Have had a V1 for many years and always had it hardwired at the top of the windshield ala Don Juan but was not comfortable leaving it there (thieves) and it interfered with visor operation in my e39. When I felt the need, I pulled it out and mounted it in the same place as DJ's.

SO - got my 550 in mid-Feb and here is how I ended up.

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Mount for remote display (RD) and fairing for back end of V1 (to cover display and volume control) were fab'd out of 1" PVC sheet. The stock RD case has been cut down from approx. 1" deep to 0.5" deep to eliminate interference with the auto-rise steering column. The modular socket on the RD was removed and 4 conducter flat cable was soldered directly to the RD's circuit board and potted with dielectric epoxy. Also, the red arrow were buffed with 0000 Scotchbrite to a matte finish to eliminate reflective glare.

Wiring is all concealed and tied off along driver's side of car and into dash.

Only disadvantage to this mounting location is that the front view laser detector lense must be blocked as the iDrive screen emits IR in the same range as police laser. Fortunately, I live in Louisiana and we don't have many of those new-fangled speed detection devices (plus I always considered laser detection as just telling you when to pull over and get out your license and registration).

Now I have V1 when I want it without having to pull the unit out of the glovebox to mount.

 

Looks great!

 

Now there is some good engineering and retrofitting. So let me see if I understand. You have three pieces?
1) The Remote Display is revamped only in the physical sense to fit your chosen location.

the main unit has been divided into two pieces?

2) The radar and laser sensors mounted under rear brake light with front looking laser blocked so not to get False Alarms.

and

3) The volume control and ? in a seperate unit under dash at about right knee level

Really neat work.

I am fortunate in a 6er to be able to mount the V1 either to left or right of mirror and not interfere with anything, plus hard to see from outside. I do remove when leaving at airport parking lots.

 

The Remote Display is not in two pieces - just a reduced thickness. Once the modular receptacle is removed, the RD circuit board requires only about 3/8" of space. I cut the rear two clamshell pieces of the RDon a bandsaw down to the necessary thickness. The saw drops were discarded.

For mounting purposes, I disassembled the V1 main unit and drilled and tapped the bottom half of the case (the V1 is mounted upside down for aesthetics) for 4-40 machine screws for mounting to the 3rd brake light cover. Mounting is complex to describe here but I made a cutout in the 3rd brake light cover that the V1 slots into and bonded a piece of 22ga. aluminum to the topside of the light cover. The 4-40 machine screws fasten the V1 to the aluminum and sandwich the light cover in the process.

 

So the hardware shown above your leg on the bottom of the dash in pic #5 are not part of V1 system? (what I was counting as piece #3).

Very clever and skilled work.

 

Item on the bottom of the dash is a Valentine accessory called Remote Audio. Use of both the Remote Display (correct term is Concealed Display) and the Remote Audio allows complete control of V1.

 

Ah, thanks, was not aware of that . Makes sense for these kinds of applications.

 

excellent job from a fellow Louisianian.

 

wow i need to do that!!

 

thats pretty neat!!