I'm in charge of grounds for a nice shooting club, the problem is I don't really know who has keys to the tractor, Its a decent Kubota M7040 with the full cab. I was wondering if anyone has added a keypad lock to a machine that would of course need a code to start and or keep a log of keys used for some rolling number. I don't need a heavy anti-theft, maybe just starter interrupt to make it a little more tricky for the casual users. We also have a club card reader system but that might be a little too involved. I think it'd cost a few bucks to get new keys and locks all around and that still wouldn't give any use tracking. Any help greatly appreciated.
No idea on a keypad, shouldn't be too hard to wire it in series with a neutral switch or something though. It might be cheaper than you'd think to get the locks re-keyed if you can get them out and bring them to a hardware store or locksmith, even a trip charge might not be much, and a locksmith can probably do the whole thing faster than you'd take getting them out. Have you thought about a card reader lockbox for the keys, and either a manual log for hours, or some kind of time stamped hour meter wired into the tractor that could be consulted if there were any questions?
Actually a little more research shows someone having a little unit, keypad and its set up via bluetooth phone, can also download access log, kind of home brew but might work well, Indeed thinking I'd just intercept the starter wire.
The long term issue is unless you change the code pretty regular the keys that are used wear off and then it's pretty easy to guess. Had keypads on forklifts at a warehouse where I used to work; at least till we figured out how to bypass them. Wouldn't be that big a deal on a tractor where your mostly leaving it running while in use but keying in every time you start and stop a forklift was a giant pita.
Maybe an anti-theft steering wheel lock. Could be a commercially made bar style. Or a chain or cable with a padlock. You could change the padlock whenever the need arises .
Yeah, mostly for user tracking, who was using it when the headlight got broken so they can come down and put the new one in. There's a dozen folks with keys and that's okay, but it seems a few keep putting it back damaged. found that there is a little plc kit that the hacker guys use that could assign a lot of four digit codes to the same function and record when each code was used, data could be read by a phone with the password.
In that case it sounds like a good plan. Every lift at the warehouse had the same code and it never changed.