Wiring a radar detector.

[peterey2]

I remember in my dad's car he had a radar detector that wasnt hooked up thru the cig. lighter, like all that i have seen. I know theres a way to hook it up another way without having the big ugly wire hang down. Anyone know how???

i also got a GPS this xmas, if anyone knows a way to do the same thing to that i would greatly appreciate it.

i cant stand having wires hanging down. always like them to be out of sight.

 

[Sepiroth]

You can wire it into the cigar lighter, splicing it into the wiring.

 

[John Redcorn]

I tapped into the wiring for my reading lights up by the rearview mirror in the ceiling console to wire up my gps. (this circuit is always on)

I didn't really hardwire the gps though, I put a cigarette lighter socket right behind the lights in the garage door opener holder thing up there though so I can easily take the gps to someone else's car if I want.

I've hid the wire from the gps between where the celing console meets the headliner, you can only see about an inch of it going down into that garage door opener holder thing.

When I was a teenager I took a radar detector, pulled out the LEDs and speaker, I hooked them back up to the radar detectors board with long wires, then I kinda weatherized the radar detector with plastic and silicone and mounted it inside my front plastic bumper-cover with the LEDs and speaker inside the car. Radar detectors are legal here but not the greatest thing for a cop to see, he might have been ready to write a warning but as soon as he sees one, things change.

Might not work so great nowadays, back then, cops, at least where I live, couldn't radar you from behind like they can now and now they can laser you from front or back and a detector inside a bumper won't pick that up.

Is laser more common than radar these days? That show "Speeders" they're almost always using a handheld laser rather than a handheld radar or a car-mounted radar. I've heard that if you detect a laser with your detector you're already "got" anyway since there's not really a bunch of spread to a laser. i.e. If you're detecting one it's probably pointed at you.

 

[loulblades]

I tapped into the power for the mirror (compass) so the detector would operate with the key.

 

[peterey2]

so with the radar detector, u simply just cut the power wire from the detector and splice it directly into a circuit? (compass, etc.)

and with the GPS, i really like the sound of what you did, J.R. I'll have to go out and look at that console tomorow. i think i know what u mean. you basically bought a cig. lighter adaptor and mouted it up in that garage door opener holder thing and then tap the wire for the cig. lighter adaptor into your reading light wire. where would the wire from the GPS go while its mounted on your windshield? other than that i cant wait to try this out. sounds like a good fit.

thanks for the responses yall.

 

[peterey2]

another quick question. lol i know im full of them! only way to learn what ya dont know rite?!?

my cig lighter adaptor from the radar i know has a fuse in the adaptor, not sure if the GPS does, but what would i do about those when i splice into watever wire i choose? do i need an inline fuse? or just leave it without? thanks again yall

 

[John Redcorn]

and with the GPS, i really like the sound of what you did, J.R. I'll have to go out and look at that console tomorow. i think i know what u mean. you basically bought a cig. lighter adaptor and mouted it up in that garage door opener holder thing and then tap the wire for the cig. lighter adaptor into your reading light wire. where would the wire from the GPS go while its mounted on your windshield? other than that i cant wait to try this out. sounds like a good fit.

thanks for the responses yall.

I didn't even mount the cig lighter socket in the garge door opener thing, I just closed the door on it and all the extra wire from the gps.

My gps wire is hidden because I like my gps up high at the top of the windshield it goes right into the center console. most people like their GPSes lower though.

On mine you'll only see a couple inches of it coming out of the gps up to the center console, then I've just shoved it between where the center console meets the headliner then it comes out to go up into the garage door opener thing where the door's closed on it.

the wiring's easy you don't even need to take anything apart if you have a multimeter with piercing leads. I made a hook from coat hanger, opened up the garage door opener box thing you can see the wires for the reading lights from there, pulled them out with my hook and tested to see what was - and what was the unswitched +. Then I used those blue crimp on scotch-lok wire taps on them.

you could do your radar detector the same way, assuming you'd like it up high, just wire up 2 cig lighter sockets.

As for the fuse, it's there to protect your gps/detector. not much is likely to go wrong that can hurt either of them and whatever you tap into is going to be fused at the fuse box, so there's no chance you can kill your alternator or something but there's the tiniest chance that whatever circuit you tap into has a way bigger amp fuse than what tiny radar detector or gps wires can handle and if they happen to short to something they heat up real hot and from there bad stuff can happen. So yeah an inline fuse with close to the same rating as whats in the detector/gps cord would be good. Wiring up cig lighter sockets lets you use the regular cord+its fuse though and if you ever got a different detector or gps installing it is a lot simpler than if you made your own power cable.

 

[peterey2]

awesome. J.R, yer the man. lol

i like my GPS and radar detector high up on the windshield too.

so all i have to do is get 2 cig. lighter sockets, wire them to the reading lite + wire and its good to go...

 

[peterey2]

so today i got an aux. cig lighter in, wired it up..hooked my radar in and it didnt work rite away.....i take the console down, chevy everything out, found i didnt tighten down one of those clip splicer things all the way...i tighten it down all the way, and the second i do that the fuse blows inside my radar detectors cig. adaptor.
of course i had to go to work, and didnt have a chance to get to radio shack for a new one.
just want to know if anyone has any ideas??

JR-which wire did u determine was power??? all i have are orange and black wires. the wire diagram i have showed orange and white wires...i dunno!

 

[John Redcorn]

I just went out and looked to see which ones I used.

I don't have any orange and black ones, and I wired mine up to the front seat reading lights up by the windshield and rear ac controls. Is that what you're useing? maybe they used different colored wire for yours or mine.

I tested all the wires with piercing leads on a voltmeter back when I did it.
purple wires with a yellow stripe are the constant + going to the reading light switches. and used one of them for the + on my cig lighter.

and yellow wires coming from the reading light bulbs are the - and I used one as my - for the cig lighter.




I can't think of anything you could've done wrong to pop a fuse in your detector plug, a fuse in your fusebox sure, but to pop that fuse there'd have to be some kind of problem in the plug itself or upstream in the wire that plugs into the detector.

unless you wired it backwards or something and the detector itself reacted bad to that but that'd be pretty weird, most things that care about polarity just don't do anything if they're wired up reverse.

 

[peterey2]

hm. it is wierd man. i dont know if its b/c i had it powered on when i tightened up that splice that it sent a bad jolt to it tht blew the fuse?
after that happend, i didnt wanna try my GPS, so i have to wait til i can get a fuse.
other than that, let me try to explain how mine is wired.
first off i dont have the rear control switches on my console. all it has is 2 simple reading lights.
i have a black and an orange wire going to a connector to connect the front reading lights to the overhead reading lights.
from the connector, the orange wires go to the light and from the light to the switch.
the black wires go from the light to the connector.

so, the orange wires are what i figured were power. only bc they went to the switch. the only black wires on the lights went from the lights right to the connector.

any ideas on how to test the circuit with my volt meter to determine if the orange or black wire is power??


thanks again! if any of that doesnt make sense just let me know and i can clarify it.