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

ladysi said:

I got some extra 3m tape. Come to MN, buy me a stout and a scotch, and I will assist the rewire

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3M tape in Minnesota??? No way.

ladysi said:

Well, it would give you a reason to knock out half of the cannonball run

I would love to see some pics of how you cleaned it all up in the end

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Challenge accepted. Time to do some excessive wire cutting, rewiring and cable tying... once my stretch of work is over....

ToastedSi said:

Challenge accepted. Time to do some excessive wire cutting, rewiring and cable tying... once my stretch of work is over....

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Yay!

Good info. A friend of mine wanted some advice on a radar detector so I’ve been looking at different ones and it got me inspired to upgrade my ancient Beltronics. I haven’t even decided what brand I’m going to get but after seeing a lot of them have remote mute, I was already thinking about where I was going to put my button! ?

Your solution looks so clean and good. I don't have the know how to do all that so this was my solution.

rwsmith123 said:

Good info. A friend of mine wanted some advice on a radar detector so I’ve been looking at different ones and it got me inspired to upgrade my ancient Beltronics. I haven’t even decided what brand I’m going to get but after seeing a lot of them have remote mute, I was already thinking about where I was going to put my button! ?

Click to expand...

Good luck! I tested a number of different radar detectors (temporary loans from friends), aaaaaand found the uniden to have the best Ka band detection range. Most cops in MN use Ka, so it was a no brainier. On open roads I get a mile+ advance watching of radar, downtown I get a few blocks.

quitethechoi said:

Your solution looks so clean and good. I don't have the know how to do all that so this was my solution.

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Not bad! That was my original plan before I realized I had to pull apart thre center console for the console illumination mod.... I figured if everything was getting disassembled, might as well install a button.....

ladysi said:

Good luck! I tested a number of different radar detectors (temporary loans from friends), aaaaaand found the uniden to have the best Ka band detection range. Most cops in MN use Ka, so it was a no brainier. On open roads I get a mile+ advance watching of radar, downtown I get a few blocks.

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Have you seen the info on the Radenso Theia? Holy crap, if it lives up to the hype it's not going to need a mute button!

I just came up with a cool idea:
Have a black box connected to the accessory connector, the male connector for it is available on ebay, so no wire splicing is needed.
https://www.civicx.com/forum/threads/what-is-this-next-to-fuse-box.21191/

The output of the black box are the 4 wires to the detector.

Now the cool part, the black box would have a microcontroller and other bits to read/write the CAN bus. Then on the head unit you have a program that can also read/write the CAN bus. You can then assign one of the steering wheel (or head unit) buttons to send a command to the black box to mute the detector.

The black box wouldn't be too much work, that's been done before. The hard part would be to figure out how to read/write the CAN bus on the head unit. However, once that is figured out you would also be able to do some other cool stuff like display on the head unit all the information you could get from an OBDII device without having to use an OBDII device. You would also be able to display info that you could figure out that isn't available through OBDII, for example you can get the speed for each individual tire.

And the blackbox could do other stuff, for example having the horn honk when doors are locked, and that could be done without any additional wiring.

I guess I have my next project lined up when I get bored.

Looking into this more it looks like the steering wheel buttons already send a CAN message on the bcan bus, so wouldn’t need to do anything with the head unit.

ladysi said:

Also, I believe the escort pinout is very similar and just as STUPID FUCKING SIMPLE.

So you could just bypass the smart cord and do a direct hardwire with the escort

EDIT: If you do do this, make sure to fuse the 12v line... also, I would test first with a low amp 12v supply, your button, and some old phone cable.

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Reviving an old thread here, sorry!

I'm curious to try this mod for my Beltronics detector, which is essentially an Escort, the cords are the same in my experience. I currently have the 'SmartCord' hardwire kit. I'm not an electrical guy, but I know my way around basic circuits from an intro course for my undergrad ME degree.

I assume I need all the same resistors, and the LED/switch are from the button right? What is the part labeled 2N3904?

I'm a little confused on how to use this wiring diagram to wire up the Adafruit button.

IByrdl said:

Reviving an old thread here, sorry!

I'm curious to try this mod for my Beltronics detector, which is essentially an Escort, the cords are the same in my experience. I currently have the 'SmartCord' hardwire kit. I'm not an electrical guy, but I know my way around basic circuits from an intro course for my undergrad ME degree.

I assume I need all the same resistors, and the LED/switch are from the button right? What is the part labeled 2N3904?

I'm a little confused on how to use this wiring diagram to wire up the Adafruit button.

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Depends how careful and *ahem* correct you want to go. I ignored the capacitor, resister, and transistor in the mute switch/led diagram for the uniden. Honestly, I bet it would work if you did what I did, but swap pins 2 & 3 (12v and ground), though like my wiring, the button will stay lit and flash off and back on for alerts. Was good enough for me.

I would suggest testing it on a bench before wiring it up in the car.

ladysi said:

Depends how careful and *ahem* correct you want to go. I ignored the capacitor, resister, and transistor in the mute switch/led diagram for the uniden. Honestly, I bet it would work if you did what I did, but swap pins 2 & 3 (12v and ground), though like my wiring, the button will stay lit and flash off and back on for alerts. Was good enough for me.

I would suggest testing it on a bench before wiring it up in the car.

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I think I'm getting it. So in my instance, the NO1 terminal on the button would wire to the Y cable (pin 4), would the blue (pin 1) go to NC1 or C1?

IByrdl said:

I think I'm getting it. So in my instance, the NO1 terminal on the button would wire to the Y cable (pin 4), would the blue (pin 1) go to NC1 or C1?

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I am a bit confused by this circuit diagram. I assume you only have 4 active pins on the rj11 jack? Where did you get this schematic and how does it relate to the pins on the cable?

ladysi said:

I am a bit confused by this circuit diagram. I assume you only have 4 active pins on the rj11 jack? Where did you get this schematic and how does it relate to the pins on the cable?

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That was from the Adafruit button listing

IByrdl said:

That was from the Adafruit button listing

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NC1 and C1 should be the completed circuit when button is engaged. The button I got from them had the pins numbered, but did not have a datasheet. I think I just messed with the button pins and uniden wires (and a 12v ps) on my bench until I got it working as intended.