ! If it were me I would be on the phone with the Sheriff himself , in fact I would go down to the sheriff's office and go on record with him personally about all these events so that when you kill the criminals when they invade your home at 11 PM some night you will have established a paper trail to show you did all you could to prevent this...so now you need to buy you a shotgun and load it with 00 Buck, get your driveway alarm and some motion controlled lighting ( at a minimum ) and be ready...they are letting you know they are coming back. In this economy people are desperate and desperate folks do desperate things. Take care of yourself and your family.

 

[Redbug]

Deere...You have the making of a great trap...and your place is the bait. I would use that knowledge to advantage and catch whoever it is. These guys have set up a pattern and it should not be too hard to lower the boom on them. Not much different than coons getting in a hen house. They don't seem very smart.

 

[Redneck in training]

MossRoad's wiring description was right on. I would suggest a fuse right off of the battery. They make in-line fuse holders for the automotive type fuses. Horn is probably less than 10 amps, that lets you use #16 wire for the high current stuff. That way if there is some problem with the small wire going to the magnetic door reed switch the wire won't be the melting fuse. If you're really paranoid, put a 2nd 2 or 3 amp fuse in just for the relay coil and door switch, then you can use 20 gauge wire for that.

The reed switches used for security stuff get real unhappy and have shorter life spans if you pass more that 100 mA through them. Horn relays are on the order of 40 to 60 mA. Ideally, reed switches want to see just a few milliamps and a purely resistive load, but in this application (where you will turn it off before you go in) is something that will hopefully on fire a few times a year (or less!). Between the higher contact current and the inductive kick when the relay coil is de-energized, the life could be only a few thousand cycles- again, enough for this application.
By contrast, for my security stuff I run one half of a milliamp through them, and should get on the order of half million to a million cycles out of them.

Pete

Wire a diode (in reverse polarty) parallel to the coil. It will "eat" the energy stored in the coil when denergized.

 

[eepete]

Diode is good, but make sure it's a high speed diode not one used for rectification. If anyone goes this route, I can post links or just send you the right diode.

I wonder how many people out there are interested in such a contraption, and what their "price point" for this is. In other words, how much would you pay for a solution you just wire up?

Pete

 

[Western]

deere, The law enforcement personnel work for us ! If it were me I would be on the phone with the Sheriff himself , in fact I would go down to the sheriff's office and go on record with him personally about all these events so that when you kill the criminals when they invade your home at 11 PM some night you will have established a paper trail to show you did all you could to prevent this...so now you need to buy you a shotgun and load it with 00 Buck, get your driveway alarm and some motion controlled lighting ( at a minimum ) and be ready...they are letting you know they are coming back. In this economy people are desperate and desperate folks do desperate things. Take care of yourself and your family.

X's 2, request a "close patrol". when we had close patrols we would check out the area/residence and report it to the dispatch, this puts a date and time stamp on it, makes the officer familiar with the area as far as what is normal and may give a little more offensive presence. The problem you will have like most of us is the average county may be 400-800 square miles and you may only have 2-4 deputy's working on night shift so basically coverage is thin.

I have read allot about the uselessness of "posted signs" I would like to make a few points on this.

When I was in Law enforcement here in Texas, a trespasser was generally given a warning the 1st time or a "notice" that he was trespassing, this was general and did not count a person with a firearm or someone who had obviously committed a crime, it was for trespassing in general. Now if I showed up and the landowner had signs or had posted "notice" I could considered the trespasser already warned.

If you are forced to fire a weapon at an intruder to protect your family, yourself and your property, BELIEVE ME, you will want every thing possible to give your attorney the best "defense to prosecution" you can. Right or wrong, you probably will be charged, at least that's the odds and/or sued by the deceased persons relatives. So those pesky, nasty looking signs are cheap warning to accent the high tech stuff you can use.

 

[jfox]

UPDATE They, Him or whoever was back exactly one week from the first time. I had a long week so I was sound asleep last night. I noticed this morning that someone had tried to pry the door open. My neighbor stopped by this morning to let me know that they spotted a car in my drive way last night at 11:07 almost the exact same time as last Friday. I called the Sheriff and a deputy came out. I know him but I was not impressed with him. I told him my neighbors had a decription of the car but he didn't seem interested. He said they would step up patrols in the area and I should put up some no tresspassing signs. I am sure that will keep them out. I think I will make a point of talking to the first deputy that I talked to. I was alot more impressed with him.

I have had some--twice--stop to see what was locked. I'm in central il too.
Yesterday was the second time. ( that I know of), and I did see the car.
Calling neighbors they know (suspect who this is), and they will soon be caught.
By me if possible.

I was told, they first go for jewelry, then fire arms, then big screen TV's, then tools.

i will get my camera's up and going in the next week or so.

 

[tallyho8]

A man was just arrested in the next town for shooting at 3 men who were trying to steal his car. Luckily, he didn't hit one of them or he would have been charged with homicide. Of course if he had gone out there to try to stop them without a gun they probably would have maimed or killed him.
West Bank man arrested after shooting at suspects trying to break into his car | New Orleans Metro Crime and Courts News - - NOLA.com

 

[SpringHollow]

A man here has been on trial for killing a kid that was breaking into cars. He was just found not guilty - he claimed the person was threatening him, the 2nd kid claimed not.

Ken