4 ms·
Based on the way it's laid out and all the unpopulated headers I'm almost wondering if this is a GSM dev board that someone makes that's paired with a GPS daugh
by simcop2387 12y ago
Based on the way it's laid out and all the unpopulated headers I'm almost wondering if this is a GSM dev board that someone makes that's paired with a GPS daughter card they make. It doesn't look quite as purpose built for a tracking application as I would expect, if it was i'd expect it to be far more compact and have very few test points and headers for the controller. In fact I'd expect they'd probably use a smaller controller too to help cut down on power usage, since they've got the large flash chip they can probably store all the data and send it in burst rather than keep the GSM modem powered up all the time which would let it last far longer in the field.
In fact even the soldering for the power wires to the strange battery array board looks rather amaturish. I'm not sure I'd chalk this up to any agency that's got much of a budget for this kind of thing. I think it's likely to be some other activist group that's in disagreement with this one and wants to dig up dirt (Private Eye maybe?)
Edit: correction, what I thought was a bunch of batteries on a board looks like it's actually the magnets that held it in place on the car. D'oh. Either way it still looks odd that it's built like a set of development boards by a chip manufacturer.
- Varcht 12y agoI know a guy that makes GPS trackers for divorce lawyers, pretty common tech. Doesn't need to be a state actor, just a jealous girlfriend etc. Heck you can by a GPS on eBay that will text you coords for $40...
- sliverstorm 12y agoI have similar thoughts, it really seems rather like overkill. Either an old device or not a purpose-built tracker. Very large, and holy cow is that a TQFP-144? I've built local-storage trackers before with DIP-8 chips. I've not implemented GSM, but I'd be pretty surprised if a modern GPS+GSM tracker required this much horsepower. Not to mention the board layout is pretty good, and because the GPS & GSM are integrated the layout engineer probably had to know a thing or two about routing antennas- while as you point out the solder job is quite amateur.
- userbinator 12y agoThat appears to be a TQFP-120, and there aren't that many MCUs available in that package; I'm almost willing to bet it's a Renesas/Fujitsu part. GPS + GSM modules are available (now - maybe not when this thing was designed) which would shrink the whole tracker down to one module, a few voltage regulators and related passives, and a battery: http://wm.sim.com/producten.aspx?id=1058 http://wm.sim.com/producten.aspx?id=1058
- spiritplumber 12y agoI've seen some work done by federal subcontractors on what amount to black boxes for tugboats and barges, and it's about of this quality actually - shiny metal boxes, good machining, then you open them up and the inside is a mess, green wire everywhere, etc. If you know you got the contract anyway and know that aren't dealing with technical people anywhere in the customer chain, you don't have to worry much about quality, it just has to barely work. I was working for the competition at the time, and like to think that the black boxes we made were better than that, although the first couple of revisions were also a mess... at least ours got better!