Do radar detectors work equally well when mounted right-side-up, and upside-down?

Assuming that it was facing the proper direction for front/back, other than the text being printed upside down, is there anything in their internal electronics which requires "this side up" operation?

I'm assuming they're completely solid-state and that this is a stupid question. But I'm asking just to be sure.

Do radar detectors work equally well when mounted right-side-up, and upside-down?

Yes

pca

With the possible proviso that detectors which give a directional indicator will need to have the indicators reversed if they are external to the unit (ie if the unit is flipped so it detects a radar pulse coming in from the right it will display this as a pulse from the left)

Right. Of course, I couldn't afford the expensive directional detectors. Had to get a cheap one that pretty much only looks forward (BEL 916), which is fine for my purposes.

I'm currently stealth-mounting it, hence the question.

I think it's going to come out quite nice. I've already got the thing dismantled down to just the PCB board, and desoldered the display and got it to work at the end of a short bundle of wires. Next step is getting the buttons to work at the end of some short wires, and it'll have all the bits in place for a really awesome stealth mount.

The detector will be mounted just inside the headliner at the top edge of the windshield. I'm reasonably sure its main antenna isn't blocked by anything in that position, it faces forward out the front edge of the windshield with only the glass and the fabric of the headliner between it and the smokies. So I don't think its range will be compromised.

The display will be showing just underneath the clear plastic bit that covers the map lights, just above the rearview mirror. When it's off, you could be literally sitting in the car and not know it's there. When it's on, it's very readable and quite visible.

The control buttons will be hidden inside the area where the sunglasses-holder resides. This is all part of the same plastic assembly that contains the map lights. I only need to open the sunglasses holder to get to the buttons.

Why go to all this trouble when there's no laws against detectors in California? Well, the reason is that I don't think I'd be able to talk my way out of a ticket if the cop sees I've got a detector. I've talked my way out of a ticket before, and I think that in that situation, I would probably have been written up if he'd seen a detector. Also, there's the theft thing. I don't want even the mounting bracket for a detector visible when the car is parked.

Photos to come when the project is done.

Just a warning, but in my experience you're going to want those buttons to be verry close at hand. I had a basic $100 model before it was stolen (along with the $500 amp. damn.) and was constantly hitting the mute button or adjusting the volume. I'd recomend driving with it normally for a week or two to see how you end up using it, if you havn't already.

Matthew

Well, if you saw how easy it was to get to the buttons in my current scheme, you'd understand.

In my case, I've got the thing set down to its quietest volume already, and that's still pretty loud. So I'd only really be turning the thing off if it was bugging me. And that's probably going to get done via the driver's side map-light switch (I never use the driver's side map light).

I've already driven with the thing for a couple days now, and even in highway mode, it didn't chirp once on my way to and from work. So I'm really glad about it not falsing a lot.

I haven't seen any cops at all in the time I've had it, so I don't know what its sensitivity is like with the Real Thing.

Figures. Last month or two, my regular routes have been just LOUSY with cops, they were everywhere. Seemed like they were stepping up their patrols or something. That's part of the reason I wanted a detector. But then, the day I get one and want to test it out, they all scurry off and run away.

Sounds like you've got it down... I just wish I could afford a valentine one. I'm not replacing my radar detector with anything but a V1 because my last one was just too much of an annoyance. You're lucky you're driving a car that blends in nicely. The only time I got a ticket when driving my accord was going ~95mph past an onramp that I wasn't paying attention to.

Matthew

I spent my lunch hour messing with this one, and it doesn't look like it's going to be too much of an annoyance. The "City" mode seems to Do The Right Thing around grocery store door openers, and even in highway mode, I don't get the door-falses until I'm turning into the parking lot.

Moving the detector out of my "hiding spot" and pointing it directly at the door opener doesn't seem to change the signal strength compared to with the detector fully tucked into the hiding spot, so I think I've chosen a perfect mounting location.

The only drawback is that I don't get laser warnings because of the hiding spot. Boo hoo. From what I've read at Radartest, laser detectors are mostly just a placebo. From what I could see looking at the laser detector assembly I can understand now. This thing supposedly protects against laser from 360 degrees, but what that means is that their photosensor is mounted beneath a piece of curved plastic that "supposedly" acts like a lens to direct laser from the rear into the photosensor. Basically, the cop would have to direct his beam exactly at the radar detector for it to work at all (and they don't, they aim at the license plate). So I'm fine without laser capability.

I noticed today, though, that the antenna housing (large wedge shaped dealie that covers up the bulk of the PCB) gets very hot to the touch during normal operation. It's made out of the same material as a heat sink, is it supposed to double as an antenna and a heat sink? And why so hot, anyone know? This is like Pentium-chip hot.

I've already driven with the thing for a couple days now, and even in highway mode, it didn't chirp once on my way to and from work. So I'm really glad about it not falsing a lot.

I would rather have my radar detector "false" 10 times than have it miss one weak "true" signal.

Let me elaborate...

There is no such thing as a "false" signal. A signal given off by an automatic door opener is exactly the same signal given off by a police radar unit -- it is just far more attenuated because the original transmitter is weaker, and chances are it is aimed in such a fashion as to reduce further the amount of signal reaching your detector.

A detector that doesn't "false" is doing so by increasing the signal strength threshold before the alarm triggers. This is all well and good -- you don't have to listen to it every time you drive by a shopping mall. But you also then don't have to listen to it when it might otherwise tell you that over the hill and around the corner there was a police radar in "instant-on" mode for just two or three seconds, "looking" at the car that just went around that corner 45 seconds ago. You go around that corner at your usual rate of speed, and then when the trooper triggers his radar, your detector goes off announcing that you are about to receive a speeding ticket.

Thanks, but no thanks -- I'll keep my V1 which tells me all about every radar operating in my vicninity, not just the ones attached to police cars.

Something to keep in mind about the V1, BTW -- it gives you so much information about the signal source (how many, how strong, what direction, what radar-band) that with just a little practice you will soon be able to discriminate between radar sources, and identify them immediately as threats or not.

tanstaafl.

I think I speak for a lot of people when I say we're completly convinced that we need one, we're just not sure how we can afford one.

I also have the problem of living in a high crime area 9 months of the year at school, so it would be item number two that I'd have to carry to and from my car every time I wanted to go some where which I'm not sure I could handle.

Matthew

Well, it may be a moot point.

I think I did something bad to the detector. Even though I had it working with the display extended and the whole thing dismantled, as soon as I mounted it in the plastic, it started behaving strangely. Only half of the display lights up, and its power-on-self-test acts a little funny.

I just don't get it, though, everything was working before...

/me messes with it some more...

here is a radical idea........

Don't break the speed limit by enough to get stopped and go with the flow.

Only a thought
Less stress as well.

The last time I was pulled over, I WAS going with the flow. He picked one car (mine) that was easy to nail with the radar gun because there was enough space behind it to pull out, nailed me, and pulled me over and told me exactly how fast the radar clocked me at.

Because I was going with the flow, I was able to talk my way out of the ticket. Okay, maybe he wasn't intending to give me the ticket in the first place and just wanted to put the Fear O' God in me or something ([censored]). In any case, I would like to have avoided the whole hassle factor of getting pulled over.

Now, back on subject....

I think I've narrowed down the problem and I've done something to blow the HCMS-2912 LED display on the front of the unit. I know, I know, bad hacker, go to your room. OK, now all I need is a replacement part. I'm just having trouble locating a retailer that will sell one to me. I've found the manufacturer's site and their PDF spec sheets on the part, but not a retailer yet. I am on hold with the Beltronics seeing if they can help me, but they don't have a parts department and don't sell individual parts to people, so I'm not holding out a lot of hope for that at the moment.

Wow, I take that back. Beltronics will sell me the part. Not too expensive, either.

Threats? Sounds like you're getting ready to blast something out of the sky!

- Trevor

No, we only wish we could.

While on the radar detector topic -- Has anyone looked into interfacing the V1 to an empeg?

They offer a remote display which connects over a standard 4-wire phone cord to the V1 (which I have). I've seen them mounted in rearview mirrors, but what I would really like is a way to pass the signal to the empeg so the "remote display" could appear on the empeg's display whenever a signal is detected by the V1. I realize this would also require some software, but was curious if anyone with more electronics sense then I have, has ever looked into how the V1 communicates this info to the remote. Could the signal be converted so that it could be received via the serial port?

I'd rather have the rear-view-mirror thing, since it would be within my easy field-of-view. I'd have to look down to see the empeg.

And to answer your question, as far as I know, no one has tried it. It would require converting the display signals of the V1 into RS-232 serial commands: I don't think it uses RS232 on that display extender. This could be do-able, but it would be a lot of work.

I too would be very suprised if it was RS-232, however I have been unable to find any documentation on how to "hack" the signal. The rearview mirror solution doesn't address the main reason I use the remote display -- if the moving radar is behind you the lights from the detector (or remote display) call attention to the fact that you have a detector. It also encourages those without one to follow closely behind you, inorder to "use" yours. It would just be nice to have a slightly cleaner mounting location.