What is this Strange Gadget in My Car?

VanessaDannenberg asks: "Four months ago my fiancé and I bought a 1997 Thunderbird, which came with a few aftermarket mods. Of particular interest is this strange radio-related gadget that was attached to the windshield above the mirror. It has two 5-pin ports on it (as pictured) which accept a flat cable that runs under the car's headliner. I can't tell where that cable ends, but I figure it's a laptop interface (RS232?). Has anyone seen this thing before? What does it do?"

Comments

radar

[jjshoe]

Custom radar detector? older detector shreaded for better forwards backwards detection? Jammer? Ask the previous owner.

From the vague description

[QuantumG]

It sounds like an e-tag. Of course it probably isn't.

a mirror

[Fletch]

I've never used Flickr before, so I've no idea whether this mirror will stop working after N bytes, views, etc. But there it is.

Re:a mirror

[Anonymous Coward]

Not 100% but it looks a whole *LOT* like a reciever for a secuity system.

Re:a mirror

[Micro$will]

Not 100% but it looks a whole *LOT* like a reciever for a secuity system.

Yes it is, high end Viper or Prestige, forgot which. My friend had the exact same alarm, until someone stole his car.:D

And that "funny angle" in the LED display is there because it's supposed to be mounted on the A-pillar.

Re:a mirror

[Micro$will]

Correction: the alarm in question is an Excalibur Gold. The LED display will show different numbers depending on if/where there was an intrusion attempt, and it included an antenna for greater range. It also featured a rolling code to lock out scanners. If you follow the wires coming out of the unit you should find the other part of the unit, which contains the relays for lights, siren, door locks, etc.

Apparently, in my friend's case, the battery was disconnected and the car was towed, so the alarm did squat.

mirror

[Anonymous Coward]

strange-gadget.jpg

greetz to GNAA

Re:mirror

[Yottabyte84]

It _IS_ an actual copy of the image. The trolls are trying to confuse us.

Image mirror

[epsalon]

here

FCC Codes

[Darth_Burrito]

I don't see anything labelled as an FCC code, but every once in a while I've had some luck identifying equipment using the FCC's database.

Re:Occam's Razor

[WWWAvenger]

I'd have to agree with this analysis. The crystal with a frequency of 6.775117MHz would correspond with a 433Mhz unlicensed band reciever (with a 64x multiplier).

Radar doodah thingy detector

[tod_miller]

Something that detects radar strength and tells you to slow down because of a speed trap.

Sounds like someone driving a thunderbird would buy such a thing. :-)

Sounds like an OBD-II interface

[Kevin Stevens]

I cant see the picture, so this is just a guess, but it sounds alot like the OBD-II interface used by mechanics to diagnose your cars problems. Through this interface you can see many many cool things, essentially the output of every sensor in the car. Things like oil pressure, temperature, coolant temperature, rpms (if not already available), etc., in real quantitative units. They can also give you more info when the "check engine" light comes on. If youre a gearhead this is definitely a cool toy.

Here is a link to some pics google returned when searching for them. obd II search Yes, these can be interfaced to laptops, and the image on google even has it interfaced to a palm pilot. You will have to look at aftermarket sites for the details though.

Homelink transmitter

[kriston]

It's a Homelink transmitter for turning on lights, opening garage doors, etc.

Re:don't touch unlabelled gadgets!

[stienman]

This Guy is Falling

-Adam

Alarm system display and remote control receiver.

[Otto]

The antenna clearly indicates it's to receive or transmit in some fashion.

The crystal frequency of 6.775117MHz would put it at the 433 mhz frequency, which makes sense for such a device. The Op-amp makes it clear that it's doing something along these lines.

The angle of the 7 segment display indicates that it was original intended to be mounted on the A pillar. The dots on the 7 segment display would facing the bottom of the unit, thus putting the antenna at the top. When mounted along the pillar, the angle of the 7 segment display would then be flat in relation to the driver, as the A pillar always leans in that direction.

The KIA70 is a low voltage detector, probably detecting 2.7v (thus the "27P") and simply cutting the thing off when the voltage gets low, to prevent weirdness on the circut.

Can't find anything about the S727G/OM-7003 IC.

I'm betting B=Battery wire, I=Ignition wire, G=Ground wire. O and V I don't know, but they're probably some form of signaling wires back to/from the main unit.

Anyway, I say it's an A-Pillar mounted remote antenna/display unit that hooks to a car alarm system somewhere else in the car. The case for it has been removed and discarded, most likely. It receives and possibly sends antenna signals for the system, as well as displaying status codes of some type from the main car alarm unit.

Re:Alarm system display and remote control receive

[VanessaDannenberg]

Thanks to everyone who wrote with their suggestions. After a little more digging and some insight from you all here, it turns out this is part of an Excalibur "Gold" ATV1600 car alarm. One site out of about 47 bazillion I waded through had a picture to confirm it's identity. Now the fun part is finding out where the rest of the system is (doesn't make sense that the previous owner would only take part of the system with him).

Oh, in answer to why I posted here... I could think of no better way to get an answer about a device that looks geeky to me, than to ask a bunch of geeks. :)

/me watches her Karma go up in flames along with Yahoo.

Re:Alarm system display and remote control receive

[Corporate Gadfly]

After a little more digging and some insight from you all here, it turns out this is part of an Excalibur "Gold" ATV1600 car alarm.

Here's a link to the manual for the alarm.