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remote led display for radar detector

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walt steele

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I use a radar detector on my motorcycle, but it's hard to hear above the wind noise. The solution I am working on is a remote LED display unit that would plug into a audio output taken directly off the speaker wires to an audio output jack then on to the remote LED display. I am thinking that the remote unit could be powered off the 12v going into the radar detector via a separate wire as opposed to batteries which could expire at an inopportune moment. The whole unit needs to be relatively compact, robust, and efficient. It would be acceptable for the LEDs to react in direct correlation to the audio signal. I am not up to speed on specific types of LEDs. What would be the brightest types that would provide the best performance in daylight conditions? I have already built a simple led array, but would like some guidance on triggering it off the audio output of the detector. Diagrams/schematics that would guide me in the right general directions would be a big help.
 
heya walt...cool idea!

As far as the LED type, I would suggest a colored LED such as red, green, or blue. Depending on if you're colorblind and what contrasts with the sunlight the best with your eyes. I suppose red is a good place to start. Obviously yellow or orange wont do so well here. Green and blue may be middle ground. Also, your bike's paint scheme could play a part here. Obviously, a red LED with a red painted background won't contrast very well. So on and so forth.

I'm thinking that a "superbright" LED might be a good place to start. I don't think a regular LED would work very well, unless you're constantly glancing at it, but problems arise from the lack of attention to the road :shock:

Regarding your remote LED statement. I might have a different definition of remote, so...what do you mean by remote? Is this a unit that is completely seperate from your detector, such as a transmitter and receiver? or is this a hardwire approach where the sound output of your detector lights an LED through a hardwire?

I'm assuming that your detector has a different tone based on the gauge of the "threat"? What I'm trying to get at is when you are being clocked, the detector would be going crazy? Conversely, when you aren't being clocked, but someone ahead of you is, the detector would be semi active etc etc? So when you speak of an LED array, I'm thinking that you want to light 1 led for a minor threat, on up to lighting all LED's for an extreme threat? We could use a simple Vu meter circuit to do this, LM3915. This circuit would be similar to the bar graph display on amplifiers, stereos, etc.

If the detector isn't tone based, but rather tone rate based (beeps once for minor threat, beeps many times for an immediate threat etc), things may get a little tricky using an array scale as mentioned in the above paragraph.

I know this isn't much help, but knowing this stuff will help us to figure out what exactly you're trying to do, and thus, give you a good start. Have a good one!
 
Does your detector use different tones for different types of warnings and signals? If it does you might be able to make a filter for the proper frequency so it turnes on the specific LED when the right frequency is played.

I know the one I have in my car has 8 LED's. The first two tell what band it's picking up, one for X, One for K and then both for KA. The next one is just a power on. The next four are signal strength indicators. and the last one just shows its working in city mode.

I know you didn't want to use batteries, but if you can't get this to work right, and a safer alternative to constantly looking down would probably be to replace the speaker in the detector with a small transmitter and put a receiver in your helmet. I don't know if your forced to wear a helmet where you are but it's mandatory here and not in the next state over
 
Thanks for the interesting replies guys. I'll attempt to answer your questions. The remote would be a remote in the sense that the detector would be mounted in the best possible location available on the bike, while the remote unit could be small enough to be mounted in a location closer to my line of vision without obstructing it or being uneccessarily distracting. It would be connected via an standard audio jack and wire similar to that on walkman or other device. Yes, the radar detector has different sound rates and volumes for various threats. However, I am not interested at this time in having my remote LED's reflect different warning types. I simply would like to see some really bright LEDs flashing at me ANY time the detector is going off. I plan on using my own discernment based on experience as to whether or not the alarm is for a serious threat. I can also at that point glance down at the detector's display to get threat details once the remote has grabbed my attention. So, in summary, I'm trying to keep the device as simple and effective as possible. When the radar dector goes "screamy-screamy" the remote LED unit would go "flashy-flashy". No bells or whistles. Hope this helps, and thanks again for your help.

Walt
 
bump :D

Hey, I'm looking to do something similar, but I'm very bad with circuitry (only simple mechanical wiring systems). Anyway, has anyone figured this out, b/c I'd really like to do this.

I've had 2 cops pull me over due to my music being too loud for me to hear the audible warning. The only problem I have is I have a talking detector so it'd need to be hooked to something besides the speaker, but still be able to turn off when I hit the mute button (so it doesn't blind me on a false alert.) Anyone have any ideas or suggestions?
 
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