I recently picked up a cheap radar detector (whistler 1650) from buy.com and I am interested in somehow interfacing it to the empeg. The ideal situation would be to hush the music currently playing and display the radar type and signal strength on the empeg. Has anyone ever seen any info on getting data out of a detector like this (no IO ports on the detector)? I figure at the very least I can tap into the circuit that drives the buzzer and use that to mute the music, but it would be really snazzy to be able to get more data out of this thing. Anybody have any ideas or seen other projects like this?

-Mike

When I stealth-mounted my radar detector, I briefly considered doing this.

Then I realized that I didn't want the two systems (radar detector and empeg) to be in any way dependent on each other. Very important to keep them separate, IMHO.

As far as getting data out of the detector, that's highly unlikely with the cheap ones. The one I hacked up barely had the speaker output and the LED display. It was by no means a high tech device with external communication circuits.

I wouldn't be surprised, though, if wiring the empeg mute line to a relay connected to the radar detector's speaker wire, would result in a nice muting of the empeg when the detector went off. However I'm not sure you'd want this. My detector startles me enough when it goes off, I would hate for the muting of the empeg to cause it to startle me even more than it already does.

It was by no means a high tech device with external communication circuits.

Yeah, I was actually hoping that somebody had done something similar in the past and may have gone to the trouble of analyzing enough of the internal circuitry to see if there was a way to get some data out. I am fine with hacking this thing up and adding additional logic to support this, but my EE experience is pretty limited so I was hoping somebody beat me to it. I was already planning on remote mounting it's display in my instrument cluster so I can conceal the actual detector.

My detector startles me enough when it goes off, I would hate for the muting of the empeg to cause it to startle me even more than it already does.

Yeah, me too. My actual plan is to remove the detectors buzzer and use the empeg as the audio indicator by muting or lowering the music and playing a more soothing alert noise.

-Mike

That's nice and all, but what if the empeg is turned off or the volume turned down?

but what if the empeg is turned off or the volume turned down?


...not likely to be caught speeding whilst sitting in the drive-through ordering fast-food.

Tony has a valid point. I know when Im riding down the road and my phone rings, I mute my empeg.

Yeah, I was joking. But I'm also going to point out that if you're talking on the 'phone then you shouldn't be speeding either.

For what it's worth, a friend and I have managed to get data out of my Valentine 1 radar detector (via the remote display cord) - it's actually kind of cool. I built a quick little TCL/TK applet to mimic the display and it's darn near real time. I'm working on logging each hit I get with the radar detector and then using gpsdrive to create a 'radar map' of the areas that I drive frequently... the latest (v 1.30) version now has mysql support, making inserting new 'hits' probably much easier than I thought.

I had considered trying to use the empeg as a remote-display device, but hadn't gotten there yet. With all of the other little oddments that life throws my way, it's fallen down on the priority stack some. :-)


That's just my $.02.

What do you propose to do with the list of frequent radar traps?
Will it be just for general knowledge when you're route planning or will you track the time/frequency of the trap?

Two things, actually:
1: Help to better discriminate falses vs. actual 'bogeys'. For instance - I know, generally, on my route to work where each of the spots are where I 'expect' radar hits to occur that aren't actual police radar - say, driving by the supermarket with it's automatic doors. I know it's K band, and that there will be between 2 and 4 emitters shown on the display. If I track each hit (location, profile) then I should be able to eliminate that display based on how many times I've seen it as I've drive past.
2: Time/distance warnings of known speed traps. If the past 15 times I've driven by a particular locale, I've seen KA-band radar 4 times, then it's likely to be there again. If I'm driving a little fast (which I ->never<- do :-) ) then I should get a warning that in 60 seconds or 2 miles I'm approaching a high risk spot.

Theoretically, like-equipped drivers could post and retrieve updates to their local maps via a web page. All purely speculative, of course.

Yes, I know that Uniden puts out a GPS-enabled radar detector that does similar functions - but it doesn't have nearly the functionality as my V1. And I remember reading about a similar service in the UK (updated nationwide radar map), but... I don't live in the UK. Oh well.

BTW: For some reason my profile isn't showing my correct e-mail. Should read '@attbi.com'. Pardon me while i fix that...

I should get a warning that in 60 seconds or 2 miles I'm approaching a high risk spot.

Are you going to be able to hear over the wind and your engine at 120?