So this might not be audio and security, but it has to do with wiring. I have my radar detector on my dashboard, with the wire draping in front of my dash into the cig lighter. My question is this: Is there a way to route the wire behind or through the top of the dash (without drilling) and route the wire underneith to the cig lighter?

 

I would run it along the right side of the Steering column. Then under the rest of the dash to the power supply.

 

I would run it along the top of the dash (hide it in front of the defrost vents) and dump the wire down the hole at the bottom of the A-pillar. Then you'll be right at the fusebox.

 

Damn, good idea, but I'll take it to the passenger side, put it behind the glovebox, and out into the cig lighter. Hopefully the cord is long enough.

 

I hardwired mine into my car. I ran the cord down the edge of the dash, behind the rubber trim, down to the fusebox, where I plugged it into a fuse slot that is switched by the ignition. The ground wire I ran over to a handy ground point about a foot away from the fusebox, on the driver's side.

 

Mine doesn't plug into a fuse, it uses a cig lighter adapter. Is there a way to cut the plug off, put on the fuse adapter you speak of, and keep it safe? I ran the wire last night and it looks pretty good. The card wasn't long enough to tuck it completely under the edge of the dash, but most of it is there.

 

best way to do detectors is get a visor mount for it, put it on your visor and run the wire down your a-pillar and hardwire it to switched power from your cigarette lighter or deck hope this gives you some ideas.

 

I've got mine velcro'd to the dash beside the drivers A pillar. A wire runs down there to my kick panel where it's soldered to the accessory wire and is grounded.

 

Sure. Cut off the plug, splice an inline fuse holder onto the positive wire, splice a regular wire onto the negative wire, put a crimp-on eye on the negative wire, attach to ground. Crimp on a small eye onto the positive wire, squish it down flat with pliers, and plug it into an open slot in the fusebox that switches on with the ignition.

Sounds complicated, but it's really not. I can take pics of my install, if you'd like.

 

I hardwired mine from the circuit box up the left pillar, under the ceiling cover coming out just behing the rearview mirror, this way it hides the detector a bit.

 

Hook me up with pictures, I love pictures of custom work, and this is something I am really considering doing. It will free up my cig lighter, and look 10 times cleaner that the cord being stretched all the way around the dash and behind the glovebox.

Good idea, my roommate did the same thing, but kept his wired to the cig lighter. Unfortunately my window mount broke, so I have to keep it on the dash.

 

Here's what I did

 

Be very careful with this method as some have a transformer built in to the cigarette lighter plug and operate on a lower voltage. 12V could fry it.

 

Any way to tell this when you don't have the box and instructions for the detector?

 

This sounds off... I've never heard of a cigarette lighter that didn't operate 12V. Stuff in cars is nearly always 12V because it's just too much work to use transformers everywhere for different voltages. Can you give any example of a vehicle with a non-12V cigarette lighter that would inherently be inappropriate to power any power accessories?
-N