Additional LED HUD Mod

[GiddyUp15]

So I wired in an Escort radar detector to my car, and found that during top-down driving, especially in daylight, I was missing radar alerts due to the wind and/or radio noise. I thought, man, I'd love to get a HUD to alert me of radar alerts!

Nice thing is that Escort's smart cable (both hardwired and cig lighter versions) have LEDs on them to show power, and flash for alerts, but even when I mounted this on top of my steering column, I'd still miss it during real sunny days. This led me to this experiment, which took forever to figure out but turned out really well!

I at first wanted to "hack" into the factory HUD (if you have adaptive cruise or GT350, you should have this already), but since it is CANBUS controlled, it was looking to be really difficult to figure out and implement (probably still can if I knew how to control a CANBUS module, but I never dug deep enough into it). I had an even better idea...put another LED array inside the HUD module, with a different color, and mod the module to make it fit and work. I chose blue, as it is a "police alert" Plus, it is now different than the hazard alert that the factory red LED array is for, so I can easily differentiate the two when they pop up.

Here's the process of putting the LED array in the module:

Sponsored

 

[GiddyUp15]

Here is the circuitry I used to get this to work with the Escort smart cable/detector. 9V LED IN is actually the LED wire from the Smart Cable circuitry. It is the black cable, which I soldered to directly on the PCB in the Smart cable box. I also added a switch so that I can disable the LED array during times I don't want it to flash up on the windshield. Note that you will likely want some sort of switch for this, because anytime the detector is unplugged from the car it will activate this circuit and your LED array will be constantly lit!

Use a standard diode, transistor, and the values I listed for resistors. Solder everything up and carefully tape it all to avoid shorts. I then bunched it all together and taped it up as a unit and had it stuffed up in the dash behind the gauge cluster.

 

[GiddyUp15]

Final Product in use in the car Enjoy the tunes too! HA!

[ame]

 

[GiddyUp15]

Here's the strip I used from Diode Dynamics. I got the 50cm strip and cut it about in half. You can still use the other half if you solder wires to it too

https://www.diodedynamics.com/store...rips/flexible-5050-smd-led-strip-weatherproof

 

[ahl395]

Awesome idea, very nice work!

What is it like at night? is it blinding?

 

[GiddyUp15]

Awesome idea, very nice work!

What is it like at night? is it blinding?

It is a little intense at night, but by putting it under the factory plastic diffuser helps tone it down. I wouldn't say it is blinding as much as it is annoying, especially when I get stuck behind a car that has driver assist stuff and sets off the K-band radar alerts. I will usually turn off my switch at night, because the alert LED on the Escort cable is bright enough for me to see at night, so no need for the HUD alerts at night :cheers:

More photos of the setup with the Escort smart cord box on top of the steering column and the mirror mount for the radar itself. You can barely see the silver toggle switch I installed on the side of the box to be able to disable the HUD as needed.

 

[JKMike]

saving this for later

 

[xA907x]

I like the idea ..

 

[GiddyUp15]

Been working great for last almost 7 years! Sometimes the radar glitches out and I have to unplug and plug it back in but it only happens on start up (won't boot up as expected) and it is rare.

 

[mavisky]

Very nice. I was just thinking the other day that I'd like to do something like this, but also find a way to make the factory heads up shift lights brighter on my GT350 as they're basically impossible to see in the daylight.

Sponsored