9500CI Owners w/ overheating GPS Antenna.

Hi everyone,

Here is one idea which occured to me a while back after I finally got to see some photos of the 9500ci system. My idea is that, since many vehicles have that third rear brake light or "nerd light" installed at the rear of the passenger cabin, why not install the 9500ci's GPS antenna inside that nerd light housing? That way the 9500ci's black GPS antenna case is completely shaded from absorbing heat from the sun, and the GPS antenna will be completely out of sight too, yet be able to "see" many of the orbiting GPS satellites through your car's rear window. Many hardware stores sell aluminum bar in 1/2" to 2" wide thin strips. A chunk of this aluminum bar plus some 3M VHB tape should allow you to easily mount the 9500ci's GPS antenna inside your third rear "nerd light." Use denatured alcohol and a rag (toxic, don't inhale, I like Bill have "never inhaled" --yeah, right) to clean all surfaces which the 3M VHB tape is attached to.

Get creative guys!

Alternatively, Krylon now makes a white spray paint which actually bonds to plastic. It says "plastic" on the can along with some sort of molecular bonding symbol. Just making the 9500ci's black GPS antenna case white should work wonders if the GPS antenna is installed inside the car yet is still exposed to sunlight. As I mentioned, at SML the test 9500ci's GPS antenna was exposed all day to the blazing sun on the roof of the white colored rental car and the 99 degree outside ambient temperatures yet had no problems. Unfortunately, car interiors can heat up to much higher temperatures. And, as I previously mentioned, placing the GPS antenna atop a dark or black interior surface forces the GPS antenna to not only absorb sunlight which directly strikes it, but also forces it to absorb heat which directly radiates into it from a dark or black colored surface underneath it. This is a double whammy for the antenna or, for that matter, any RD which is mounted on a windshield very close to the top of a dark or black colored dash. The dark or black colored dash acts like a warm stove burner and additionally heats up anything mounted atop or above the dash.

:)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by djrams80

As NWA said, "I'm roofless". :D

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trunk :), dead middle, should work well for ya :)

i wanted to put my sat radio on my wing, but it appears the wing is just plastic, had to settle on the middle of my roof

I feel like an apology to Escort is in order and I actually feel like an ass. I had no idea the problem was with interior installs.

I had this same problem when I first had Sirius installed in the TransAm. The antenna sat on the black dash, and within 5 minutes of direct sun light I'd lose reception. Then after it cooled down, or at night it would play no problem.

Mine will be going right next to the sirius antenna on the EXTERIOR :)

So to summarize I'm sorry. And for anyone else that reads this thread, the problem is only with INTERIOR installs.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by thestaton

I feel like an apology to Escort is in order and I actually feel like an ass. I had no idea the problem was with interior installs.

I had this same problem when I first had Sirius installed in the TransAm. The antenna sat on the black dash, and within 5 minutes of direct sun light I'd lose reception. Then after it cooled down, or at night it would play no problem.

Mine will be going right next to the sirius antenna on the EXTERIOR :)

So to summarize I'm sorry. And for anyone else that reads this thread, the problem is only with INTERIOR installs.

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I have Sirius antenna on my rear parcel shelf inside my car with no window tint and it is exposed to the sun with no heat problems, the only problems I have is with trees blocking reception, but works 90% of the time.

One of the suggested installation locations for the GPS antenna in the manual for the 9500ci is a dash mount using double-stick tape.

I've had problems with the GPS antenna overheating and disabling the GPS functionality since the very first week I had it installed. That was in sunlight with an ambient temp of around 82 F. Now that it's closer to 100 F outside, it's even worse. It takes being parked in the sun only about 20-30 minutes or so to disable the GPS antenna/circuitry.

The radar/laser functionality continues to work with the GPS nonfunctional, just like on the 9500i I have. However, it can take as long as 30 minutes for the antenna to cool off sufficiently to acquire a signal, long after the rest of the interior has cooled off. It's also not unusual on particularly sunny days for it to lose GPS capability, presumably due to heat, after starting up in a cool garage but then driving around for an hour or so. The voice alert keeps jumping between "no GPS" and "GPS acquired" every 20 seconds or so.

I cannot mount the antenna on my roof as it's fiberglass and there's no way to get the wires inside.

Partial solution:

I did rig up a piece of white cardboard to serve as a cover for the antenna. It looks awful sitting on the black dash, but I drove with it that way for 2 weeks without noticeable loss of reception and a much improved heat tolerance. I then removed it last week and the malfunction is back.

Next, I'm going to try and fashion a black cover for the antenna that will have as little contact with the housing as possible (thus avoiding conducted heat) to see if I can get the same sort of improvement as the white cardboard but with less visual distraction.

It never takes me more than about 5 minutes to get the GPS antenna functional again. I route the A/C to the defrost mode and this cools the GPS antenna down pretty fast.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by djrams80

The antenna doesn't overheat, at least mine doesn't. What happens is when it gets hot sitting out in the sun, it won't aquire GPS signal until it cools down. I will video this if you would like.

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Does the antena look like the ones from the car GPS systems?
I live in AZ where its hot then hotter all year around and never had a problem with locking gps signal.
Even when you cant even touch my GPS antena from being so hot.

well i just installed mine, and the antenna is on the dash, under the dash cover. with the AZ heat, i'll let you know how mine works soon enough.

i will say, they give plenty of cord though, should i need to run it elsewhere.

I havn't had the problem yet...

Quote:

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Originally Posted by thestaton

Well, every member on the forum that has a CI is experiencing the GPS antenna overheating issue.

Might as well have a thread for all the videos. Heaven forbid they actually believe a customer.

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...Nor have I after two months of constant daytime sun-light exposure.

Veil Guy :cool: