Inspired by the post from several weeks ago about a pricey stealth mount of a Valentine One radar dectector in the secret compartment (which used a nice but very expensive add on "hump" over the top of the secret compartment lid, I set out to determine if the V1 could be mounted in the stock secret compartment lid without such a modification and whether it would work.

The answer is a resounding Yes!

Here are some photos to indicate how I did it. The work is still a little rough, but I will be refining it over the next few weeks. I tested the setup on the roads I know where the detector with my previous mount would go off, and the stealth mount went off at all the same spots.

Basically, I cut an opening shaped so that the radar and laser signals would be captured by the detector without any interference -- it has a lear line of sight about 4-5 inches over the windshield base. The cover has an inner and outer plastic shell. I cut out the inner shell where I wanted to mount the V1, so that it was as high as possible in the cover. Then I cut out an opening about 2-3 inches in front of the V1, just where the cove starts to taper down. I extended the opening just to the back of the latch mechanism, which gives the V1 a clear line of sight.

First some shots of the cutting work as it went along (I used hand hobby saws and a Dremel tool to rough out the holes, then hand files to smooth everything up).





Note in this photo that the V! sits as far back in the cover as possible, necessary so that the rear trumpet of the detector has the best line of sight.



Here you can see how the detector has a clear line of sight out of the opening. The covers in the front and rear of the V1 have been removed.



Finally some shots of the near finished work (eventually, I will have a flush mounted tinted window in place of the indented area).





Looking straight through the windshield, you can see that the V1 is high enough for a clear line of sight.





Since the cover door is not removable with the compartment in the car, you have to remove the entire rear compartment, which takes about 30 minutes. While the Helm manual says that the rear tray has to be removed to do this, that's not necessary.

Since the cost of replacing the entire compartment is only about $80, even if I screwed up I saved a ton of $ over the install featured a few weeks ago. I'll be posting detailed directions on how to do this as soon as I can find the time to put them together. This is not an easy job. I worked on it for about 12 hours, starting yesterday afternoon.

 

First off, great job Rick...

I am curious though of how well it will work if the car is shot by radar from the side and back? Will the fact that the radar detector is somewhat covered by plastic in any way interfear with the prefromance of the detector?

Thanks!

 

Yet again, Rick, you're stealing my ideas directly from my brain...do you have some sort of psychic spy roaming through my head? I wasn't thrilled by the $1000+ price tag of the other install either, especially since it made the cover funky shaped and prevented the windscreen from being replaced.

What's the line of site for the LIDAR detector from behind? I could be less than lazy and run out to my car real quick, but we're having a REALLY nasty storm at the moment.

I like the placement of the LEDs in the rearview mirror, but I believe when I get around to doing it, I will modify the band LEDs...it's too difficult to quickly glance at the display and determine what radar type is hitting me. I think I'll split the LEDs up a bit more, maybe run them along the top of the bogey counter and spread a bit further apart, similar to the strength meter on the bottom, but more widely-spaced...hell, maybe I'll even create a template that shows 'K', 'Ka', etc. with the LED shining through it instead of just an LED itself. Then the volume knob will be placed somewhere along the dash.
Excellent work so far!

 

WOW, you never cease to amaze me Rick! Nice job!

 

Purge,

In my limited testing so far, it's giving me all the front, side, and rear readings I got with my open install. But I need to do more testing,

MacGyver,

The line of sight in the rear is a bit of a problem, perhaps. The rear trumpet is a bit blocked by the lip of the trunk (although someof it is blocked by plastic). I may experiment with a home-made external trumpet that will extend about an inch or so above the trunk lid. But first I want to do more driving to determine whether this is even a problem.

 

Rick, thanks for taking the time to do the experiment. Did you take your radar apart? do you have any pictures of the radar's circuitry layout? I'm interested in the sensors layout. I ordered mine, it's going to take another week to get here. I used to have a 95 model, it's too old so I sold it and now waiting for the new one.

 

Not for anything other than clarification, but the earlier thread did state that the rear wind deflector could be reinstalled. The owner opted not to.

Now, that being said. . .Rick, truly an amazing job! That looks absolutely awesome! There's always something for me to check out on your car. See you on Sunday!

 

Indecision,

I did take the cover off, but only to remove the plastic lenses over the trumpets. There appear to be two circuit boards both about the same shape as the unit itself. One holds both front and rear trumpets, which are screwed in the the board (they're metal of some kind), the other additional circuitry. BTW, the screws that hold the top on are incredibly tight and a bitch to loosen.

I have a spare rear console assembly on the way so that I can do this job to the level of quality I want, provided I'm satisfied after a few weeks of road testing that the functionality of the V1 is not compromised. If I make another, this time I'm going to remove the secret compartment door/cover, from the assembly and have both the door and the lens laser cut so the lens is a perfect flush fit. This will then be easy to replicate for others who may want to do this job.

 

Just a thought for laser reception - you DON'T want a tinted anything in the light path unless it's been tested to pass IR (~910-915nm) without attentuation. It's the same sort of problem with tinted or metalized windows that the V1 web site talks about. Even a light (to the naked eye) tint blocks light and you can't determine by sight whether it attenuates IR.

Since they use laser a lot around here, it's a very important feature to have working (I've "beaten" laser a few times when the trooper was apparently waving the gun around a little - alert, silence, then full blast)...

 

jguerdat,

Thanks for the info -- I'll get that kind of plastic to finish the job.