Making A Steering Wheel Remote

[MidLifeCrisis]

This one is firmly in the category of 'just because I can' !!

I just installed a new car stereo headunit which has an input for a 'wired remote' which you can buy to install onto the steering column to change various radio setting without having to lunge across the dash.

Good idea I thought .... then I found that someone had reverse engineered the wired remote and found out that it was just a bunch of resistors whereby each press of a button connected a different resistance to the connector to get the various functions (i.e vol up, vol down, search up, search down etc).


So .... that got me thinking if I could make my own remote .... which then morphed into, can I make my own steering wheel remote ......

I found this remote unit for dirt cheap on ebay - it was a 12 button remote, where each button press activates a different relay on the receiver unit.


So, I soldered a wire onto each of the 12 switches ....


Added some buttons to the steering wheel (I decided to just do volume up/down, search up/down for the time being)


Here's the front view of the buttons ...


This is the resistor network - the relays on the receiver activate each of the 4 options and then this resistor network connects to the back of the radio ...


And voila - I have remote control of my headunit from switches on the steering wheel ....... and most excitingly I have 8 spare channels to go yet ..... what else can I remote control!!

[scottbott]

clever bugger

[MidLifeCrisis]

The clever bit is how those chaps in China can make a 12 channel transmitter and receiver and ship it half way round the world for £10 !!!
The rest is just bits of wire!!

[tonytech]

Looks good.
Very nice solution.
I've been thinking of doing something similar for a while now ( funny that I think of doing lots of things, but never get round to doing them)
I wanted to control my central locking from the steering wheel, but I've got a fancy GL "soft" steering wheel and couldnt bear the thought of cutting it.

T

[CovKid]

Next, an electrically powered sliding door and push button rock n roll bed.....

[Titus A Duxass]

Next, an electrically powered sliding door

I drove one of those French things with an eletric sliding door - it drove me mad, takes an absolute age to open and close.

[MidLifeCrisis]

Next, an electrically powered sliding door and push button rock n roll bed.....

Although I'd normally argue that everything is improved by adding a electronics, electric motors (and possibly Bluetooth!!) - I did justify this project from a safety point of view that having wheel mounted buttons was much better than having to lunge across to the radio to flip stations/change volume ...... it's a pretty poor excuse but I'm sticking to it!!

[tforturton]

When I was married, we had a Peugeot 807 with electric sliding doors. Brilliant things - I loved them.