Yes...before you chop, take the end that plugs into your detector and take a multimeter on DC VOLTAGE and test it. If it gives you 12V, go ahead and chop.

 

I wasn't referring to the actual cigarette lighter plug, just the cable coming off the plug. If you just chopped that cable and plugged it straight to the 12v that could fry the detector.

Look at the detector, should say near the plug what voltage the input needs to be, as well as whether the tip or ring is +/-

 

Cool, I'll test it out tonight. I think I'm going to rewire all my accessories while I'm rewiring this as well. I have fog lights and my amp remote wire hooked up to the radio accessory power and I was thinking of wiring the detector to that as well. To clean things up I'm going to buy two terminal strips and run everything off of that (one for ground, another for power). Of course I'll test to make sure I don't have a huge voltage loss over the terminal strips. This will help me wire everything I have now, and also my gauges when I am able to order them.

 

Updating ... I rewired everything last night. I pulled accessory power from my radio harness and connected it to a terminal strip and put a 30amp fuse inline. I figured putting the fuse holder inline to the terminal strip would cover me for all my accessories, instead of just the radar detector. I then wired my fog lights and radar detector to the strip, and they both work beautifully. Those wires for the detector were super small gauge, something around 24 or 26. I'm very happy with the results and it should be pretty easy to install additional items in the future now.

 

Are you gonna do a How To? Post pics perhaps?

 

I guess I can, it's pretty easy overall to do. I'm out of town this weekend and the car is going to the dealership for possible warranty work. That's why I had to get everything done last night because I have the whole interior torn apart and wires were going everywhere. I'll take some pictures when I get the car back, which should be Tuesday or Wednesday.

 

Mine is hardwired into my ignition wire I spent the extra 30 bucks and got the actual hardwireing kit so that it all fit right etc and then just followed the dirrections on the box.

 

Does anyone have a pic or diagram of the switched output on the fuse box?

 

I don't have a diagram, but I know I didn't have trouble finding one that worked. You can wire it up with a blade fuse breakout wire that ends around the fusebox and then do trial and error if you like until you find one that works. The spots are labeled too, so if it says, Radio, or something, it's probably a fair bet that it's an appropriate choice.
-N

 

I thought when I was installing my hu that it said only to run certain things off that accessory wire, I could be wrong but could somebody verify that

 

What type of plug does it take? Spade or whatever theyre called?

 

It's not like there's going to be a spot for radar detectors. You just put it into a circuit that turns on and off appropriately. The radar detector itself is not a huge current draw, so it can piggyback off any circuit without affecting it.
-N

 

here is what i was thinking of doing...having the radar detector as high on the windshield is the best place...i am going to run the wire along the roof panel toward the drivers side a-panel and then drop it down behind the dash.

i bought a accessory ciggarette lighter adapter that will piggy back off your original ciggarrete lighter...then you don't have to cut the plug since you will have an additional behind the dash now

i need to do that cause i hate switching my cigarrette lighter adapters between my phone and radar detector

best of luck

 

Hold up there buddy i have the ultimate solution for you all. I mounted mine in the middle of the windshield in the middle. Look at where the air comes out of the vent for the windshield. You see the plastic square thing there?? take a flat head screw driver and pry it off stick you wire in therre and put the plastic thing back in there. Then simply run it to your fuse box behind the dash. What i did is look in the manual find the fuse that goes with the cigarette lighter because its on when the car is turned on. Put the power wire into the fuse socket and put the fuse back into place so it holds the wire. now just ground the ground wire anywhere you want. Now you have no wire showing and the radar detector goes on everytime the car turn on. its the perfect setup. Heres a pic on how the install looks. Sorry i dont have a good pic but you can see i only have about 2 inches of wire showing.

 

i recommend do not do any wiring and plug it into the Cigarrett lighter.

My past experience was ticket just because i was not able to hide it when cop pulled me over.