Radar hardwire
 

Need to hook up my valentine one. I have hardwire kit for valentine one, the only thing that i dont want to screw up my new vehicle with incorrect wiring and breaking plastic parts.
Is anyone done radar hardwire installation?
I also have a dash cam, which should be hardwired as well. I do have all accessories for radar and dash cam just need an advice on proper installation.

Thank you!

Well, they just need a 12V + source and a ground. You can decide how you want them to switch on. For examples, if you only want them on when the ignition is on, when you flip a switch, or on all the time. For me, it makes sense to put them on a circuit that is switched with the key in the accessory position.

Since they don't draw a lot of current, you could easily add them to an existing circuit like the cigarette lighter. You could wire the additional circuit at the fuse block under the steering column or tap into the back of the cigarette lighter. I've had bad results with the crimp-on taps, so I would do something like pull one of the female blade connectors out of the plastic plug-end, cut it off, strip the wire, twist it with another ~14AWG lead, insert it into a new female blade connector, solder it, stick it back into the plastic plug and wire your circuits from there. I'd use an inline ATC/ATO fuse holder. I solder all my connectors instead of only crimping them, and I like to use heat-shrink tubing over the positive connectors to keep all the available electrons from prematurely jumping onto the little piece of copper from which my battery has evacuated a lot of them (hence the imbalance favoring the positrons' charge).

You could use an unswitched connection to the battery and a relay powered by the accessory circuit, but I really doubt this is worthwhile since the V1 and the dash cam probably use 1 or 2 amps at the most.

Thank you for your reply.
Technically i do understand your input, but practically i will need step by step preferably with some type of guidance directions :) Installation photos much appreciated!

On a slightly related side... Does anyone know if the heated windshield grid interferes with the radar detector's ability to work? I'd rather not find out the hard way...

-Anthony

Not sure but I have seen posts on another forum that the grid interferes with a toll booth token and the owners had to move the token elsewhere on the windshield or else get a different type.

Toll collectors use 5.9 GHz DSRC in the EHF band. Most police radar uses X band (deprecated, but 8 to 12 GHz), and K band (18 to 27 GHz) and Ka band (27 to 40 GHz) which are all part of the EHF band.

A Faraday shield is most effective when the holes are significantly smaller than the wavelength of the shielded energy. 5.9GHz is has a wavelength about 50mm. K and Ka band radar has wavelengths between 16 and 7mm.

The thickness of the shield also has an effect. The windshield grid is fairly thin, but the roof and hood are thicker. No doubt you will get a better signal with the antenna outside the vehicle's cabin, but I would imagine the signal from K and Ka band radar inside the cabin is sufficient for a quality detector like the V1 to be effective.

Where did you end up pulling power from? I know I'm resurrecting an 8 year old post, but my wife wants a hardwired radar detector in her 2015.