Anyone tried mfsw from a1

No problem Steve,I was only expecting the confident people to respond to be honest.
I didn't think I was asking for anything other than information to give me a better understanding but fair enough.
I have my own garage and have been working for myself as a mechanic for over 30 years,mainly mechanical and occasionally basic electrics,however as this is my own car I do prefer to do what I can myself,I am certainly not qualified to do a job like this on someone else's car and wouldn't even consider it.
 
I am not sure that we have anyone confident enough to state publically or even privately that the air bag will fire correctly.

That would leave them open to litigation (let alone the fact is that they would not want to risk anyone's life) should they be wrong (and even standard air bags are not foolproof, so that is a big risk)

The reason that I feel safe in mine is perhaps a foolish one, but if the A2 has a single stage air bag and this modern wheel has a single stage air bag then that is a start. Add to that the fact (as Tony pointed out) an air bag can even trigger by static electricity, then as long as the two wires are connected the right way around, I am prepared to personally go with that.

But I do not know this for a fact and so would not infer that it is safe in any way, but it is good enough for my peace of mind.

So for a legal statement, this club does not infer directly or indirectly that fitting a newer style wheel and air bag is safe and so our advice is to not do it.

Steve B
 
Last edited:
So for a legal statement, this club does not infer directly or indirectly that fitting a newer stayle wheel and air bag is safe and so our advice is to not do it.


Advice noted
 
If you're not sure about it, I would say don't fit one yourself.

Swapping standard fit steering wheels (ie the 4 spoke and the 3 spoke sport wheel) from the same model car is reasonably straight forward, providing you abide by some basic safety when handling such devices. Swapping a totally different wheel from a car that is 2 or 3 generations newer is something I would leave to a specialist who has carried out this exact conversion previously, or has substantial experience doing these kinds of modifications.

The problem with airbags is they either work, or they don't, and you don't really want to have to find out the hard way.
 
Birchall said:
Granted, but there is no industry training for swapping steering wheels.
What there is though is a lot of training relating to electronics and wiring looms such as this.
So if the person you are using has these credentials then that to me is as good as you get.
Click to expand...

As you may know Steve, I used to teach motor vehicle technologies at an FE college. Part of the level 3 curriculum is an in-depth module covering air-bag systems and their integration in modern cars. Great emphasis is placed on the personal safety of the technician as well as protecting the vehicle systems from unwanted airbag deployment. Motor manufacturers use different systems to each other - an airbag system in an Audi is very different to that of a Toyota and different rules apply. For example, certain systems can be worked on immediately after disconnecting the battery, others require a discharge period, yet others require diagnostic systems intervention. Having been in service management for many years, I can assure you that motor manufacturers have intensive development programmes for dealer technicians with certain courses being mandatory. SRS systems are no exception. It would be a foolish service manager that did not take every opportunity to further educate and progress his technicians - that is what a Master Technician status is, and the process complies to very strict dealer standards criteria. Outside of the dealer network, traders can take advantage of specialist courses and again, SRS systems have their own course module for interested parties. With airbags being an integral design of the steering wheel, possible unwanted deployment with potentially fatal consequences and the further integration of a multitude of convenience systems with their associated components, the task is a little more than swapping of steering wheels.

Birchall said:
When it comes to safety you want to ensure that you are using a knowledgeable and experienced person who cares about what they do. I know of plenty of people who have walls papered in certificates and qualifications that I wouldn't trust to mend my cooker let alone letting them loose on an air bag.

So I agree with Tony in that you MUST use competent people who are insured and registered, but the additional requirements are competency and experience.
Click to expand...

I agree Steve - paper tigers abound. It’s a sad fact that the motor industry has a poor reputation for proud workmanship which makes it all important that selecting someone to work on your car should be done with care. We have literally hundreds of images of "bodge jobs" ranging from mechanical, electrical, hydraulic and even body repairs! These from main dealers, reputable independents, home mechanics, etc. It's disappointing that such poor standards are deemed acceptable by players in the trade thereby compromising safety. At the end of the day it’s about knowing the standards and applying them – this comes from proper training and diligent workmanship.

For anyone interested in airbag systems, Audi publish their own Self Learning Programme on their system.
To the OP – apologies for the swerve.

blue skies
tony
 
All,

Thank you very much for the information. It is still something I'd like to have fitted but will wait for someone to offer this as a service and stay well clear of doing it myself.

I'll try to find a FBSW without MF as I only have a Chorus fitted and not too bothered about controlling the volume from the wheel, unless it is relatively cheap to do whilst working on the Airbag and horn wiring.

I'm very open to any advice if such a steering wheel with single stage airbag already exists.

Thanks again for the information.

Kind regards,

Tom
 
image.jpeg

Pleased with it so far!
I will need toms skills for the buttons though.
 
Looks really nice. You have a great spec tdi by the looks of that photo. I like your Megane Coupe too, I rolled my first one down a hill many years ago :D
 
Stuebydoo said:
Looks really nice. You have a great spec tdi by the looks of that photo. I like your Megane Coupe too, I rolled my first one down a hill many years ago :D
Click to expand...

Not my Megane! The spec is now getting to where I want it although I am sure there are more mods to do,just sold my 911 c4s cabriolet,but this little beaut has the pan roof so has compensated slightly for my loss :)
 
I have an A2 Sport (3 spoke wheel) and have purchased an A1 MFSW, similar to the OP but not flat bottom. It has all the buttons and scroll wheels, same as the OP, I bought the wheel for £50 and the airbag for £80. I also have a degree in electrical and electronic engineering.

The A1 airbag connector is not the same as the A2's, so you can't simply connect the wheel. Equally, the steering wheel loom from the A1 won't fit onto the A2's slip ring - so a hybrid loom needs to be built with an A1 airbag connector one end and the A2 slip ring connector t'other. This is pretty straight forward if you can read the wiring diagrams and use a soldering iron and can guarantee you don't make a mistake...remember you are working with explosives.

Note: Despite what anyone says (except maybe the Audi factory and the airbag manufacturer), there is no guarantee that the single stage airbag from the A1 is 100% compatible with the A2's given there is 10 years development between them and they are designed for different cars with different driving positions, different seats, different seat belt pyrotechnics and different crumple structures.

As for the multi function buttons. It appears that both the A2 MFSW and A1 MFSW use a LIN BUS to action the button presses. What this means is that all the buttons "talk" through 3 wires - so technically the A2 can "hear" which button is being pressed on the A1 wheel - the complicated bit is getting the A2 to understand what its "hearing" and then do something useful.

I am going to hack an A2 MFSW loom (£20 from Audi) so it has the A1 airbag connector which should keep the airbag light off at least and connect the slip ring to the A1 wheel buttons. I'm not sure what I will do with the LIN bus signals yet.

There are two obvious options, first is to get the LIN bus signals to control the A2's audio etc - this requires the correct controllers from Audi and to programme them correctly. The second option which I am more interested in is to connect the LIN bus to a Bluetooth transmitter to control my iPhone directly. For the techies amongst you, this is easier than you would imagine as you can buy a LIN bus interface for the Arduino - sniff the codes being produced by the steering wheel (LIN is a serial comms interface) and go from there.

Once I get my steering wheel on I will post more detail about how I did it (don't hold your breath though).

Hope the above is of use.
 
I fitted the A1 wheel to my A2 today, sorry for the delay, you can breath now :)

The Audi wiring diagrams are pretty (very) poor (both ETKA and ErWin). I can't find a wiring diagram for the standard A2 wheel, the A2 MFSW diagram is OK but the A1 MFSW wiring diagrams have no colour codes, no pin numbers and no LIN identification at all. So its not a case of looking to Audi for the info.

The A1 and A2 airbags have two pins on them and for the life of me, I can't find anywhere on the internet that describes how the trigger circuit works so I can't work out which pin goes to which wire and what might happen if I got them the wrong way round!

The conversion is a three stage affair. Stage 1, get the airbag connected with no warning light and the horn working. Stage 2 get the buttons controlling something. Stage 3 get the buttons to illuminate and dim etc with the dash.

Stage 1 is relatively easy as long as you can use a soldering iron.

BUT DO THIS AT YOUR OWN PERIL AND READ THE ABOVE POST REGARDING THE RISKS... MAKE SURE YOU DISCONNECT YOUR BATTERY AND LEAVE THE CAR TO STAND FOR AT LEAST 30 MINUTES BEFORE DISCONNECTING OR CONNECTING AN AIRBAG, THEY ARE SMALL BOMBS AFTER ALL.

Remove the A1 MFSW loom from the airbag so you can work on it and then cut its yellow connector off which leaves 6 wires. Of these, you can tape up the 2 LIN Bus ones (the 3rd LIN Bus wire is shared with the horn). Then taking your old A2 yellow connector or a new one from Audi, cut the connector off its wires. Then connect the x4 A1 wires to the A2 slip ring connector. Two airbag wires, plus the horn 12v and earth. Once you have done that, re-attach the loom to the A1 airbag and fit it to the wheel et voila. I have done this, no warning light and horn works - see pic below.

Stage 2

The A2 slip ring connector has 7 pins as standard, of which I used 4 in Stage 1. The other 3 are for the buttons, the LIN Bus. This has a DATA line (bi-directional), an earth and a 12v power. On the A2 these 3 lines are separate to the horn. But on the A1 one of the LIN wires is shared with the horn. I think its the earth connection, but it could be the 12v power or the LIN Data sharing the horn 12v...I'm not sure yet...so the A1 only has 6 wires at its connector (there is a Y splitter in the loom so 6 wires becomes 7).

Anyway, to make use of the buttons, the 2 wires left dangling in Stage 1 need to also be connected through the slip ring and the 3rd wire needs to be run from either the horn 12v or the horn earth (see above) to the slip ring so all 7 pins are used. One pin goes to the 5 pin standard A2 connector (LIN Data) the other two need to go to another connector (there is a 2nd loom in the A2 MFSW) which sits above the yellow one, in the slip ring. Perhaps an owner of an A2 MFSW can post some picks of their slip ring with looms in place?

The LIN signal then enters the car where for stage 2, you could make a bit of hardware using an Arduino or Raspberry Pi which listens to the LIN Bus (LIN will probably be 12v so a circuit needs to sort that out to a suitable level) and then when a button on the wheel is pressed some software can broadcast a key press via Bluetooth (RPi's have Bluetooth built in now) to directly control a Smart Phone.

Stage 3

Stage 2 is about processing button presses coming FROM the steering wheel. To get the lights in the buttons to come on and dim etc we need to talk TO the steering wheel. This is more complex as you need to use a language that the button controller in the steering wheel understands - for this its probably best to use the Audi A1 MFSW controller which talks over the LIN Bus to the wheel controller to listen for button presses passing these on over the CAN Bus to the audio system (or phone etc). Plus, it talks to the steering wheel, to tell it what brightness to have its illumination. The controller will need coding for this.

Footnote:

Sorry I haven't mentioned what wires do what, but your wire colours may be different to mine and without a reference from Audi as to what exactly everything does its a bit trial and error. I took the risk and made an educated guess as to which way round the airbag wires needed to go. I THINK (try at your own peril) that if I got them the wrong way round it would either work anyway OR I would just get a warning light but there was a chance it would go BANG! It worked for me so I don't really have an answer.

My sport wheel had coloured wires in its wheel loom, the MFSW loom I bought from Audi had all black wires for LIN and horn (great) and two black and white striped wires (i.e. both the same) for the airbag (wonderful). The A1 had green and black for the airbag, brown and blue for the horn plus brown, white and purple for the LIN Bus (the two browns connecting into a grey) ... But the Audi A1 wiring diagram has no colour references on it (ridiculous)!!! So these colours COULD mean nothing on another wheel.

I doubt I will ever have time to do something meaningful with the buttons, but I will post here if I do. Happy New Year :)

Wheel.jpg
 
Last edited:
I am sure when I put mine on I read elsewhere that the 2 wires for the airbag aren't polarised and can go either way without causing problems......or maybe I dreamt it ?!

I still haven't got the buttons functioning or the illumination working,but I haven't attempted either,happy with the wheel itself though as it just looks and feels more modern than the original.
 
If anyone has a none A2 MFSW with working buttons can they let us know if they used the A2 MFSW control module or managed to interface another (A1/TT etc) control module to the A2's CAN bus?
 
Ricardo said:
If anyone has a none A2 MFSW with working buttons can they let us know if they used the A2 MFSW control module or managed to interface another (A1/TT etc) control module to the A2's CAN bus?
Click to expand...
Hi,

Mine is a 2012 TT A3 FBMFSW fitted by Hazzydayz, I asked thgem about the controller and they said that they used an A4 controller. Not sure that helps, but it is all I know.

All buttons are functional.

Steve B
 
Many thanks, that helps. I wondered if the A2's MFSW module could read the A1 buttons or if another module could be used to read the buttons and then communicate with the A2's CAN. Clearly the A4 module sits between a none A2 wheel and the A2's CAN (although I guess you have an RNS-E too).

I am debating if its easier to interface to the LIN Bus (direct to the wheel), or CAN Bus (from the steering module). The advantage of the CAN option is that there is more hardware available to talk to the CAN Bus and with the module in place its straight forward to get the lights in the buttons illuminating/dimming correctly. I want to transmit the wheel button presses via Bluetooth direct to my phone.
 
As an aside, I am sure Ianth would agree with me that the wheel is a worthwhile mod if you can find one for the right price and don't mind the airbag issues. Given that you are forever looking at and touching the steering wheel, having a new one is like having a new car, I'm amazed at the difference - wish I had fitted it sooner.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top