Modding a uniden 2500 radar detector into something useful

**ldnz** · 10th July 2006, 15:19

Hey all,
I've had some interest in the radar detector i've just fitted to my KR and thought i'd put some details up.

Now pretty much everyone i've talked to about radar detectors thinks you need to spend big money and get a top Bel/valentine etc if your going to bother at all. This is largely due to the cheap and crap unidens and so on that most boy racers have, which give heaps of false alarms, and are therefore no use. The big problem is that nearly all false alerts (except those caused by other detectors) are in the X and K bands. On the cheap detectors you can often only disable X, which still leaves you wide open to every automatic door opener/electric fence etc.

With the bike I wanted to mount the detector behind fairings, so it was out of sight (ish) and out of the weather. This is no use for warnings though, as the speaker is useless, and the lights are out of view. So I opened it up and noted that all the lights on the front are standard 3mm LED's. I soldered them all off, and soldered wires heading to a 9 pin old serial connector and sealed the detector shut with silicon.

The signal strength indicators I just ran straight to an LED bar graph, and stuck that to my windscreen in sight. The light that indicates band (X,K,Ka) was a 3 colour LED (essentially 2 led's side by side, giving green for X, orange for K[green and red], and Red for Ka). I only wanted to know about it when Ka went off, so I needed a circuit that checked both the red and the green lines, and turned on a bright red LED only when Ka went off. So I built a simple logic circuit and amplifier (which im happy to post, it uses about $3 worth of components) and hooked it up to a superbright red LED left over from building a brake light. Which I taped to my windscreen. Its impossible to miss this going off.

Having now done 500km's with it on, and only having one false alert (from another detector) I am very pleased with the result. Every alert gave plenty of warning had I been doing anything illegal, like safely overtaking. I borrowed a Bel x50, and ran them side by side for a while. The uniden is about half a second behind the Bel (which costs $800+) but the range was damn near identical.

Mounting was done with velcro, so it is all easily removed. The detector unplugs from the logic and lighting module quickly and easily. Tape provided water resistance.

Anyway I now have a $43 detector that performs alongside a Bel x50, but with a much better(brighter!) alerting system. Highly recommended, especially as there are plenty of these unidens floating around on trademe for <$50.

I'll chuck some pics and schematics up later if anyone is interested, sorry about the long post.

**Ixion** · 10th July 2006, 16:25

Very interesting. I'd be keen to see the schematics.

**kiwifruit** · 10th July 2006, 16:30

very interesting, looking forward to pics
can u make me one? $100.

**Pumba** · 10th July 2006, 16:36

A few pics would be good, so would the schematic

**ajturbo** · 10th July 2006, 17:14

Originally Posted by Pumba84

A few pics would be good, so would the schematic

yer the schematic would intrest a lot of us..... specialy the ones that have no idea what the hell your talking aboout

**ldnz** · 10th July 2006, 18:25

Hokey here is the schematic and veroboard layout. All components can be found at Dick Smith. Red and green in = the inputs from the radar detector (eg the lines that would have driven the red or green parts of the Band indicator LED). Led +/- are the outputs to the big red warning LED.

I used a 4093 quad nand gate IC, as that was all dicksmith had at the time, but you could use any other if you rearranged the vero layout slightly. Oops LED + should be one row down on the vero layout.

I'd be happy to make these up as completely units with detector, but I'm going to be out of contact for the next 3 months or so and therefore wouldn't be able to do them til sept or early october.

I'll take some photos shortly