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My V1 is hardwired to the fuse box. Very simple! I dont want any wires or coils on my dash for everyone to see. When I turn the key off the V1 turns off. When I turn the key on the V1 turns on. It cant get any easiesr than that.
I have never had a problem with my suction cups on my V1 mount. Just clean the windshield and clean the suction cups with warm water before you mount them to the windshield. Mine have not been removed in over 3 years now.
When I get home early next week I will take a few more pics as I modified the mount a little since the few pics I posted.
WestCan please do share. I am trying to decide how to mount my V1.
Wondering the advantage of using the suction cup mount bracket as opposed to just leaving the clip on the original slide on visor bracket. I hope this doesn't become obvious when I finally get to the garage to play and make this look like a stupid question! Thanks for the idea as I was just planning on suction cup mounting.
I've had my V1 a couple of months now and love it. I used the SAVVY unit that came with my V1 to plug into the OBD II port. Hardwire would work too, but I ended up really like the SAVVY as it mutes the unit completely when under 35 mph (or whatever speed I set it at), obviously great in town where all the alarms jack with it. So far the suction cups have been fine, but my windshield is not tinted either. Anyway, the wire (phone cord) tucks in completely. The SAVVY does hang down a little more than I like from the OBD port, but I've never hit getting in or out. Still I might get a flat OBD extender off ebay and hide the SAVVY too. I mounted my V1 up on the drivers side of the mirror, tucked up about as high as it can go...perfect and out of the way! I don't even think about it anymore.
WestCan please do share. I am trying to decide how to mount my V1.
You might want to note that in California it is illegal to attach anything to the windshield using a suction cup mount. You won't be stopped just for that, but if you're stopped for anything else you can be cited for that as well.
That said, I snapped the visor mount while trying to open it up a little, so I now use the "illegal" suction cup mount. It works well. The V1 is located between the top of the mirror (driver side) and the windshield header.
I don't care for the mirror mounts as they hang the detector right in the middle of the windshield and, in a cab at least, make it all too visible to all and sundry.
Last edited by OldBoldPilot; 01-31-2014 at 10:36 AM.
EDIT: Oops, I see I posted this on a thread other than the one I intended.... but I guess it works here too.
The BlendMount hardware is very nicely done, but I agree with the OldBoldPilot. I like having the detector tucked up as high as possible even in my coupe. It's high enough that a police car behind me cannot see it though the back window so I'm not stirring up any trouble there. It is not in my line of sight at all. It is hard for a passerby to see it too; hopefully a theft deterrent of sorts since I'm lazy about taking it down when I'm in a parking lot in most parts of town. In the photo it's pretty much as high as I can get it without getting the sticky cup onto the ceramic dots at the edge of the windshield.
For those that prefer the BlendMount that's great and its a very nice piece of hardware, but for me there are too many advantages to the sticky cup. The sticky cup you'd need is only $30 vs $130 for a BlendMount. When I take a road trip in another car I can take the sticky cup mount and detector with me. If you take in luggage somewhere, I'd recommend putting the sticky part against something like a heavy duty baggy backed up by something perfectly flat. I put the cup inside the baggy to protect it first dust and debris with the cup pressed smoothly to an inside surface, then I put both into a small box with the cup against a flat side of the box. The cup behaves like a gel of sorts and if you don't protect its face you'll mess it up. Amazing, if you get debris or dust on it, you simple wash it with water and the junk will come right off. It is not sticky when wet. You then let it air dry (or use compressed air) and it turns sticky again. I did have to get another one after I was careless with the first and gouged its face in my carry-on.
a huge THANK YOU for this post. doing a switched DC outlet USB power supply mod for my iPhone and the grounding spot was exactly what i needed.
btw in photo 2, you can easily hide that power wire (or even a mic wire if you are installing a tranzit blu hf) into the dash via pushing the wire into the a-piller/dash-crack spot via a credit card.
Originally Posted by StormRune
Here's a solution that worked well for me and doesn't require splicing into any existing wires. It only takes 15 minutes or so once you have the fusebox tap you need.
First remove the fusebox lid, then remove the screws you'll see at the outer edges of the fusebox holding the carpeting panel in place. With those removed, you can remove the carpeting panel to allow access behind the fuse box to run the wire that I'll describe later. These are the only screws that you'll need to unscrew anywhere during installation and the only panel that needs to be opened.
Run the hard-wired radar detector wire from where it plugs into the detector along the seam in roof lining where it meets the windshield (photo 1). There is a deep channel there. I held the wire from popping back out with a couple of small chunks of rubber foam pushed into the roof lining seam after the wire was in place, but I'm not sure it was necessary. They wire and the pieces can be easily pulled back out if needed in the future.
The run the wire along the channel between the front pillar trim and the glass on front side of the front pillar where you can't see it. Tuck the wire tightly against the pillar along the dash (photo 2, the only place you do see it) then downward under the rubber door seal until you could get the wire into the area behind the fuse box. While you can see the wire in photo 2, it is pretty much unnoticeable and I preferred doing that way as opposed to taking off the pillar trim which looks too risky and difficult.
There is a body-paint-colored nut on a screw that mounts to the body to the left bottom of the fuse box that makes a great grounding point. Simply loosen the nut, attach the detector wire to the screw, then tighten the nut to hold it in place.
Take the positive wire and fish it from the back through the hole in the fuse box next to the fuse puller (visible in photo 3). I actually did this by pushing another wire through from the front, taping it to the detector positive wire, then pulling them both back through. This is like using a fish tape if you know what that is.
Use the crimp connector to connect the detector's positive wire to the fusebox plug I bought at AutoZone. While the one I used (Add-A-Fuse, photo 4) supports being plugged into an occupied fuse position (then piggybacking that fuse into the second slot on the connector), I just plugged it into an unused position that switches with the ignition and only added the one fuse needed for the detector. I think the Add-A-Fuse came with a fuse, but if not, you'll need to buy one (or use one of the spares from the fusebox if you'd rather).
After testing that you have correctly supplied switched power, all you have to do is wind up any extra power cord and store it in the space next to the fusebox where it won't rattle around and put the fusebox carpet panel back in place. I've done this to more than one car for myself and a friend... its simple, reliable, and requires no splicing. It is also very easily removed when I sell the car.
I had escort 9500ci and I really didn't see any benefit of getting it.
Cops always use instant on radar guns so once you catch it, s/he already seen you!
I am not sure why I still see many people swears by it and how many times it saves them tickets.
a huge THANK YOU for this post. doing a switched DC outlet USB power supply mod for my iPhone and the grounding spot was exactly what i needed.
btw in photo 2, you can easily hide that power wire (or even a mic wire if you are installing a tranzit blu hf) into the dash via pushing the wire into the a-piller/dash-crack spot via a credit card.
It's good to see that the info was useful and even better to see you expanded it with your own useful how-to addition!
Originally Posted by 911-997
I had escort 9500ci and I really didn't see any benefit of getting it.
Cops always use instant on radar guns so once you catch it, s/he already seen you!
I am not sure why I still see many people swears by it and how many times it saves them tickets.
I don't agree since my experience with detectors doesn't back up what you stated here, and I've used them since the original Escort way way back. A large part of using a detector is strategy and understanding of its abilities and limitations..
95+% of the time my detector alerts me to the instant-on blip when the officer uses it on a car ahead of me in traffic, often a mile or at last a half mile ahead of my being able to see them and often before we are in line of sight of each other. So that is part of the strategy. When I consider traveling above the posted speed (and I do this far less frequently and aggressively than I did was I was younger), I consider multiple things. On a road I know has frequent speed checks, I just don't speed more than the token amount most cars around me are doing. This is what law enforcement agencies are largely after anyway. They know that they can reduce speeding by many drivers if they just visibly stop enough cars in an area to let people know they are serious. Ask anyone in Central Texas about Lakeway and Jonestown. Not much speeding happens there by anyone familiar with those cities. I'm at zero over in those two cities! They seem to make a lot of ticket money on other cars though.
In other areas, if there are no other cars on the road that will trigger the officer to fire the radar at them I'll keep my speed dialed way back. I am especially fond of faster cars and am glad to let them by. These "rabbits" either take the hit or at least trigger the instant-on guns ahead so that I'll get the distant ping and know what's coming. Of course this is all standard detector technique. Just last weekend a small pack consisting of a 991 4S, a Mercedes AMG, and another me-too car came by me at 80+ on Highway 71 east of Austin, a known speed trap area. A few minutes later I pick up a radar ping and see a highway patrol car about a mile later sitting up in a driveway on a rise. I figured the pack had managed to duck him somehow. But then over the next rise was the AMG pulled over by another officer. I guess they had been working as a pair.
Of course laser is another story, and only twice have I gotten what must have been incidental reflection reports from a laser just up the road before it was aimed right at me. Most of the time of the laser detector genuinely fires it is already too late. So again that goes back to strategy. Around town here the use of laser is along the same stretches of road most of the time. They are almost always targeting cars in the left lane. Either no speeding in those places, staying out of the left lane, or visual diligence is enough to work... detector or not. All in all, laser detection is just an interesting curiosity to me to know when I've been laser-tagged. I'm not hard core enough to go for a jammer which is likely your only real hope in this case.
All that said I can say that my detector has probably saves me on average from a couple of possible tickets each year, ones that even Waze or Escort Live wouldn't have saved me from, so I think the money is well spent (ticket and insurance costs). Between the detector and strategy, I haven't gotten a speeding ticket in my car in more than a decade and in Texas I was able to work that off by attending traffic school (allowed for one ticket per year).
It's almost inevitable that on a detector thread we'll get some posts touting Waze-is-all-you-need approaches, but my experience doesn't even begin to bear that out so let's see if I can address that proactively. Waze is only useful on heavily traveled roads with other Wazers present, and even then I've found most of those reports far less useful and far more noisy than any modern detector. A detector is the best defense for the rare LEO encounter in the out-of-the-way areas that are the safest and most fun for sporty driving. I've found that in these out-of-the-way places they tend to get lazy and just run around with radar on all of the time so that helps a lot but you can't count on it. Even with a good detector you'll need to be ready to pay-to-play for the rare times that detection is too late. As always, keep it sane and safe so no one gets hurt. For hard core driving autocross and track are the places you really want to be.
01-25-2014, 11:40 AM
