I actually have a cheap detector that someone gave me for free. Its a pos so I dont even bother using it. Either way it would be a good candidate to take apart and practice with.

As far as taking as taking certain pieces out and mounting them in different boxes, running wires etc. could you break down your procedure? The lcd screen you mentioned removing the soldier then running wires. So I am assuming that the screen in right infront of the steering wheel with the wires run behind the trim? Did you physically remove the sensors also from the circuit board? If so where did you end up mounting the actual board?

 

newcomer81 - Even though that is a very creative and stealth install it rele is not going to help you in VA since radar detectors are illegal and police there use "radar-detector-detectors" which are called spectres, to find people who have RD's....there are 3 RD's that are not able to be picked up by spectres...they are the Beltronics STi, Beltronics STi-R, and the Escort Passport 9500ci.



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pl27vsc1FZo - Bel STi right next to Spectre

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jUg2p...eature=related - 8500 x50 next to spectre

the spectre can pick up RD's from over 1000 feet away so a leo can sit there with no radar on running his spectre

 

yes i am fully aware of that fact. I also felt more conformable possibly destroying a 8500 than one of those 3 =) in VA its a ~90$ ticket for a detector. a gamble that may be worth it to some (myself being one of those) as opposed to getting a speeding ticket that is not only more expensive but carries points. if your alone on the road then spectre (and radar for that matter) can certainly catch you but if your not alone then it is a bit harder to pick out which car has it until you are particularly close. detectors tend to give off false KA band alerts when they see RDDs. one of the main reasons i chose the on/off locations was that i drive with my right hand down in the center console area to easily toggle it off as needed (which is anytime i get close to a police vehical). I appeciate you pointing that out to help others that read this thread and would assume just becuase you can't see it doesn't mean they can't see you.

 

haha wow, real impressed, awesome work

 

Np just tryin to help out

 

Very nice!

Does your GPS lockout feature still work?

 

8550 doesn't have a gps feature.

as for multimeter use i circled the connections i had to solder to get run the buttons back

here are the points i had to desolder to get teh board off

 

Your pictures are great thanks. So I am slowly bringing this together. Lets start with the switches. On the x50 starting from left to right it has city/highway, dim and then mute. If i were to run wire from the circuit board, two per switch to the places you circled and connect the other side of the wires to a switch would I gain full control of the functions? I dont care to have a switch for dimming...so I figure I just need one for city/highway and one for mute. Then another wire to connect to power. How do I hardwire it into the power? As for the lcd screen I assume the 6 connections are straight on...did I get everything? oh were the sensors left of the circuit board?

 

Very nice install

 

there are 3 buttons in that last pic. 1st is city second is dim and the 3rd is mute. city & dim held together gets me into the settings menu so i made sure to bring them both back. the hardwire install kit that you can buy for $29 for escorts has mute built into it. i have 3 sets of wires running back. the 1st is the hardwire one from the kit i bought. it is a black 4 strand cord. i have 2 more wires (both 6 strand phone cords) running back also. 6 for the display on 1 set of wires. The other 6 strand wire is: 2 for city, 2 for dim and 2 for speakers. I found later on that the escorts buttons are super sensitive and i had to run a seperate wire pair back for the speaker since it would cause interference if it was in the same bundle as the wires for the switches.
You would then connect the wires to momentarty switches that are usually open. I grabbed a set from radioshack without checking and bought some that were usually closed (completed circuit) and it took me an hour to figure out what was wrong.

 

OK that break down made a lot of sense. And I know exactly what you mean about the temporary on switches. Basically I want ones that will only temporarily complete the circuit. As far as the mute button is concerned, I think going with the hardwire cable is a good idea because I can kill two birds with one stone. What about the actual sensors? Are they staying with the circuit board up in the front of the car? Any chance of me moving just the sensors to the front of the car that way I can keep the circuit board in the car with the little speaker. Id rather not have to hook up another speaker.

 

BUMP. Read my last post please. Thanks

 

From what I can see in the previously posted picture, the sensors look pretty integrated into the circuit board. Speakers are really easy to come by, just grab something from an old set of computer speakers and wire it up.

 

correct, the sensors are heavily married to the board and not really removable. the large pewter colored metal block in the pics is the sensor unit. the speaker is only 2 wires and was teh easiest solder point out of them all. I used a old headphone speaker and ran it to the spot where the blue tooth speaker is.

as for detection; i drove 1000 miles this past weekend and it SAVED my *** big time. detection sensitivity on the highway give a very adequate amount of time to slow down. The poor guy in a VW that was following me down the highway didn't take the hint when i braked hard and he got pulled over.

 

Wow that is a clean install. How good is the passport 8500? I want to get one and dont know which one to get