Securing Your Car With a Security System
The most effective way to guard against a thief trying to take your car or items in your car is a car security system. These are commonly multi-component systems that include items that go into the hood, the vehicle’s passenger compartment and the trunk.
The alarm system relies on being a nuisance when a car protected by one is broken into. How best to have a noise-making device that emits a piercing, high pitched scream, that's unpleasant to the ears. The device that does this is called a siren. It is commonly placed under the hood. There are sirens that emit only one tone or multi-tones, so that you can identify your car should the alarm go off in a public parking lot. There are also so-called sirens that actually offer a verbal warning or message when the car is bumped into or under a full attack by a thief.
An alarm system gets its power from the car’s battery. But should the battery fail for some reason, many alarms include a backup battery which stands alone or is part of the siren.
The hood is commonly integrated into the alarm system with a pin switch. These devices feature a pin in a small cup. It is installed in the frame of the engine compartment so that the hood presses the pin down into the cup when it is closed. When the hood is open, the pin immediately springs up and trips the alarm.
Finally, fuses for the alarm are commonly put under the hood. With the alarm’s fuse, siren and power source under the hood it is imperative that this region of the car be protected. That’s why there is a pin switch.
The inside or passenger compartment of the vehicle is monitored by a sensor of some sort. That could be a shock sensor, a microwave sensor, a motion sensor, glass breaking sensor or doppler sensor. There is also a feature called a starter disabler or starter kill which prevents a thief from starting the car when the alarm is on. This works by the use of a relay which cuts or breaks the ignition wire when the alarm is armed and closes the wire when the alarm is off. Factory door switches or aftermarket switches like the one used on the hood are commonly used to integrate the doors into the alarm. Mounted in full view is the LED status indicator. This device features lights that flash to indicate to a thief that the car is protected by a live alarm.
Hidden in a place known by the driver of the car is an override switch. This turns off the alarm if you don’t have the remote with you. Also hidden in the interior may be modules that control the power windows of the car. These modules respond to a radio frequency emitted from a remote control that opens and closes the windows. The remote is also used to arm and disarm the alarm and the alarm will chirp a number of times to confirm that it has been armed or disarmed. Commonly, it is one chirp for arm and two chirps for disarm. But this could vary by manufacturer.
The trunk is integrated into the system by incorporating the factory pin switch or, if one is not available, adding an aftermarket pin switch.
So with a minimum number of components, your car can be fully protected from break-in and theft.
