Santa was generous this year at Christmas time and decided I needed a Valentine One. Of course, I couldn't just plug it in to the cig lighter, put it on the windshield and call it done.

So, I mounted it as many of you have, behind the passenger seat on the headliner clip. Then, I ran the wires to the homelink mirror. After many hours and many pm's to SunsetZ, I finally prepared the mirror for the V1 concealed display.

Since I will be completing a full interior lighting conversion to blue in a couple of weeks, I decided I wanted the Valentine One to be blue. I also hated trying to guess which band was being detected at night time. So, to do this, I replaced all of the leds on the board with blue leds. I ordered a new Blue Seven Segment Display so I could have a blue readout. I also had to make new arrows so the blue would show through. To deal with the band confusion issue, I assigned a certain color to each band: X band is Red, K band is Amber, Ka band is Green, and Laser is Blue.

The entire display operates just as if it was stock. Here is a video of the start up. Pics are also included. Feel free to ask questions/comments.

Video

 

coolest install ever. :-D

 

Something very similar over here.

http://www.radardetector.net/anyone-...LEDs-3487t.php

 

Ah, that's pretty cool. But mine is blue.

 

bump for bump's sake.

 

does valentines one work THAT GOOD??? i spent almost 200$ on a Cobra.. and its giving me SOOOOOOOO many false signals.. yes i have been saved by it.. but the false ones are soo annoying.

 

that's toooooooo bicthing!

 

Hah, good question. Personally I don't know how I ever sped without it. I don't have any personal experience with a Cobra, but depending what mode you are in, the V1 puts out very minimal false alerts. Most are from Xband when I'm near a grocery store. But the advantages FAR out way the disadvantages.

 

wow that is an unbelievable install

11 out of 10

 

WTF, You guys have cigarrette lighters in ya cars? Must have taken ours out for Dubai. Not that i would smoke in the car anyway.

Sorry, thats a great install by the way. hehehehe

 

Awesome work. I cant wait to see your blue light conversion, its gonna be sick....

 

You're the man. That is a sweet install and your blue conversion will be so sweet, can't wait to see it.

 

Thats killer, REALLY KILLER!!!! Damn, now I need to do the same thing to mine!!!! Feel like writting up all the instructions???

 

nice, I like the diff color for each band that was a good idea. Did you just follow one of the write ups on the board for mounting the unit behind the passenger seat ? B.C. I have a Remote display installed in my mirror but I have not mounted the actual unit yet. Thanks.

 

Awesome job man. I'm curious how you made the arrows blue unless you simply swapped the leds and didn't use the red arrows on the remote display? Btw, where can you get a blue 7 segment display?

 

dude that is sooo sweet. ive got a valintine one to. and radar detectors are illigal on post. so i have to keep taking it down. you need to tell me how you did that. and whare did you mount it behind the passenger side seat?

 

write up the LED swap for us newbs!

I so want to do this, but am nervous about ruining my mirror.

On a scale of 1 - 10 , how hard was clearing out the mirror?

Also, it looks like you were able to remove only the material needed for the lights to show through. How did you get it so precise?

 

Here is the write up on how to remotely mount the radar detector.
https://my350z.com/forum/audio-and-video/103962-v1-install-display-in-mirror.html

The arrows were made by swapping out the leds, and simply laying a cut peice of diffused plastic behind the mirror, in front of the board. The blue 7 segment display was actually the hardest part. I had to order one from digikey, but even after I found one, it was not the correct pin configuration. I had to bend the leads into the correct place. I have many pictures of the pins and stuff, but I can't seem to attach any pics to the forums. Anyone else having this problem?




In my personal opinion, if you need me to make a write up on how to swap out the leds, you shouldn't be doing it. The leds are extremely small and hard to work with. You can also VERY EASILY damage the board when you are doing this. As far as removing the material, that is also a VERY intricate process that took around 4 hours. Even though it looks nice in the pictures, it still isn't perfect and I plan on redoing the mirror part sometime in the near future. You have to lay a flattened v1 display on the mirror, secure it, and then very carefully scrape off the backing with a hobby knife.



I was thinking about offering the different band colors as a service to people. I would change out the 4 band colors to whatever the customer wanted, but the default would be: X band is Red, K band is Amber, Ka band is Green, and Laser is Blue. I could do any configuration according to the customer's request. Here's how pricing would go:

$40 - If you ship your current remote display to me. Probably a 3 day turn around.

$80 - If you want to me to purchase a brand new display, modify it, and then ship it to you.

If any one is interested, please let me know by PM.

Thanks,

Acree

 

That is so awesome. Great work. You should write up a parts list and some instructions and post it to makezine.com.

Oh and for city driving any radar detector is going to give you lots of false alarms. What you really want to be sure is that it works when it is supposed to like going between L.A. and Vegas. The Valentine's worked spot on for me so far (knock, knock).

 

you should really look into building these and selling them for guys in virginia and washington.