radar detector

[crackerjack]

Hey there everybody, looking for a little help/advice here.

I have an 01 ninja and its running great now. My little ninja is my only transportation now and i often drive the interstate. i have a radar detector from my car that is awesome but since i no longer have a running car i would love to be able to put it on my ninja.

I know that there are aux wires that run up near the headlight and thats perfect because thats where i need them and yes they are getting power!


Now my questions are is that the best place to tie into? should i wire up a power socket to plug in the radar detector or should i just slpice it into the aux wires. will the bike have to be running for it to work(i had a 12v blue l.e.d. car light from my brother laying around, so i chopped off the aux plug and tried wiring it in to the aux on my bike. i believe i saw it flash on one time but could never get it to work. the bike was in the on position but not running, back l.e.d.'s were on.)

Since i tried the light and it failed i am afraid that this may not work(i hope its just the light i used), but am hopeful i can make it work.
Does any one have any success stories at an attempt to put a radar detector on their ninja?

Any advice is greatly appreciated as i would like some input before i destroy my $100 radar detector.

[Alex]

I thought that those aux jacks were wired with ignition (i.e. turned off when the bike was turned off), but honestly I don't remember at this point. I wired a GPS into the front aux wires on our '04 ninjette and it worked just fine; I just can't remember if it was always-on or switched.

[crackerjack]

did you wire in a 12v aux outlet or just wire directly to it?

[Alex]

Wired directly to it; the GPS ran on 12v natively. But so do many radar detectors.

[crackerjack]

sweet. think i may try it out in the morning.

[crackerjack]

so my radar detector is locked in my roommates truck right now. i went out and looked at it to see if it would fit on my mount, i think it will.

anyways while looking at it i noticed my radar detector has only one visible wire coming out of it(nothing has been cut, it still has the 12v aux plug on it.)
there are two aux wires on the bike.

im think that once i cut it there should be two wires in there, but what if there isnt?

[Alex]

I think there have to be two wires in there.

[crackerjack]

yea two wires inside. got it wired up and works great. the place i am mounting it makes it to where it isnt very visible when driving.

what i would like to do is take this thing apart and split up the screen and lights to mount them in my guage cluster where they would be very visible.

but when i take it apart, unfortunately, there are no wires at all for me to tie into. its just a computer board with everything pretty much stuck where it is. unfortunately i do not have much knowledge on that subject.

if anyone has any knowledge to share on this subject feel free to share.
otherwise i guess im just going to mount it somewhere else
thanks.

[Alex]

That's the key problem with detectors on bikes. They work fine to detect things, but alerting the rider is always the problem. I've tried a whole bunch of different solutions over the years to mount Valentine 1's to bikes.

- remote V1 display (worked OK, but not bright enough)
- additional super-bright LED's (like this) - bright enough, but still miss them sometimes in bright sunlight or if not looking down.
- wired into helmet speakers through autocom unit (winner)

Unless you can react instantly to an alert, a detector may not be worth much. The only way I've found to have a chance at reacting instantly, is some type of audio alert. Inexpensive way to do that is headphones to the helmet. Better way is to integrate the radar detector audio with some type of comm system (autocom, starcomm, etc.), and then you can have music, cell phone, radar, GPS, and more coming through on the same system.

Another option that I haven't tried but some folks swear by is the "screamer":

http://www.motorcycleradar.com/radar_screamer.htm

[crackerjack]

ok so i was tinkering around inside of the detector and ruined one led in it before i decided to stop. after i was done tinkering i wired it up and it worked.

since i could not see it in the original spot i fiured out a new spot for it and made a simple bracket for its new spot.

got the bracket and radar detector all mounted on the fairing like i wanted wired it up and nothing. now i am not getting power through my aux wires. and yes the fuse is good.

i just dont understand what happened because i left the wiring hooked up, mounted the radar detector, put it on the bike, plugged it in and now nothing.

anything im not catching that i should check?

[Alex]

It worked before, right?

[crackerjack]

Yea it worked before I mounted it, then I left the electrical how it was and mounted it, put the fairing back on with it mounted. Plugged it in and nothing. Now neither of my accessory leads are reading any power. The fuse is not blown.

Any other recommendations as to where I can wire this to?

[crackerjack]

Call me a dumb***. I was looking at the wrong fuse. . I'm gonna go get another now and by the time I'm on the interstate tomorrow a.m. I will be cop proof!