Escort 8500 x50 in volt meter mode

Hi guys I have a question for you when you run this radar detector in the volt meter mode does it still fuction as the detector as well/
Thanks

Yes. The display will change to show you the alert when radar is sensed, it's no problem at all. One note; I originally connected mine to a convenient close by circuit, not to the battery. If you do that, the voltage shown on the display may be less than battery voltage due to other loads on that circuit. It's still a good indication if something is changing for the worse, even if the value isn't exactly accurate.

How do you do this?

I have this unit, and didn't know it can act as a volt meter.

The manual is silent on it...

Any suggestions would be appreciated.

Regards,

-Geo

You have to hold down the sensitivity and display brightness buttons at the same time to put the unit into programming mode. Use one of the buttons to scroll through the categories and the other to scroll through the options for that (sorry can't remember which is which - I usually figure it out by trial and error). Escort calls the inactive (i.e. no current radar alert) display "Pilot". One of the options under pilot is to set it to show voltage.

It's a nice option and good use of the display when it would otherwise be doing basically nothing between alerts. On the new 9500ix that I bought, you can even choose vehicle speed for your pilot display, taking advantage of the built in GPS technology.

Thanks, Jeff.

After your post, I went back and did find this in the manual, but the voltmeter feature is not called out. It is somewhat buried in there with the Pilot commands, and that is the only reference I could find.

Interesting; I look forward to trying this and comparing the reading to the "Mellow voltmeter" I recently installed, since they'll be on 2 different circuits.

Regards,

-Geo

Another nice feature is when your volts drop too low you get an alert.

My :tc1:! I've got a Beltronics RX-65 Pro which also has the low voltage feature but as has already been noted you need to be able to read hieroglyphics to figure out how to change it!

Reviving an ancient post. I have a very old Excort 8500 (not X50) and I just discovered it has vehicle voltage mode as well. Called out on page 4 of manual at this link