Prepare your radar detector power wire. You could just cut it anywhere, but I took it apart in case I ever wanted to use it again I can just solder the wires back on to it.

Route your wire, I'm routing my wire with the factory wiring. that's always a good bet that your not going to end up pinching a wire and creating a short.

This is the factory license plate light circuit that I'm tapping into, it's the 'signal' circuit and it's fused so I don't need to use an inline fuse. If you were going directly to the battery you should use an inline fuse. This circuit is the blinkers, tail light, and license plate light. The white connector is the factory connector, the black one came with my fender eliminator kit. I prefer not to splice into factory wiring if it can be avoided.

When I installed my fender eliminator I didn't need to know which of these wires was positive and which one was negative because a LED isn't polarity sensitive. However the radar detector needs proper polarity. I'll use a multimeter to determine which one is positive and which one is ground.

 

Make sure your leads are not touching any metal parts on the motorcycle or each other and turn on your key to energize the circuit so you can test it.

Connect the black lead of your meter to the negative battery terminal and check both sides of the factory connector to determine which one is the positive lead. I figured the blue wire would be positive but I was wrong. It's the ground.

Bingo, the brown wire is positive. :thumbsup:

Turn the key off to de-energize the circuit.

Clip and strip your wires that your going to connect. I normally clip my positive and negative wires different length if I have enough wire.. that way if the positive comes loose for some reason it's not right next to the ground.

Time to connect the wires. For vehicle wiring I always solder and shrink wrap connections or use factory style connectors, vehicles experience heat and vibration and a twist and tape job will end up being a short at some point. This is what you need to do it right. I didn't need the clamps but sometimes a third hand is useful when soldering and taking pics at the same time.

Put the heat shrink tube on the wires before you solder them. I'm using 2 black pieces for the individual positive and negative and the longer blue tube is to go over everything.

Twist your wires together making a straight line, place the soldering iron tip under the bare joint, this heats the wire making it ready to receive solder and it also holds the wire while you apply solder with the other hand. Apply solder between the tip and the wire and it will saturate the wire. Note: You dont want to get the wire so hot that it melts it's shielding it only takes a second or two.

Slide your heat shrink tube over your bare connections. I'm going to test the circuit before I melt the tubing.

 

Turn on your key. Test your accessory.. Test is good. Turn key back off.

Melt your heat shring tube, you can use a lighter if you don't have a heat gun. I already did the black ones.

Zip tie your wires so your wiring job is clean. No black zip ties... :rant: Now I know why these zip ties were on sale... LOL Blue will have to do.

I was planning on buying a new universal RAM base for my radar detector but upon further inspection I realized the 1/4" camera mount stud had an allen bolt at the end and it was removable so I don't need a new one. I'll probably get a bigger piece of velcro in the future that covers the entire mount and I probably won't need a zip tie over the top but this is good and secure for now.

Done

 

Nice write up, thanks for posting.:cheers

 

xcellent! Thank u for sharing.

 

very nice write up

 

Just curious, but why didn't you just tap into the horn circuit, or lowbeam? The wiring would have been much shorter and cleaner. It really suprises me that you went to the furthest point for power.

 

Primarily because I didn't want to tap the factory harness of the bike nor did I really want to cut my radar detector power cable short or loop it somewhere, in case I wanted to re-use it later in another application. Also, the bike's OEM wiring is still all virgin. Originally my plan was to go direct to the battery with an inline fuse but once I got the seat off I realized I could just tap the fender eliminator license plate light harness that was already fused and I already had a factory style connector to interface with the OEM harness. Going another route may have been shorter but in no way would it have been 'cleaner' as I'd have had to tap the OEM harness. I realize a lot of people have no problem modifying the OEM harness and that's fine, and to each his own.

As far as the detailed how to, It's obviously a very simple modification, but lots of detail for those that don't know how to use a multimeter, solder iron, shrink tube, etc.

 

why so afraid to make the leap and wire it to the low beam?

i went all the way. tapped into HL with a wire tap, put a led switch on the front right side of the upper stay. bolt mounted the detector body under the front nose and ran a modified cat5 cable to LEDs mounted in a waterproof housing on the inside top rim of the windshield.

very neat, especially since I used the high-intensity LEDs from fleabay and they really catch your eye even in full sun.
granted that going back to 'stock' would take a bit more work, but never planning to :dunno

 

If I had a detector with a RJ45 setup (escort, beltronics, V1) then I would have just done the H.A.R.D. setup with the wireless helmet LED and called it a day. Sounds like you have a pretty cool setup though.

 

Are you going for a visual alert? :scratch
I bet it would be difficult to hear at speed.

 

Do radar detectors really work?

I commend you on doing this. Sure it could have been a little better planned, but you did a fine job.

 

Quick question for ya.

What size bolt are you using to bolt on the ball? I am trying to make a custom ram mount but I don't know what size bolt to get from the store... any ideas?

 

parts:

Splice Connectors: http://www.radioshack.com/product/index.jsp?productId=3004023
Rocket Switch: http://www.radioshack.com/product/index.jsp?productId=3118987
USB adapter - google it!
old radar detector incl DC cable (clip n wire)
16/18 gauge DC wire - about 6ft or so
old ethernet cable to pull up the LED connections
couple M3 nut/bolts/spring washers for the radar body

patience

 

You guys are lucky sons of bitches because you can put your RD on plain sight :lmao We have to be a little bit more creative
I first thought off using some kind of led indicator for alerts, but after thinking it through I decided to use audio alert. First of all your dash would look like a Christmas tree when cops are around and you have to look the road in front off you Buy yourself a Belkin rockstar http://www.belkin.com/IWCatProductPage.process?Product_Id=404634 and you will be able to listen to your favorite mp3's while riding. First I had my STi in the tank bag but now I did a stealth installation and hard wire connections. This is the first summer with RD and I couldn't be happier :cheers