Uniden R1/R3 Hardwire Mute Button/Alert LED Center Console Mod

[johnjph]

Hello Ladysi

I am really impressed at the hard wire install of the Uniden R3. I am trying to do a hard wire install of the R3 in my MB GL450. I have a few questions.
1. Is the circuit board inside the plastic housing of the RDA-HDWKT really necessary? - The reason I ask is, there is a wiring kit being sold by safe-n-sound that claims the same functions of your mod without the circuit board.
2. is the voltage at the RJ-11 going into the R3 12V?
3. I really like the switch/light combo you used. Can you simplify the wiring diagram and tell me where the Red, Black. Green & Blue wires go on the switch? This would really help me understand the wiring.
I have to be VERY careful on my GL450 because all Power wires are constant on and only very few wires are Key on. And are very sensitive to any accessories that are added to the existing wiring. Any info you can give me would be very appreciated!

http://www.safe-n-sound1.com/uniden Direct Cord Flat Mute.html

The above link is the wire harness that has no circuit board and he claims that his button switch cycles through the Menu like yours does... So i am a little confused.

Thanks in advance for your help!

Sponsored

 

[ladysi]

Hello Ladysi

I am really impressed at the hard wire install of the Uniden R3. I am trying to do a hard wire install of the R3 in my MB GL450. I have a few questions.
1. Is the circuit board inside the plastic housing of the RDA-HDWKT really necessary? - The reason I ask is, there is a wiring kit being sold by safe-n-sound that claims the same functions of your mod without the circuit board.
2. is the voltage at the RJ-11 going into the R3 12V?
3. I really like the switch/light combo you used. Can you simplify the wiring diagram and tell me where the Red, Black. Green & Blue wires go on the switch? This would really help me understand the wiring.
I have to be VERY careful on my GL450 because all Power wires are constant on and only very few wires are Key on. And are very sensitive to any accessories that are added to the existing wiring. Any info you can give me would be very appreciated!

http://www.safe-n-sound1.com/uniden Direct Cord Flat Mute.html

The above link is the wire harness that has no circuit board and he claims that his button switch cycles through the Menu like yours does... So i am a little confused.

Thanks in advance for your help!

@johnjph Thanks reading my long winded post. Answers below:

1. It is not necessary. The break out box was from my first (and failed) attempt. The much simpler process can be found after the "BUT, I WAS NOT SATISFIED" part of my long post. I ditched the box and just tapped into the pins from the RJ11 cable.

2. The power pin is absolutely 12v, though with a long cable run to the led/switch, there is enough voltage drop where a 3-6v led switch works just fine.

3. The switch I got did not have documentation and all the pins were the same length. That is why I used a 12v power supply and tested it on my bench first, soldering and labeling the cables to the switch pins. There should be a very low risk of damaging your R3 if you test this way.


Also:

You don't want the R3 to have power when ignition is off. Tap the 12v line to Accessory so that it does not act as a parasitic drain on your battery. Also, you may want to throw a switch on the ground or 12v line like I did in order to have manual control when it is powered up, even after Accessory is powered.

The hardwire cable you posted should work, though you are better off rolling your own if you want to use the adafruit switch. Also, it you mount the button in your center console, make sure to use some type of quick connect/disconnect wire harness (like the video card power harness I used) so you don't have to remove the button in order to remove the center console.

Let me know if you need any other assistance, Cheers!

EDIT: The cycling through brightness modes is triggered with long presses on the momentary button, muting/unmuting is triggered by a short press. These functions are default provided by the R3 unit. The breakout box from the early portion of my post ended up being entirely useless (ignore that portion of my post).

 

[sLing]

Protip if you use the fuse for the window you can turn off the radar detector by locking the window.

 

[AlphaDigital]

That wiring looks crazy and gives me anxiety haha. I plan on doing something similar down the road, would like to pull the trigger on the R7. How do you like the R3?

 

[ladysi]

That wiring looks crazy and gives me anxiety haha. I plan on doing something similar down the road, would like to pull the trigger on the R7. How do you like the R3?

lol. The wiring has been cleaned up a bit since these photos from last summer, but yeah, it still gives me anxiety. There is just not enough room under the dash for all my mad scientist hacks. At least I am done with the driver's side wiring so next summer I can start to really clean it up and get shit labeled and wires cut to the right lengths.

I really like the R3. I tested a Valentine and an Escort against the R3 and I found that the R3 has the best range for Ka band. The gps lockout features are nice, but I only use it for a few key locations in my city where there are known noisy false positives. The hardwire/button/led circuit is simple, and the detector has a dark mode and silent mode, so it meets all my requirements. K band is nearly useless with all of the newer sensing tech on the roads, and laser detection is more of an "oh shit, better get ready to pull over" signal than a mitigation. But bang for buck, the R3 is best in class imho.

 

[ladysi]

Protip if you use the fuse for the window you can turn off the radar detector by locking the window.

This is a great idea for those that don't want to add a button to a blank or drill holes in their dash. Does the window lock button cut power to the window circuit? if so, then this would work fine!

 

[rwsmith123]

I had an idea for hardwiring an R3, use an arduino nano and an MCP2515 to scan the car's CAN bus for the code that a particular steering wheel button was pressed to use as the mute button. And with the nano it would be easy to tell the severity of the alert by the time between pulses on the alert line from the R3. You can then do some more interesting stuff other than blink a single led when you get an alert, for example you could have an RGB LED and change the color of it based on the severity of the alert. Here's a video of a bench test I did of that, the LED will light up as blue, cyan, green, yellow or red depending on if the alert is showing 1, 2, 3, 4 or 5 bars. However it needs 2 pulses on the alert line to determine the timing between them, so on the very first pulse it will light up purple until the second pulse comes in.

 

[ladysi]

(Coming back to this now that it is warmer outside and I can think about car work.)

I had an idea for hardwiring an R3, use an arduino nano and an MCP2515 to scan the car's CAN bus for the code that a particular steering wheel button was pressed to use as the mute button. And with the nano it would be easy to tell the severity of the alert by the time between pulses on the alert line from the R3. You can then do some more interesting stuff other than blink a single led when you get an alert, for example you could have an RGB LED and change the color of it based on the severity of the alert. Here's a video of a bench test I did of that, the LED will light up as blue, cyan, green, yellow or red depending on if the alert is showing 1, 2, 3, 4 or 5 bars. However it needs 2 pulses on the alert line to determine the timing between them, so on the very first pulse it will light up purple until the second pulse comes in.

This is neat, and would go a long way to giving you a full stealth option for the detector. Where did you put the led in your car?

 

[rwsmith123]

It's still in the experimental stage. It works pretty well but the downsides are that the detector will blink the LED on the smart cord even if the the alert is muted, since this is a lot more attention grabbing than the LED on the smart cord it can get annoying. The NeoPixels can be dimmed, full brightness during the day is good, at night they need to be turned down to about 10% of full brightness, currently I switch between modes by pressing the reset button on the Arduino. If I was to develop it further I would see if I could get the external light level from the cars sensor on the CAN bus or the current time if the light level isn't available. I really want to get the Radenso Theia when it comes out if it lives up to the hype and I got the R3 to hold me over until then so I'm probably not going to do much more with it.

I had a strip that had 4 of NeoPixels so I used that (was thinking of having the number of led's that light up based on signal strength), and I 3d printed a cover over it to diffuse the light and give a more uniform look)

This is a 12v to usb adaptor that I got at the dollar store and hacked it to power the detector with with the 12v and the Arduino Nano with the 5v:

This is the sketch for the Arduino:

//For the neopixels
#include <Adafruit_NeoPixel.h>
#ifdef __AVR__
  #include <avr/power.h>
#endif

const byte numNeoPixels = 4;
const byte neoPixelPin = 5;
Adafruit_NeoPixel strip = Adafruit_NeoPixel(numNeoPixels, neoPixelPin, NEO_GRB + NEO_KHZ800);

/* Measure timings between blips
 *  Alert level 1 : 1530-1531
 *  Alert level 2 : 568-569
 *  Alert level 3 : 247-248
 *  Alert level 4 : 127-128
 *  Alert level 5 : 96-98
 */
const unsigned int alertLevel5Threshold=110;
const unsigned int alertLevel4Threshold=140;
const unsigned int alertLevel3Threshold=260;
const unsigned int alertLevel2Threshold=580;
const unsigned int alertLevel1Threshold=1550;
const unsigned int noAlertThreshold=2500;
int currentAlertLevel=-2;
int previousAlertLevel=-2;

uint32_t pixelColor[7];

//const byte ledPin = 13;  // LED is attached to digital pin 13
const byte alertPin = 2;

const unsigned long debounceMillis=10;
volatile unsigned long lastBlipMillis=0;
volatile unsigned long previousBlipMillis=0;
volatile boolean newBlip=false;

const byte NUMBER_OF_MODES = 4;
__attribute__((section(".noinit"))) byte mode;
//byte mode=0;
byte dimLevel=0;
boolean barStyle=false;

void setup()
{
   if (++mode >= NUMBER_OF_MODES) mode = 0;
  
   //pinMode(ledPin, OUTPUT);
   pinMode(alertPin, INPUT_PULLUP);
   attachInterrupt(digitalPinToInterrupt(alertPin), blipISR, FALLING);

   //For neoPixels
   //pixelColor[2]=strip.Color(0x00, 0xff, 0xff); //Cyan

   pixelColor[0]=strip.Color(0xff, 0x66, 0x00); //Orange
   pixelColor[1]=strip.Color(0x00, 0xff, 0x00); //Green
   pixelColor[2]=strip.Color(0x00, 0x00, 0xff); //Blue
   pixelColor[3]=strip.Color(0xff, 0xff, 0x00); //Yellow
   pixelColor[4]=strip.Color(0xff, 0x00, 0xff); //Purple/Fuscia 
   pixelColor[5]=strip.Color(0xff, 0x00, 0x00); //Red
   pixelColor[6]=strip.Color(0x00, 0x00, 0x00); //Off
   strip.begin();
  
   if (mode == 0)
   {
     strip.setBrightness(100);
     barStyle=false;
   }
   else if (mode == 1)
   {
     strip.setBrightness(16);
     barStyle=false;
   }
   else if (mode == 2)
   {
     strip.setBrightness(100);
     barStyle=true;
   }
   else
   {
     strip.setBrightness(32);
     barStyle=true;
   }

   if (barStyle)
   {
     strip.setPixelColor(3, pixelColor[1]);  //green
     strip.setPixelColor(2, pixelColor[2]);  //blue
     strip.setPixelColor(1, pixelColor[4]);  //purple
     strip.setPixelColor(0, pixelColor[5]);  //red
   }
   else
     for(byte i=0; i<numNeoPixels; i++)
       strip.setPixelColor(i, pixelColor[5]);

   strip.show();
  
   Serial.begin(115200);  //turn on serial communication
}


void loop()
{
  if (newBlip)
  {
    if ((millis()-lastBlipMillis) < debounceMillis)
      return;
  
    byte val = digitalRead(alertPin);   // read the input pin

    if (val == LOW) //Then it probably wasn't a glitch
    {
      previousAlertLevel=currentAlertLevel;
      unsigned long diff = lastBlipMillis - previousBlipMillis;
      if (diff < alertLevel5Threshold)
        currentAlertLevel=5;
      else if (diff < alertLevel4Threshold)
        currentAlertLevel=4;
      else if (diff < alertLevel3Threshold)
        currentAlertLevel=3;
      else if (diff < alertLevel2Threshold)
        currentAlertLevel=2;
      else if (diff < alertLevel1Threshold)
        currentAlertLevel=1;
      else
        currentAlertLevel=0; //Alert level 0 is the first blip of an alert, need 2 blips to determine true alert level

      Serial.print("New blip, ");
      printInfo();

      changeNeoPixels();
      
    } //End if(val==LOW)

    newBlip=false;
    
  } //End if(newBlip)
  else if ((millis()-lastBlipMillis) > noAlertThreshold)
  {
    if (newBlip == false)
    {
      //Serial.print("clear alert ");
      //printInfo();
      previousAlertLevel=currentAlertLevel;
      currentAlertLevel=-1;

      changeNeoPixels();
    }
  }

} //End loop


void changeNeoPixels()
{
  //If alert level has changed, then change the neopixels
  if (currentAlertLevel != previousAlertLevel)
  { 
    Serial.print("Changing neopixels, ");
    printInfo();
    
    //Turn pixel on with color based on alert level
    if (!barStyle)
    {
      if (currentAlertLevel == -1)
        for(byte i=0; i<numNeoPixels; i++)
          strip.setPixelColor(i, pixelColor[6]); //off
      else
        for(byte i=0; i<numNeoPixels; i++)
          strip.setPixelColor(i, pixelColor[currentAlertLevel]);
    }
    else
    {
      if (currentAlertLevel == 0)
      {
        strip.setPixelColor(3, pixelColor[0]);
        strip.setPixelColor(2, pixelColor[0]);
        strip.setPixelColor(1, pixelColor[0]);
        strip.setPixelColor(0, pixelColor[0]);
      }
      else if (currentAlertLevel == 1)
      {
        strip.setPixelColor(3, pixelColor[1]); //green
        strip.setPixelColor(2, pixelColor[6]);
        strip.setPixelColor(1, pixelColor[6]);
        strip.setPixelColor(0, pixelColor[6]);
      }
      else if (currentAlertLevel == 2)
      {
        strip.setPixelColor(3, pixelColor[1]); //green
        strip.setPixelColor(2, pixelColor[2]); //blue
        strip.setPixelColor(1, pixelColor[6]);
        strip.setPixelColor(0, pixelColor[6]);
      }
      else if (currentAlertLevel == 3)
      {
        strip.setPixelColor(3, pixelColor[1]);  //green
        strip.setPixelColor(2, pixelColor[2]);  //blue
        strip.setPixelColor(1, pixelColor[4]);  //purple
        strip.setPixelColor(0, pixelColor[6]);
      }
      else if (currentAlertLevel == 4)
      {
        strip.setPixelColor(3, pixelColor[1]);  //green
        strip.setPixelColor(2, pixelColor[2]);  //blue
        strip.setPixelColor(1, pixelColor[4]);  //purple
        strip.setPixelColor(0, pixelColor[5]);  //red
      }
      else if (currentAlertLevel == 5)
      {
        strip.setPixelColor(3, pixelColor[5]);  //red
        strip.setPixelColor(2, pixelColor[5]);  //red
        strip.setPixelColor(1, pixelColor[5]);  //red
        strip.setPixelColor(0, pixelColor[5]);  //red
      }
      else
      {
        strip.setPixelColor(3, pixelColor[6]); //off
        strip.setPixelColor(2, pixelColor[6]);
        strip.setPixelColor(1, pixelColor[6]);
        strip.setPixelColor(0, pixelColor[6]);
      }
    }
    strip.show();
  }
}


void printInfo()
{
  Serial.print("current=");
  Serial.print(millis());
  Serial.print(" prev=");
  Serial.print(previousBlipMillis);
  Serial.print(" last=");
  Serial.print(lastBlipMillis);
  Serial.print(" diff=");
  Serial.print(lastBlipMillis-previousBlipMillis);
  Serial.print(" lastAlert=");
  Serial.print(previousAlertLevel);
  Serial.print(" curAlert=");
  Serial.println(currentAlertLevel);
}

void blipISR()
{
  previousBlipMillis=lastBlipMillis;
  lastBlipMillis=millis();
  newBlip=true;
}

 

[ebatr24]

Reviving this thread for anyone considering it and wanting a simple way to do it. I bought the safe n sounds hard wire kit with a red LED. Cut the button and LED off, then stripped the wire back attaching those to the button. Made it easy after a little testing for the mute button.

 

[ladysi]

Reviving this thread for anyone considering it and wanting a simple way to do it. I bought the safe n sounds hard wire kit with a red LED. Cut the button and LED off, then stripped the wire back attaching those to the button. Made it easy after a little testing for the mute button.

Nice job keeping it off the mirror! clean af.

 

[SI(ck)Civic]

Can someone just explain what you’re wiring. It looks awesome, the button is super clean. Wiring looks doable if you enjoy things like that (which I do), but I’ve just got no idea what the heck the end result is for???
Is it a tuner? What is the ‘mute’ bottom for? And most importantly, does the screen warn you if there’s danger to the manifold?!?!?

 

[ebatr24]

Nice job keeping it off the mirror! clean af.

temporary, but I do want to build a bracket now to push the radar forward a bit just enough so the red light can still shine down. I enjoy it now being off the windshield as it is invisible from the outside of the car thanks to my vinyl banner.

 

[ladysi]

Can someone just explain what you’re wiring. It looks awesome, the button is super clean. Wiring looks doable if you enjoy things like that (which I do), but I’ve just got no idea what the heck the end result is for???
Is it a tuner? What is the ‘mute’ bottom for? And most importantly, does the screen warn you if there’s danger to the manifold?!?!?

I don't know if you are being sarcastic or not, but I will give you the benefit of the doubt.
These are mute/dim buttons for a radar detector. usually you need to hit a button on the detector, but hardwiring a button other places is much more convenient. I added my button to the center console, just right of the stick so I don't have to let go of the stick to mute the radar detector alerts.

 

[CopperPeacock]

Can someone just explain what you’re wiring. It looks awesome, the button is super clean. Wiring looks doable if you enjoy things like that (which I do), but I’ve just got no idea what the heck the end result is for???
Is it a tuner? What is the ‘mute’ bottom for? And most importantly, does the screen warn you if there’s danger to the manifold?!?!?

It's a radar detector.

So you don't get caught doin the big zoomies.

Sponsored