As in the post title, what’s the minimum I have to have? Or can I use someone else’s equipment?
You need the fob that plugs into tacho and company smart card.
Fob is the connected to computer to trans files.
Have a look at tachomaster website, good discription of process.
Hi Rob.
tachomaster.co.uk/?g=dts5&gc … tAod6zsAtg
have a good read at what you need and system requirement’s.
You’ll need a company card to lock in and out and for downloading etc.
You need to download from the vehicle head, the best way is to do this every month or every 2 weeks as this takes less time than leaving it for longer periods. also down load your digi card at the end of the week and do all your logs etc that’s needed as it aint just download and walk away.
I have a Digidown Plus which was about £200 ( you could use somebody else’s) and I use Tachomaster analysis which is about £9 a month for one vehicle/driver.
I bought this ebay.co.uk/itm/DIGIDOWN-PLUS … 3f21b657aa from a link shuttlespanker put up, comes with free software. Do you have to have it analysed?
puntabrava:
I bought this ebay.co.uk/itm/DIGIDOWN-PLUS … 3f21b657aa from a link shuttlespanker put up, comes with free software. Do you have to have it analysed?
That’s exactly what I have, a Digidown Plus , but that only downloads data from the card and the tachograph and that’s only half the job done, you then have to upload data from the Digidown Plus to the internet to get the analysis done, I use Tachomaster which seems to be the majority choice, then that gives you analysis including any infringements etc, which looks like this.
Certainly VOSA were 100% satisfied with what I was doing when they did their site visit.
I uploaded the free software from the supplier of the machine but it was a nightmare and a 20 minute guided phone call, i think they wanted about £30 month for analysis, hadnt done anything about it but i downloaded your choice and it works straight off the download. I was led to believe you do not have to have it analysed by an outside agent 
but i should think vosa would prefer it, so for another £100 year its a sound job. Cheers.
VOSA were absolutely fine with me doing my own analysis, in fact they hadn’t actually seen how it worked before so I gave them a demonstration on the laptop during their site visit and I think it’s fair to say that they were 100% happy with it.
Harry Monk:
puntabrava:
I bought this ebay.co.uk/itm/DIGIDOWN-PLUS … 3f21b657aa from a link shuttlespanker put up, comes with free software. Do you have to have it analysed?That’s exactly what I have, a Digidown Plus , but that only downloads data from the card and the tachograph and that’s only half the job done, you then have to upload data from the Digidown Plus to the internet to get the analysis done, I use Tachomaster which seems to be the majority choice, then that gives you analysis including any infringements etc, which looks like this.
Certainly VOSA were 100% satisfied with what I was doing when they did their site visit.
IIRC, you don’t actually have to have the data analised, the requirement is that you only need to have the data stored
i do, of course, stand to be corrected on that 
They may be stricter on new operators, but article C on their checklist states that frequent checking of data is required, either by the operator or an outside agency.
