Hello all,
Currently, I am looking aroudn for talking radar detectors. I have pretty much narrowed y search down to two models. The Cobra ESD-9220wx and the Whistler 1785. MY question to you all is this:
Which model should I get. I hear good things about Cobra and Whistler, but I am new to the radar detector scene and I don't really have an idea as to which would be better for me in the long run. I do as much highway driving as I do city driving, if that helps any.
Also, I would like to hard wire the "talking" radar detector to my car, both in terms of audio and power. I would like to know how can I hard wire it to my car so that when I start my car the radar detector powers up and powers off when I shut my car off. And one more thing, my car has a center channel speaker and here is what I wanted to do. I would like to disconnect my center channel from my sound system and have that speaker be the radar detector speaker. I would think that all I have to do is wire the neg/pos wires from the radar board to the radar speaker to the center channel speaker in my dash instead of the radar speaker. Please let me know what you guys think...
Either unit would be fine. But I would suggest that you actually go and play with each one to see how the *human ergonomics* and how the features that are given interact with you.
Its the daily interactions and how the unit feels that are important, not simply the specs of the unit.
As for the turning on the unit on/off. You would first have to know how much voltage the unit requires. Some units simply run on 2 AA batteries and others run on dual voltage mode only with the car charger, which has a internal voltage limiter in the plug.
For powering it on and off, that is as simple as wiring it to a *switched* power source from the fuse panel.
As for the speaker part, you would have to know what the load or impedence the unit can provide. Simply because it has a small speaker, does not mean the little unit can sustain or activate the larger 4 ohm speaker that is in your vehicle. The unit most likely has a 8-12 ohm speaker within the unit, but you wont know untill you remove and test it.
Best of luck in your little project.
EVIL Teken . . .