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Originally Posted by pilotsmith  I had the exact same problem. As I reported in another thread, my 9500ix will trigger a false laser warning nearly every time my cell phone is near it on the dash. To solve that I no longer put my phone on the dash. I did have it go off during a call and was not sure if the phone or something else made it go off but I was in an area that no laser and no other cars were present, so I figured it was the phone.
Yesterday it went totally ape shyt on me with the laser warning going off about every 30 seconds for 20 minutes. I made several lane changes and was on a couple different freeways during that time. There wasn't another car that would have been near me the entire time with laser cruise control to possibly trip up the RD. I was driving facing into the afternoon sun and wondered if that had anything to do with it.
I called Escort this morning and they said it may simply be my car and to use it in another car. Sorry, but I am not going to buy another car and if it was my car, why didn't it do it for the last week and a half? Next option was that it could be normal as driving by automatic door openers can cause the RD to go off. I explained to the CS rep that automatic doors do no use laser. Next I was told that I needed to send it in to have the sensitivity reduced. Negative on that one too. I didn't want someone messing with a brand new unit to reduce sensitivity. I finally said I wanted to buy another unit and send this one back per the trial agreement. I was transfered to sales and a new replacement unit should be here tomorrow.
I love the unit because after using it for about 10 days it is so nice and quiet. I really pay attention when it goes off. Keeping my fingers crossed that the new unit will be fine. |
The laser circuit on these detectors use a very high gain amplifier which is sensitive to electro-magnetic interference (EMI). If you are into hi-fi stereos a good analogy would be a very high "signal to noise ratio" where there is dead silence in the quiet parts of song even with the volume cranked up all the way, then a slight whisper will deafen you. Backlit LCD screens, used in cellphones and navigation devices, use a high voltage circuit which produce a EMI field very close to them. That could be why you were getting laser falsing when the phone was close to the detector. Other typical sources of strong EMI in a vehicle are the ignition systems and the electro-magnetic clutches in variable valve timing engines.
While additional shielding can sometimes remove the EMI falsing, typically "dialing down" the amplifier's gain slightly will eliminate the laser falsing. Our service reps by default just state that reducing sensitivity will fix laser falsing because most of the time that is the solution. The reduction in true laser sensitivity is very slight when this is done.
Another cause of laser falsing is a noisy power supply either internal or external. As many here at RD.net have found, a good physical connection of the 12V power wires and/or installing an inline choke can reduce laser falsing. The detector's internal power supplies are filtered to reduce power fluctuations to the amplification circuit that would cause a laser alert, but sometimes a faulty capacitor can trigger constant laser falsing. This sounds like what happened with pilotsmith's constant laser falsing issue, a borderline capacitor quickly went out of spec. Faulty capacitors are extremely rare but do happen.
Actual laser diode falsing, where the laser diode thinks it is truly receiving LIDAR, rarely happens and is usually associated with the detector moving from near direct sunlight (sunrise or sunset conditions) to a shadow quickly. Some LEDs from newer traffic lights or in the rear lights of newer vehicles can also set off laser diode falsing. This is normal operation and cannot be corrected other than turning off laser alerts altogether. A real fix to eliminate laser diode falsing would be examining the signal longer but that would result in a delay to a true laser alert...
I'm glad to hear that you are enjoying the features of the 9500ix! I hope the replacement works better for you.
9500ix fales w/ ICC brake preview -revisited on Skyline GT370 
