Rant number two - alarms/immobilisers

I always though car alarms were a con, making money for their
manufacturers while offering no real extra security, who takes any
notice of car alarms going off nowadays?

Having lived with the Datatool System 3 on my ZZR1200 for a few days
now I've decided it's a pain in the backside to use as well as
offering very little extra security.

Why can't it work like most car alarms - they do nothing *unless* you
arm them which you often do when you lock the car. The bike alarm
automatically arms itself 30 seconds after you turn the ignition off
which isn't enough to do what one needs to do (?!).

When I get off the bike I now have to do the following sequence:-

Turn off ignition

Get off bike

Arm the alarm with the button (unless I wait 30 seconds)

Disarm the motion detector so I can get stuff out of the panniers.

Re-arm the motion detector

All of this is accompanied by loud beeps (and the alarm going off if I
get it wrong by pressing the wrong button or whatever). If there was
a way to disarm the motion detector directly rather than having to arm
the alarm first it wouldn't be so bad.


Getting on is nearly as bad:-

Disarm motion detector

Stick stuff in panniers

Arm motion detector

Disarm alarm

Turn on ignition


All this is made worse of course by the panniers (see other rant about
Givi panniers), if it was easy to open a pannier and put something in
it then I could simply use the 30 seconds 'grace' to put stuff in the
panniers but as it is there's no way I can do this.

 

<snip>

Victor, could you add a switch to the circuit between battery and alarm?

 

says...

Do what I do, rip the fucking thing out. My insurance is not
significantly affected by not having an alarm fitted. IIRC the
difference was 20 quid, which would take something like 15 years to make
having an alarm a finacially viable proposition. I use a couple of good
quality disc locks and tuck it away out of sight it in a difficult to
access garage. If it gets nicked, it gets nicked. I'll just buy another
one.

The alarm on my old ZX-9R was a right pain in the arse and once woke the
whole neighbourhood at 2am for no good reason. It then wouldn't disarm
so I was stood outside in the rain stripping the bike down to remove it
for an hour.

I hate alarms.

--
Lozzo
Track pixie
GSX-R1000 K1
I haven't lost my mind, it's
backed up to a floppy disc
that's around here somewhere.

 

Who is Victor?

.... and, no, you couldn't "add a switch to the circuit between battery
and alarm" as disconnecting the battery sets the alarm off. (Well you
could add the switch but it wouldn't be any help)

 

On 19 Oct 2005 08:49:21 GMT, wrote:

You could do what Loz suggests, or a slightly less drastic approach
would be to simply earth the yellow lead coming out of the alarm which
disables the auto arming 'feature'.

 

some anonymous **** wrote

This is a motorcycle newsgroup, who takes any notice of threads about
cages?

I share your pain. I have recently invited a GS500E into my life and it
comes complete with it's own set of emotional baggage that I have to
deal with, alarm included.

Because it is a motorcycle alarm?

Mine (not Datatool) arms in 'passive' mode, i.e. no "nudge" sensor after
30 seconds. Before and after this time you can put as much luggage as
you like on the bike. That includes the throwover, tank bag, and stuff
bungeed to the seat and, of course, me the rider.

Thereafter it is a simple matter to press the button either to arm the
system fully or turn it off in order that I can ride away.

Turn off ignition and remove any stuff needing to be removed and then
when all done press the alarm button to Full On Neighbour Waker.

Mind you I did take the trouble to read the manual and spend some time
translating it into practical English.

You are obviously a stupid pratt but I really do sympathise with you.
After all, if the system is unnecessarily hard for me to operate, you
must consider it nigh on impossible to fathom.

 

I read that bit of the instructions that came with the Datatool and
didn't understand it to mean that. I'll read them again! If it does
what you say then that's exactly what I want, thanks!

 

So, OK, yours work more sensibly than mine.

Quite, I wish mine did that. The problem is that you can't get from
'non nudge' mode to 'alarm off and allowed to start the bike' with one
press of a button.

It defaults to "Full On Neighbour Waker" after 30 seconds whether I
like it or not.

I did read the manual and understood most of it.

My system doesn't work the same way as yours so I can't work it the
same way as yours.

However, as some else has pointed out, it would seem possible to
change my system so it doesn't automatically arm itself at all. This
will satisfy my requirements better. I'm pretty sure the manual
doesn't make this clear though, I'll re-read it to see if it makes any
more sense with 'hindsight'!

..... oh, and what's anonymous about me?

 

On 19 Oct 2005 11:32:10 GMT, wrote:

I did it on my old K2 as I was sick of it arming after 30 seconds
whilst filling with fuel. The immobiliser still kicks in but at least
you don't get deafened.

 

wrote:

Forgive me if I'm missing something.

I have a new sequence for you:

Get off bike

remove shit from panniers

Turn off ignition

Seems obvious to me, and I'm fucking Welsh.

Again, try:

Disarm alarm

Turn on ignition

Load shit in panniers

Petrol stations:

Engage service mode

Turn off ignition

Fill tank

Pay

Unset service mode

Start bike

**** off

 

What a PITA plus I'm fairly sure on a Suzuki you can't remove the key
from the cap without locking it shut.

 

So you leave the engine running while you empty things? Or maybe (by
using the kill switch) you leave the ignition turned on, lights
blazing etc. Yes, OK, it would work but it doesn't seem quite 'right'
to me.

Yes, I have tried it this way, I just don't feel comfortable leaving
the ignition turned on for a long time without the engine running
though. It may be a hangover from the days when this might cook the
ignition, I don't suppose there's any chance of this nowadays.

How do you do this? The key is in the ignition and it's not all that
easy to press the buttons when it's there. Especially not press the
*right* button.

 

Not to mention (I'm being stupid) - how can I take stuff from the
panniers with the ignition on? I need the key to open the panniers
and it's on the same key ring as the ignition key.

 

On 19 Oct 2005 13:40:20 GMT, wrote:

<snip>

I always seem to convince myself that if I leave the ignition on for
more than five minutes it won't start, how odd I am.

 

wrote

Don't believe it. The led on the back will flash to tell you the last
thing that set it off. Handy you might think if you suspect that
scrotes are giving it the odd kick to see how sensitive the sensor is,
or even if it is on. This flashing led has two basic states - off for a
bit and on for a bit. It seems that the makers have set it up so that
the flashing can only actually occur during the on bit of the phase.
This is fine except that even with my superhuman abilities I can't count
up to nine flashes in the half a second that it is doing it.

Ah, thankfully I can do this, which is nice.

It is a learning curve and one I am not happy being on. Certainly my
limited experience of this new essential accessory suggests that there
is good reason to shop around as you would trick suspension bits and not
just accept blindly what the suppliers tell us is, "Good for the Job."

The %a is missing from your header.

 

Take key out of ignition.
Open petrol cap
Put key back in ignition
Fill with petrol
Take key out of ignition.
Close petrol cap

With a baglux tankbag swung up over the clocks covering the ignition
I'd call that a *serious* PITA though YMMV.

 

What's that? I thought I had most things set up fairly sensibly but I'm
willing to dig.

 

wrote

Your mail client will be able to pull various bits of information out of
a news header to enable you to reply politely and to the right person.

If you take my post as an example the %a to which I refer would be the
steve auvache bit in

There is no information in yours to extract so you appear almost
totally anonymous if I choose not to quote your obviously munged email
addy. A lot of folks do what you do, impolite I calls it.

 

I said it was a PITA, not a lengthy PITA.

Whatever.

 

I always, always turn the engine off by hitting the kill switch.
Always have done. And, my lights aren't blazing unless it's night
time.