VALTRACK V4 Vehicle Tracking System (VTS) is designed and manufactured by Valetron Systems. It is built using ESP32-C3 microcontroller and SIMCOM Cellular Modem.
It is a fully configurable low power Vehicle Tracking System, designed to be versatile and flexible enough to fit into any vehicle tracking scenario, for tracking be it a bike, car, truck or even school bus.
VALTRACK V4 is completely designed and manufactured in India.
Retail cost for each device is about 3800 to 4500 Indian Rupees depending on the variant (region, antenna type, enclosure).
It comes in a nice carton packaging with enough cushion to save the device from any damage.
The plastic enclosure is quite small, the dimensions are 52mm(L)x65mm(W)x30mm(H). It’s an IP67 enclosure.
Opening it is easy, just 4x screws to open.
Once you open, on the Top side of the PCB, you can see large part of the PCB is covered by the GPS antenna.
Micro-USB connector and two switches are provided for easy reflashing.
I would suggest to remove these USB and buttons completely and have external ESP32 Programmer for flashing.
Nano SIM Card connector is there for the SIM.
It uses an ESP32-C3 Wireless SoC(U54) with internal 4MB Flash.
Chip antenna is used for Wi-Fi and BLE connectivity. When you have a space constraint, chip antenna could be used.
U55 is nothing but a 3.3V regulator.
U51, 52, 53 are RGB LEDs (addressable) connected in cascaded manner.
Another IC used on the PCB is U39, The LIS3DH is an ultra-low-power high-performance three-axis linear accelerometer from ST Microelectronics, it connected to the ESP32-C3 MCU via I2C.
There is another IC near USB connector, U60, XS0102, It is a level translator IC(3.3V<->1.8V) for UART connection between SIMCOM modem and ESP32-C3 as modem IOs are rated for 1.8V.
Now, let us see what is their on other side of the PCB.
In the image below, you can see there are two set of connections(wires), one with connector, is for connecting the external battery backup input and the other one is to connect it to your vehicle’s battery.
Main Power Input can take 12V to 42V DC as per the specification but I think it will work down to 11.0V DC considering Lead acid battery (Battery’s deep discharge voltage is 10.5V, below that we should not use and at 10.5, it may not be able to give enough current for modem to work properly). Although, the circuit should allows operation up to 7V as well.
Input is protected by a Fuse for over current and series diode is used for reverse battery protection.
Backup Battery Input is 3.7V to 4.2V DC, it is recommended to connect a single cell 3.7V-4.2V Li-Po or Li-Ion Battery. Power Rail blow diagram is shown below for your easy understanding.
This is the closeup of the bottom side of the PCB.
Main component used on this side is SIMCOM Modem A7672S, it comes with an option for inbuilt GPS.
Also, VALTRACK has an option, you can have onboard GPS antenna or U-Flex connector so that external antenna could be connected.
U5 is TPS54240, Texas Instrument Buck Converter IC.
U45 is a power switch (MIC94060YC6) to connect/ disconnect power to Modem. This is mainly used to remove the power to modem when in Idle mode or when you want to power cycle in case modem is not connecting to the network.
Another Power IC used is U46, which is MP2617A.
The MP2617A is a monolithic switch mode battery charger with power path management for single-cell Li-ion batteries in a wide range of tablet and other portable devices. It integrates a synchronous BUCK regulator to provide regulated voltage for powering the system output and at the same time charging the battery.
When main input power is not available, battery backup will support the power to the system.
For modem cellular connectivity antenna is Flexible PCB type and is connected via cable and attached to the Enclosure. See in the image below.
Here are some images of the Enclosure from inside.
Valetron Systems provides the PDF Schematic. Complete documentation is available.
You can buy the VALTRACK-V4 from their store.
I hope you found the teardown interesting and learned something new.
I am currently working as an embedded systems design consultant helping companies build custom embedded products and develop test automation solutions for their PCBs.
If you have any feedback about the blog, you can share it in the comments below or contact me directly.
We are based in South Africa and have ordered two tracker units to test out as it does seem like a good product. Will post a review once we have completed testing and using the product. Valtrack staff have been very helpful and always get a quick response to our queries via their what’s app contact details