I think you encountered the reasons why it should be turned off at night. :roll:
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I think you encountered the reasons why it should be turned off at night. :roll:
Or at least power cycled using its power button at the end of the day after adding any new lockout locations or marked locations. Its during the power down sequence that the 9500i commits these things to memory.Quote:
Originally Posted by CJR238
This can't possibly be right, I mark locations where cops are known to hide and are there active when I do so and my marked locations work fine when doing this. My date code is 4307 so maybe this was something that was an issue but they have since fixed. I know I either read in the manual, or here about rebooting it after marking a location, rebooting anything electronic from time to time is always a good thing, solves many a problems with everything from computers, cell phones to DVD players and TV's.Quote:
Make sure to only mark a location with no alert or you have to wait until the alert is gone and mark the location.
It wouldn't even make sense to make it that way since one of the primary purposes behind the idea of GPS marking locations is for permanently mounted speed cameras. How could you ever wait for a speed camera to be off to mark it, they run 24/7?
Glad you figured the problem out, seems very odd that Escort support didn't catch and suggest this, maybe you were just talking to the receptionist. Then again every company always have those employees that are nothing more than warm bodies hired to fill a seat, it's why you can always have one person claiming tech support somewhere is so great, then someone else complaining about how terrible it was for them. I suppose in fairness to them though they probably never suspected you just leave the thing powered on all the time.
As far as your original thought of requesting a new one, you're probably always better off just letting them fix the one you send in. A new one could very easily have its own new problems, at least the same one repaired has had more eyes in it looking it over than a new one just rush shot down an assembly line would have. You also have to consider the replacement you might get would most likely just be another one someone else had sent in demanding another one, so the only gain would be in your own mind.
I called Escort today and let them know I wouldn't be sending them my 9500 since you guys had straightened me out that it needs to be shut off and turned back on to save sites like SPDTRAP, CAMERA, etc. The tech said no, you should not have to do that. You just have to drive more than a mile away.
HHhhhmmmmmm, I asked if he was sure and he said to let him verify that and I held on. He came back online after 3 or 4 minutes and said, yeah, you should not have to power cycle for a new location to be active. I said, gee, I guess there is something wrong with mine again then. Then he told me you shouldn't leave the unit on all the time- that's 'bad for it'.
Being curious of course, I asked - why is that bad? He said I don;t know but you just shouldn't.
I let it go at that, but now I'm confused again. Based on his 'it's just bad' comment, I don;t take him as such an authority but....
REQUEST- is there someone out there with one of these that can drive a couple of miles, mark a Seedtrap location and then drive a few miles away and drive back through it please and tell me if they get "Approaching your marked location" or not?
I am off to find the user manual online hopefully and see what it says.
Thanks.
Hes right, you need to drive out of the lock out area (over 1mi) it works for me every time, but i turn mine off every night too.
You will get glitches and strange things happening by not powering down with some electronic devices like computers, cell phones and even DVD players.
Has anyone with the new update confirm this? I know the older units will not mark a location when it is receiving an alert.Quote:
Originally Posted by Esoterica
I'm already home for the night and naked at my keyboard, so I'd rather not go back out into the cold. In the morning however, I have about a 250 mile each way drive to make on a stretch of highway I haven't taken my new detector on yet but know there are some VASCAR markers on it I'll want to mark so I'll just leave my detector on when I arrive to my destination and see what happens on my way back, then post my findings here for you.Quote:
REQUEST- is there someone out there with one of these that can drive a couple of miles, mark a Seedtrap location and then drive a few miles away and drive back through it please and tell me if they get "Approaching your marked location" or not?
I'd be curious to see if this works or not as well seeing as how Escort told you this and I know I've read somewhere that you do have to power down for it to set.
As far as turning it off, it's not good for any sensitive electronics device to suffer through voltage and current spikes, you could very easily damage internal components by doing this. When your car is up and running you're being powered by your vehicles alternator which will typically put out about 14Volts DC into your electrical system, as well as a higher available current output. when your car is off then everything is draining off your battery, in an idea world you'd see a voltage output of about 12Volts DC, in reality you could be running as low as 9 volts DC though.
The 9500i does have voltage protection built into it and powering it in the range of 9-14 volts shouldn't be a problem on paper, but even these voltages and currents running through your vehicles electrical system are far from fixed when you are starting your car up, you could have some pretty dramatic drops and rises during this time as the starter on your car pulls down a lot on your electrical system, then in that split second your car starts up you get hit in the opposite direction by the high output of your alternator. Sensitive electronics do not live long if repeatedly exposed to this type of abuse, and it's an unnecessary abuse on your part for just being too lazy to reach over and hit a button. I don't even like having my electronic devices plugged into my vehicles electrical system till the vehicle is started and up and running, then I don't just turn it all off, but also unplug everything before I even turn the vehicle off.
There is another side to that same argument though, turning sensitive electronic devices on and then off for extended periods of time will cause fluctuations of the internal temperatures. Heating and cooling extremes like this causes things to expand and contract and has certainly been known to cause even just microscopic cracks, particularly in solder joints, which will make things not work at all or properly.
These radar detectors are not high heat dissipating types of equipment like say your computer is, so the hot and cold extremes when on or off are going to be rather negligible and the danger of high or low voltage and current spikes to it is by far a larger threat to its longevity and reliability.
In addition to that, just by leaving it on all the time also increases your threat of theft. Maybe you keep it in a garage at night, but what about when you're at the mall shopping for your new designer jeans? Having the thing on in your vehicle is just begging for it to be stolen, a thief may walk by and not even notice it if it was off, or better completely taken down and placed out of any sight. Having it on though if the lights from it doesn't catch their eye when walking by your car, an alert by a passing cop could draw attention to it from several cars away. It seems kind of silly that you'd want to increase your odds of walking up to your car to find a window broken out and your detector gone just because you didn't want to take 1/10th of a second to hit your power button.
I can't comprehend your reasoning for always wanting to leave it on in the first place other than just to save a second of time from turning it off. You could spend that second of time turning it off for the rest of your life and it still isn't going to add up to the time and money you're going to waste having to take your car in to get the window replaced, the broken glass cleaned out and replacing your now stolen detector.
Tell me then, how do you mark speed camera's?Quote:
I know the older units will not mark a location when it is receiving an alert.
Mark it before or after the alert. :lol:Quote:
Originally Posted by Esoterica
To clarify- I didn't really have any question about marking locations where there is a signal. I gather you can not do that nor can you lockout and store a 'Ka' signal- fine, no problem. [Note there is a fixed Ka signal on the way to 95 from La Guardia that I believe is Ka on a traffic sign- I would actually like to lock that one out- it is full strength on the expert meter every time through there- I think that's Nothern Blvd but not sure)
Myquestion is whether you can add a location and have it remembered when you return from more than a mile away without powering off and on the 9500.
I agree with the post on turning off the unit is ideal. Saves battery, fluctuation surges....makes it less noticeable to passersby so less likely to get stolen- yeah, I get all that. I have returned to a car once already in college to find a very cool (then) Whistler radar detector stolen and a window smashed so I already put the unit away when parking at the airport or at the mall etc.
The reason I had been leaving it on in my own secure garage was purely the convenience of not having to remember to turn it on the next time I jump in the car. May be it's my age or how busy work is or whatever, but I forget to power it back on. I can remember times when I would jump in the car and take off and come upon a LEO with radar running and think- "Wow, I wonder if he wasn't transmitting?" I'd look at the detector and realize it was still turned off! Duh!
So call me forgetful or whatever, but that was my thinking in this- better to risk that it can deal with startups of the car better than I can deal with getting tagged with a radar that didn't get detected because I had it mounted on the windshield and still turned off. To my mind, it will die from being outdated before it dies from starting the engine and having spikes.
Nevertheless, I will keep testing. I am still not back at 100% confidence that it is working as it should. I was initially relieved to try the power on/off to 'save' the new locations to memory or whatever. That seemed to resolve my issue. But last night, having marked 2 locations near eachother 2 days before on a local road where the police sit off to the side and instant-on Ka band tag cars coming down a hill, and having powered down (with the power button) and re-powered on the 9500, I drove through that road on my way home last night. NO ALERT! So I marked the 1st spot again as SPEEDTRAP....What the?
So I powered it off an on and it alerted when I got to the second spot as it should have on both. I just don't get why it's doing this.
More testing before I am willing to give up and send it back to them.... Could I have NOT succeeded in marking that first spot? Did I wait too long to power off/on the unit? We'll see- more tests.