Welding Tips and Tricks

Recently, I bought a small acreage and want to set up a shop on it. The problem is that this acreage is about 2hrs from my residence. I will eventually move to the acreage but it will take a considerable amount of time and development before this will occur. In the meantime, I bought a CASE 2470 200hp 4X4 turbo-diesel tractor to help work the land. The problem is that crime is on the rise. Both the tractor and the shop will be at risk, if nobody is around. Thieves stake out a place and if they see that there is an opportunity to make a quick buck, they will take advantage of the situation.

I was looking for a non-lethal way of deterring thieves instead of just filing an insurance claim and hoping to recover some of my property back. (PROACTIVE versus REACTIVE.) I came across the following idea on the internet and think that it might work in certain situations. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z2qApXHN4y8 If a fog generator was combined with a high powered strobe, this would make it very difficult to steal stuff. Alarms, etc. would come on at the same time and hopefully chase away the thieves. They might just wait it out and come back when the fog clears, but if a warning was sent out to the owners smart phone, the police could be dispatched to check out the situation. The police in my case are within 7 miles of the acreage. If anyone else has any non-lethal methods of deterring crime, I'd like to hear about it.

BTW - I'm a firm believer in trail cameras for recording these events. If anyone is looking for low light (non-illuminated) security camera, I really love my Sony Ex-View .0003 lux camera. http://www.supercircuits.com/security-c ... ra-pc180xs

We are in a fairly high crime area in Detroit, with absolutely no police presence (even they won't come to Delray!) but we've only been broken into once in 20 + years. We have no cameras or alarm system on the building either. We try to make it hard for anyone to break in by using heavy steel roll down doors in front of the regular doors, lighting all around the outside. There are no signs on the outside saying what we do, it just looks like any plain ordinary boring building.... no sign that tens of thousands of $$$$ of equipment might be inside.

No advertising what we have inside has been very effective for us. if no one knows what you have, why bother to break in? If anyone was to break in, all small tools are hidden away and locked up, equipment on wheels is locked up in cages, any heavy machinery is bolted to the floor. When we leave at night every single light on the inside is turned off and the light switches are in places where no one who didn't know exactly where they were could ever find them.


Prevention helps too. If you buy new equipment or tools, don't throw the empty boxes in the trash until just before the garbage truck shows up.

You might even consider hiring a local to act as a caretaker since you're so far away. We have a neighbor that keeps an eye on our building when we are gone and he and his Pit Bull have been very effective.

Unfortunately there is nothing you can do to stop a determind thief. All you can do is try to make it too hard for them to bother with you. And carry theft insurance.

Other Steve

If you're there every (and I mean EVERY) day, this is where shop dogs come in handy.

Alternatively, you can use motion sensors, like those for lighting, to trigger a recording of dogs barking in the shop. My brother, a security expert, taught me this. He'd set two motion sensors above each door. one would be set for high sensitivity, and trigger a recording of some light barking and growling, general dog behavior. The other was set for low sensitivity, so if the person continued to approach, a CD of agressive, protective barking would echo through the shop.

He made it look easy, but with your skills you can figure it out.

Another thought... He had a "loop" in his phone line, from the unused wires, tied to the alarm so that if the phone line were cut it would trigger the alarm.

Steve S

Werkspace. Keep us informed if your electronic gadgets workout out. The poster, Delraydella, mentioned the neighbors. Neighbors make great watchdogs. Especially the retired ones who love to know everything that is happening in the hood. Leave them your cell number and make sure you help them out when they need a welding repair. Alexa

Perhaps a lojack for the tractor?

Speaking of lojacks... I found these the other day on ebay http://www.ebay.com/itm/Smallest-Vehicl ... 35be2eb1a8 basically they are a cellphone transceiver with built in battery and programmable so that you can put a virtual fence around it that if it goes outside the fence it will call you and also a lot of other features. The biggest drawback is cellphone coverage... if you don't have good coverage around there it will not work, it also requires you buy and install a SIM card to use(just a regular sim card to use on the cel network GSM/GPRS) I think the cards run about 20 bucks and then what ever airtime you have to charge them with.... The one thing I did find while researching these units is there are plenty of cheaper ones... but the main difference is the cheaper units DO NOT have a GPS chip in them even though they advertise them as 'GPS trackers' so if you want position accuracy of around 30 feet I think $40 is about the cheapest one that does have a GPS chip if 2-3 mile accuracy is ok then they can be had for less than 15 dollars as they use the cel towers for triangulation/tracking. I have not picked up one of these units as of yet but I plan on it since we leave machines on jobs regularly and even though we have not had any equipment stolen for the cost I think it would be prudent to do so. Hope this helps

For buying gadgets, this is one of my favorite sources.
http://dx.com/s/theft.html?category=717

Another cool website for unusual gadgets is here.
http://www.amazing1.com/ultra.htm
I've tested the pain field generators and they are very effective.
There is a downside to everything, they can cause permanent hearing loss
and should only be used in controlled situations. (Legal liabilities.)

Thanks for that link, I ordered one today and will let you know how it works out.

RonSII wrote:Speaking of lojacks... I found these the other day on ebay http://www.ebay.com/itm/Smallest-Vehicl ... 35be2eb1a8 basically they are a cellphone transceiver with built in battery and programmable so that you can put a virtual fence around it that if it goes outside the fence it will call you and also a lot of other features. The biggest drawback is cellphone coverage... if you don't have good coverage around there it will not work, it also requires you buy and install a SIM card to use(just a regular sim card to use on the cel network GSM/GPRS) I think the cards run about 20 bucks and then what ever airtime you have to charge them with.... The one thing I did find while researching these units is there are plenty of cheaper ones... but the main difference is the cheaper units DO NOT have a GPS chip in them even though they advertise them as 'GPS trackers' so if you want position accuracy of around 30 feet I think $40 is about the cheapest one that does have a GPS chip if 2-3 mile accuracy is ok then they can be had for less than 15 dollars as they use the cel towers for triangulation/tracking. I have not picked up one of these units as of yet but I plan on it since we leave machines on jobs regularly and even though we have not had any equipment stolen for the cost I think it would be prudent to do so. Hope this helps