I'm looking to hardwire my Valentine 1 to my 08. I'm not an electrician but can work my way around a soldering iron. My goal is to make the detector automatically come on when the car is started. I have heard people wire them to an empty fuse location but do not understand how that works. I also have another approach. Install this:

https://store.valentine1.com/store/closeup_20220.asp

but i am not sure if the power is still live on this switch when the car is off. Any input/thoughts on the best way to hardwire this is appreciated.

Thanks

 

You can go to the fusebox, the radio, the ignition colum, there are lots of places depending on where everything is being mounted. Most of the time when people go to the fusebox they just tape one end of an existing fuse by sticking a piece of wire in with the end of the fuse. Its ugly but its easy....

 

My biggest problem is that I don't have one of the testers to see if the wire is live and almost everywhere I have checked so far has power even when the car is off. Ideally I would like my device to lose power when the car is shutoff and then be re powered when I turn the car on

 

a test light/voltage tester can be found for less then $10 and if you are doing wiring you will need one.

 

Page 13: http://iihs.net/fsm/?dir=40&viewfile...bution-SJB.pdf

Fuse 12, 14, 16, 17, 18, and 19. Just realize what your using a fuse-tap off of, and that the SJB isn't really made for powering much beyond what it already does. I think the V1 will be like a light draw of 1 to 2amps, so you should be ok, just swap out the 5amp fuse for a 10 on F16 for example, as that powers the cluster.

All of those will be hot only in start and run conditions. An unused one would be ideal, but I don't believe there is one that is empty for what you want. Only a couple that are hot just in start.

Use the mystical owners manual under the indexed "fuse" section to find. Page 190-191 in my own.

 

NEVER swap out a fuse for a larger one this can cause HUGE and $$$$ repairs later. One side of the fuse will have power on it if the fuse is there or not and the other side will not. To correctly integrate that you really should hit an ignition wire somewhere but if you are just going to tap the fuse there is no reason to upgrade the fuse rating. The power wire you are running for the radar should have a fuse on it somewhere preferably as close to the power source as possible.

 

FTLOG. Same circuit. View the diagram. Upping to 10 on that particular fuse from that circuit will not cause an issue, so long as that is all it will require. The cluster will draw near the 5 max, tapping in this case using the existing will probably pop it when both are in use. If sufficiently paranoid, slightly lower 7 or 8 can be used should it blow, as I'm fairly confident it will.

If you wanted to "correctly" integrate, then a relay would be used if it's over a couple of amp draw, rather than splicing or tapping existing wiring when possible IMO.

 

The radar will have a fuse located about 1 inch from the power source. If tapping a fuse could cause potential problems in the future, what would be the "ideal" way to hard wire an accessory?

 

the best way to tap the signal would be to either hit the switched wire behind the radio(depending on which car we are talking about) or the ignintion wire in the steering colum. They make pieces to help tap a fuse at autoparts stores that makes it cleaner then just sticking the wire in if that is the way you end up going.

 

This will be in my 08. So it is better to tap a fuse then to tap a wire