Cal7 Err

[dpatel01]

hi guys, I swapped my bel V955 (S7) for my cousins 8500 X50 blue (S7) last night so I can drive around with it for a day and see if i can duplicate the problems he has been having with it. Drove around a little over 100 miles, the range is about identical to my V955 but I feel better knowing from the 8500s spec display that the drones I test against are all around 34.7 Ghz. I was not able to duplicate the problems however which he reported while being used in his car.

Can anyone tell me what "Cal7 Err" means?

Shutting down and starting up seems to get rid of the problem but it would be nice to know if this detector is on its way to the service dept. with the self cal messages it has been displaying recently.

[Esoterica]

Since it works in one car but not the other it certainly sounds like a power related problem with his car.

Does it happen every time he turns it on his car, or just once in a while?

If everytime in his car but not your car then read this...

http://www.radardetector.net/viewtop...=351685#351685

If once in a while the problem may have just not shown its face in your car yet and could require sending in for repairs.

You could read here for days and weeks all the information on this at this site.

[dpatel01]

I was suspicious of electrical system noise too in his car. (2008 Acura TL type-S)

First we solved the laser falsing using the ferrite choke core but maybe it needs to be re-wound through the core or would even a second choke core perhaps near the RJ-11 plug be a good idea?

Ran great in my car (01 camry le v6) on my smartcord without any choke cores.

[Esoterica]

One should be plenty, I doubt you'll benefit from two at all, and its not going to do any good to wrap it around the entire smart cord, you just want it on the 12V Positive wire and as close to the device as possible. usually just wrapping the 12VDC positive supply at the cigarette lighter you have it plugged into is sufficient enough. It's important that the current flow through the ferrite bead is only going in one direction, so you don't want both the positive and negative wires wrapped around the bead or you'll cancel out.

You have to also make sure you're disconnecting one end of that positive supply wire, feeding it through the hole in the bead, make a pass around the outside of the bead and back through the center. I've seen people actually instead of disconnecting one end of the wire just make like a loop in the wire by bending the wire and pushing that bend through the bead then looping that around. This will not work at all, you'll have current flowing in the single wire but again end up canceling out because it will be passing the bead in a bi directional manor, if hopefully that makes sense the way I explained it. I just can't think of an easier way to explain that.

It might call for some slightly more drastic measures like mentioned in my post here...

http://www.radardetector.net/viewtop...=357520#357520

I'm very reluctant though to start suggesting and explaining to people who are capable of reading this how to use the capacitor method though, its too easy for someone to mess things up by not knowing what they are doing with that method in using the wrong type of capacitor or not knowing how to read and understand the values of capacitors as well as they might think they can. It could have some fatal results on the detector if not performed correctly.

I put the information that this can be done out there only so if someone wanted to learn more about this they could do the homework themselves and have a better chance at getting it right.

I also think after posting that suggestion MEM-TEK had mentioned somewhere about gutting an old car stereo system to acquire a ready made version of what I've described.

The safest suggestion I'd have for your friend is to take the car into the dealer and tell them what the problem is and how you are not seeing this problem in the other car. Its a crap shoot as to if they will have a tech on hand actually capable of understanding this and solving it though.

You could also try a hard wire and have the power on a different branch and fuse than the one you currently have it on. There's a chance that would help. Try a couple different places for power after the fuse panel or even temporarily directly to his car battery just to see if you still pick up the problem there.

Could also help to open up the wires in a hard wire and snip the ground wire close to where the detector is installed. Then secure that ground wire (coming from the detector end, not the vehicle supply end) as close as possible to the detector on the car chassis like the metal on the roof right there close to the detector yet still out of sight.

These are just last ditch suggestions I can offer you that may or may not work. They have certainly been known by me to solve similar problems in different circumstances.

The only way I could help your friend out more is by being able to actually get my hands in there physically on it unfortunately so I could get a better visual of what was taking place and so I could do some testing. I've been presented with some pretty bizarre problems in rather elaborate car stereo system installs before, typically with the 12VDC systems the solution is rather easy, once you find the source of the problem. I know long ground wire runs are almost always the primary cause behind the problems. Its always best to run a 12VDC ground wire as directly to the chassis and as close to the device as possible, doing this has solved countless problems people have brought to me with high end car audio systems.

[Esoterica]

I also have no idea what a "Cal7 Err" is by the way. FOr all I know this is an error your friend gets when he installs the thing upside down in his car, your installing it right side up in yours so you don't see the error.

In what you've described though on how it works in your car just fine but does this in his I don't think what ever its displaying for an error code is relevant.

Error codes in electronic devices can be nice, but they can also be often times very misleading when trying to use for an actual troubleshooting tool. Experience has taught me to typically ignore reported error messages I run into and just get in there looking for an actual problem.

If you were seeing the same thing in both vehicles then clearly the problem would be within the detector and you would need to send it in.