Hi folks,

Well, last night I finished - or thought so anyway - hardwiring my Valentine 1 into the S2000. I used the directions posted here. Seemed simple enough, right? Well, apparently not. Here's the problems I'm facing.

1. On turning the ignition to On, the V1 powers up, best I can describe, "about half way." The display is very dim and it never does its little beeping system check.

2. Once I hit the engine start button, the detector powers up fine, as normal. and then...

3. ...especially with a stone cold motor, when the air pump kicks on just after startup, the detector power cycles a second time.

4. Occasionally, while driving down the road and for no obvious reason (not related to bumps or anything), the detector will power cycle. Occasionally it will go into the "half power" state I described in item one. Turning it off, and then back on, seems to fix it right up...for about half an hour.

I'm genuinely perplexed. I used the V1 factory hardwire kit. Put the ground wire onto the existing ground post as described in the directions (I used the U-shaped terminal that came with the kit, instead of soldering on a ring terminal). Spliced on a female quick connector to the lead wire, heat shrank the connection, and plugged it right into the fuse box. The connections, to my relatively untrained eye, all look solid. The fuse in the hardwire kit is fine. I used brand new telephone line that I bought from Home Depot to make the connection from the HW kit to the main unit.

So...I don't get it. It's genuinely annoying having it power on and off like this, and I can't imagine the "half powered" state it occasionally sees can be real good for the detectlr. Any ideas?

 

Not good. I would double check your connections. You mentioned you did not mess with the ground wire, right? What do yo mean by "spliced on" the female quick connector? Did you mean crimped? Also, is there a chance you pinched the cord while putting the trim panel back on?

Let us know.

 

Yeah, I'll re-check the connections, especialy the ground wire. Getting that U-shaped connector on the ground wire to stay in the series of grounds in that factory connection was a chore - it kept jumping off the post - so maybe I need to revisit that one. To my eye though, it *looks* like it's in there solid.

The ground wire I left alone, with the U-shaped connector that came on it. The lead wire had a male connector on it from Valentine - I just cut that one off and replaced it with a female connector. The female connector I crimped on, and then sealed up with heat shrink tubing. I was at a garage other than my own at the time, so I didn't have a soldering iron handy, otherwise I'd definitely have done that.

Munging the wiring when replacing the trim seems like a possibility, albeit a faint one - I secured the wire to the a-pillar with electrical tape, to minimize any rattling and to keep the wiring from getting compromised by reinstalling the a-pillar trim.

Now that I've thought about it, I think the first thing I'll do is find a different phone cord, plug it into the V1 wiring block, and see if that fixes it. If it does, I guess I know I munged that wire. If it doesn't...gotta be a connection problem.

Any possibility that you need some sort of "special" phone cord to run for power to the V1? I don't remember ever having to use anything special in the past, and I've had this detector for four years now, in three different cars...

Hopefully it'll be one of those obvious, slap yourself in the forehead kind of things. Usually is...

 

Does the V1 still work fine if you plug directly into the cigarette lighter? That will rule out any V1 unit issues so you'll know it's the wiring.

 

Regular phone cord works. Thats what I used when I hardwired the V1 in my old car.

 

Did you strip the insulation off the wire before crimping?

 

Even V1 says you can use aftermarket cords.

 

Thanks for the replies guys. Yep, I stripped the insulation off the wiring before crimping on the connectors The V1 powered up with the 12V outlet works fine.

For the time being, the install seems to have somehow righted itself, but I guess we all know electrical glitches don't just heal themselves. Plan is to pull the whole show out of there, solder on the female connector for the lead wire, and replace the "U" terminal on the ground wire with a ring terminal to ensure a nice tight ground connection. If that doesn't fix it...I guess I'll be back to this thread again ;->

 

Good luck. Let us know what you find!

 

It may not be your power and ground connections that is causing the problem.

It may be that telephone cord. The ends may not have been crimped correctly. Try the one that came with the V1 to see if that solves the problem.