Reference: Symtoms of a Dying Jammer

[Ovencleaner]

Well I thought I would put together some information for people to know the symptoms of a dying jammer from water, and its progression.

Please reply with your jammer model and version, as well as symptoms and progression of symptoms to its eventual death, and what you did to correct it.

Thanks

[djrams80]

I had a rear ZR4 head go bad on my 9500ci. The symptom was almost constant alerts of "R Laser Shifting". I unplugged the rear head, then when I powered the system up, I got a quick error message that read "LasR N/A" or something like that. After that, the system worked fine without the rear head installed.

[TSi+WRX]

Escort ZR3 Shifter

Purchased/installed late 2003/early 2004.

Water/moisture ingress into one front head noted in mid-2006.

NO FAULT WARNING reported from the unit's built-in start-up test routine. Yes, you read that right, none at all. All the time, I thought the unit was still working, when, in-reality, it wasn't even receiving.

I disassembled the head, dried everything out, and re-sealed it.

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Same unit, faulty Interface.

Unknown if technically related (i.e. electrical surge from the water-logged head may have caused the control-box to fry?) to above.

Same LACK OF ANY FAULT WARNING.

Interface was returned to Escort for replacement. Shipping included, less than $70, with an appx. 2-week turn-around time.



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Laser Pro Park

Early North-American authorized (KMPH-Canada/LPP-Canada) unit, purchased late 2006.

Suspect manufacture in Croatia as a part of the last batch before the KMPH-UK/LPP-UK separation. And yes, it is this "last Croatian batch" that was noted to suffer most from water/moisture ingress (head) issues, as per the AL G8.

Here was the problem that I documented ( on version 8.3/10.1 - 100 PPS UL enabled ) :

Currently, the double-beep fault is only elicited after appx. 15 minutes of use, at which time it is initially reported as a triple-beep error.

After the fault has been reported, if I try to "reset" the unit by cycling its power supply, or even by disconnecting that head's line and then re-connecting it to either its own control box or the second control box, it reports the double-beep error note. Thereafter, no matter how many times I try to "reset," and no matter by what means, I continuously receive the double-beep error tone.

If the unit is then left alone, and re-powered after appx. 7+ hours, it will repeat this pattern of having an initial 15-minutes of seemingly OK operation, followed by incessant and repeated double-beep messages. (Attempts to re-power the unit after a shorter time span of having it turned-off results in, immediately, the double-beep error tone being reported.)

Of-note/IMPORTANT:

If you have two LPP heads plugged into the c-box, and only one head is faulty, the correct function of the OTHER head will "hide" the error(s) produced by the second.

No, this doesn't mean that a good head, in the same c-box, will "heal" the bad. Rather, it means that with a good head plugged into the same c-box, you won't even know that there's one that's faulty.

[ELVATO]

I think with the AL/LPP heads (don't know about the other "clones" but I'm guessing it's the same), if you looked at them with a night vision camera, and the parking beam was not blinking once every second, the head might have water ingress. I think RacerX took vid of this when he was having problems with his "8 month bomb AL."

[TSi+WRX]

^ GREAT POST!!! Totally forgot about this one!

Thank you, ELVATO!

[ELVATO]

I'm right there to catch anything you miss, TSI.

[TSi+WRX]

OK, hum..... I can no longer find any of RacerX's old posts on this issue, and his old videos via the www.speedcheetah.com website and the old thread on that Forum are both offline.

In any case, I did find a reference - and it looks like, in that case, ELVATO, you were the one to remind me of this same issue!

http://www.radardetector.net/forums/...ed-sorted.html

In my post, #6 -

It seemed that the 6 on -pause 6 - 6 on pattern was supposed to be for the "normal," functional heads. Unless I'm looking at this all wrong, he's saying that the parking-sensor blips appear erratic when they're malfunctioning (after the 1:00 time-stamp mark, on the "ALBAD" night-time video).

Later, update by anjoem said that despite his seeing the 6-1-6 combo, his parking function no longer works - which is also a tell-tale of the current LPP, AL, and LI heads malfunctioning.

[crazyVOLVOrob]

My lidatek would alert constantly when ever I turned it on so i knew it needed to be repaired.

And my Blinder alert constantly when I turned it on.

[o2bad455]

I've got so many old broken laser jammers and remote radar detectors that I don't even know where to keep them all (I know, I should just toss them). I often add additional sealant, and do periodic maintenance, but they never seem to outlast the warranties. The jammers can fail on the receive side or the jam side, but 95% of mine failed on the receive side. When they are failing on the receive side, they usually false too much, or continuously, but not always at start up. Sometimes a cleaner power source (e.g., jumper pack rather than car power) can cover the issue for a while (not sure why, other than the floating ground might help with internal moisture issues). The one that failed on the jam side had a fried laser diode, which is the most difficult failure to detect. I suggest testing each head separately with a TV remote to activate and a laser detector to confirm good laser diodes.

[thestaton]

This has sticky potential. Let me clean up that mess first and we'll find room for this.