Quote:
Originally Posted by gosi
Hi guys,
sorry to revive an old thread, but at least the coronavirus is good for one thing - giving me time to fiddle with my car.  I've made some progress on this idea.
I've disassembled the steering wheel to see how the controls work. The blank buttons have a working circuit underneath them, which is good, the bad news is that there are two LED's missing, which means you'd have to find the correct LED's and solder them on, or the buttons wouldn't light up at night. A minor issue, but still.
The left button cluster (where the blanks are) has analog pins that go to the right cluster, where there is presumably a LIN slave that then sends a digital signal through the steering wheel clock spring, at which point it is useless to us. To get working buttons, you need to intercept the analog signal before it gets to the LIN node in the steering wheel.
I've been able to find the correct pins for both blank buttons, one is pin 1 and 6, the other pin 3,4 (see attachment). Now it's a matter splicing the 4 wires and finding a way to route them through the steering wheel separately. I don't think there is a way to route the wires other than going through the clock spring (that's the thing that allows you to turn the wheel without severing the wires). There are two connectors on the steering wheel that go through the spring. One is for the LIN stuff and has one empty pin on it and the other is for the airbag, which has 4 empty pins. If you have a heated steering wheel/or lane assist, you have an additional connector AFAIK. I don't so I don't know if there are any empty pins there...
I've seen people retrofit a heated steering wheel and wire it through the empty pins on the airbag connector instead of buying a new clock spring. You could do the same thing here, and it would be just 2 buttons instead of a heating element, but I'm still a bit unsure about doing that, since I don't want an airbag exploding in my face  Another option would be to buy a new clock spring which has the additional connector for the heated steering wheel function and you could use that, but I'm guessing that would be pricey.
Anyway this is doable and I just need the right pins to fit the connectors and I'll be all set. I will be using the buttons to control my P3 gauge, but they could be used for anything What do you guys think? |
Awesome!
One thing that comes to mind is the disassembling the bluetooth controller for MPE or the "garage opener" for the VSC-1 (
https://x-ph.com/cg-precision-vsc-1-...nd-controller/). That way you would not have to run any wires through the clock spring. The only question is whether or not there is enough clearance in that area for the electronics + batteries. May be possible to just run the wires out and tape/glue the electronics/batteries to the backside or underside of the wheel.