hey all. im trying to minimize the number of wires on my windshield and im having trouble thinking of a good ground location in my headliner. what im trying to do, is i have a radar detector, and ive got a windshield mount for my phone with an integrated charger coming in the mail. i really truly dont want to plug in 2 flailing wires each and every time i get in the car anymore. so my idea was to wire a switch in the ample area around the home link and wire the radar and phone charger to that switch that will be hooked to a piggy back fuse holder under the dash. but to try to make running the wires slightly easier i was thinking it would be easier to just run 1 wire (positive to fuse block) instead of 3 (one positive, 2 ground)

any tips are appreciated.

i would put a short self tapping screw on the inner roof panel where it will be easy to cover with the headliner make sure there is enough room between the two layers.

i was thinking of that, but what im hoping someone will say is that my visor screws have enough metal contact to make a good ground or something easy and reversible lol. if i have enough wire i might just skip the switch all together and just wire it to the stereo'* wires so its fused already and i dont have to cut a hole to mount a switch....

If I was you... I would use the self tapping screw on the closest piece of metal you can find to the radar detector, you want your ground as short as possible. For the positive, if the radar detector is all you plan on ever running, you could probably get by with tapping into another switched 12V positive that will be on when ignition is on, but the best way to do it would be find a 12V ignition switched line and tap in to that to switch a relay so that you can have a separate power source for the radar detector instead of powering the radar off the already undersized factory wiring.

I'm going to be a rebel.

How about tapping into the ground wire for the homelink, overhead lights, mirror etc etc, that'* sitting right up there in the headliner and would be easy to get to by removing any one of those items to get to it'* wiring.

The wheel is round, no need to recreate it.

lol good point. as far as the crappy factory wiring, i dont think draw will be an issue. i left the radar detector on for a week while i had the car parked with that bad bearing and it only brought the battery down to 10 volts and it still started lol

I'll give you bonus points if you hook power up to an ignition circuit and skip the switch.

It'll come on and off on automatically.

thats my motivation for doing this lol. the switch was an afterthought. im just waiting for the day i come out to a dead battery. thank god for diehard gold. sometimes i wish our cars were like every other car in the world and the cigarette lighter was switched with the ignition lol.


another thought i had, was instead of running the wires up with the mirror was mount the radar and phone mount really low and run it between the windshield and dash. but aside from that being a royal P.I.T.A. i think it might present some problems with the defroster.

this is the mount im getting btw. i really like how clean it is and that it rotates from portrait to landscape all while charging the phone. none of the universal ones do that.

In 99..you might have a fuse for the cig lighter or the supply to it that you can move to select ign or battery for it. check your owners manual.

really? i didnt know that. thanks for the tip.