I have about 5 things I need to get 12V to but I?m afraid to run it all through the cigarette lighter wire. I need whatever wire I tap into to be one that only has power while the car is on. Can anyone tell me which wire I might be able to use?

 

power seat wire, under the seat. the wire for your head unit, pretty much all ive taped into so far. what are you hookin up, if they are small things like LED's which dont require much power u may be fine.

 

I'm hooking up a radar detector, a radar gun I like to play with every so often, another old POS radar detector I'm just going to put under the seat because when it starts up it says "welcome buckle your seat belt" and everyone that gets in and hears it thinks its coming from the car and think its the coolest thing, some LEDs, and a AC/DC power converter.

 

be careful with that radar gun, i hear many of those bike cops have problems having kids after excessive use of those guns.

 

just to let you know, usually if you install 2 radar detectors, a lot of times they conflict with each other. and i wouldn't suggest making the radar detector permanent when it plugs into the cigarette lighter just in case you want to take your radar out of your car and put it in your friend's car since he's driving and not you. i used to run a lot of strobes and stuff and i just run it straight from the battery to a switch to turn stuff on and off. obviously the switch would be fitted into a spot where it looks clean and looks like its a factory switch

 

why are you running all that useless crap in your car? wasting battery life...

 

Everything but possibly the AC/DC power converter should be fine, radar detectors don't draw hardly any power. I ran an extra power cable myself from the battery and actually mounted a second cig lighter underneath my seat, strapped it to a metal support bar for the seat, is out of the way and looks pretty clean.

If you want to make it so it turns on/off with the car, buy a 12V DC relay ($3-5) and run a loop off of your cig lighter, this will turn that power supply on with the car.

 

the converter should be run from the battery with an in line fuse.

 

I know about how 2 radar detectors can conflict with each other. The POS one is all tore apart and I'm going to remove the parts that detect radar and laser. As far as making the radar detector permanent, I ran the old POS radar detector wire up the pillar between the front windshield and door and the new radar detector (bel 945) is mounted on the visor via the clip that came with it. So all I have to do if I want to take it to another car is take the power cord out of the detector and take off the visor attachment and grab the suction cups and original power cord that came with it.
I would run wires from the battery but last time I ran wires from the engine compartment into the inside of the car I had to drill a whole and take the carpet up and a bunch of other sh*t and I was trying to get around doing that again. So if someone could tell me a place to run wires from under the hood into the inside of the car that would be great.

 

I am careful. Its a K band Kustom Signals radar gun. I only really use it when I see some ricer civics with cobra radar detectors racing and I hit them with it and then all you see is break lights and they slow down to the speed limit. I really get them when I turn on my headlight flashers and red and blue LEDs on my dash, but I have stopped with the lights for quite a while.

 

watch out or the 5-0 might come after you

 

In my old car i tapped into the cigarrette lighter and ran wires up under the dash, up the a pillar, across the headliner, and mounted a second cigarrette lighter behind the rearview mirror. I just used electrical tape, and it actually looked pretty clean, becasue the socket was strapped to the post for the mirror. the reason i did this was to avoid the cord hanging down from the detector to the socket. It also allows me to have the detector right below the rearview, and since im always checking the rearview for po and retards about to rearend me, i still see it going off even if the music is up too loud to hear it....