novel use of DIS stalk

depronman

depronman

A2OC Donor
I have an aftermarket Pioneer head unit in my A2, it's one of the Apple Play head units and as such is all touch screen i.e no buttons on the head unit at all.
Whilst this is nice looking and great for some things I do rather mis being able to control the head unit without my hands leaving the steering wheel.

I have recently bought a set of stalks with CC on the LH stalk and DIS on the RH stalk, however my A2 is a none DIS car, so I was just going to use the CC stalk, then I hit on the idea of using the rocker on the end of the DIS stalk to control volume up/down and the reset to mute the Audio.
The Pioneer head unit can be used with a wired remote control unit which as 9 buttons, I founds some online info about this and it is simple a set of switches with differing resistor values / diodes switched in as a switch is pressed. I had already made up a binnacle for the Audio controls with 6 buttons, but getting the 9 buttons was just not possible without making the binnacle too large.
So tonight I swopped over two resistor values to repurpose the binnacle volume up/down buttons to make these folder up/down buttons, and wired the DIS stalk buttons in to provide volume up/down on the stalk end rocker and mute on the reset button.

Volume up and down will be via a press of the DIS stalk buttons and even better to mute the audio using the reset button. All the other binnacle buttons work as before except the old volume up/down are now reprogrammed to be folder up/down buttons
The connector for the OSS motor is the same as the DIS stalk, so making up a loom was childs play

I will be installing the stalks tomorrow evening, all in it took about one hours to work it out and make up the loom
will report tomorrow with how it works
Cheers
 
Why not to use mfsw for its intended purpose? Put the corresponding resistors in the wheel, you need only 2 wires trough the clockspring. Always cruise and dis can be retrofited later.
 
I did exactly this a few years ago. I call it MFWS - multifuction wiper stalk! It controls the OEM head unit volume with the rocker switch and mutes the stereo using the reset button.
Of course, yours is electrically different because it controls an aftermarket unit via a proprietary analogue interface rather than a digital bus, but we've clearly had the same idea.

If you don't care about having DIS, it's an excellent feature that's both intuitive and convenient.

Cheers,

Tom
 
timmus said:
I did exactly this a few years ago. I call it MFWS - multifuction wiper stalk! It controls the OEM head unit volume with the rocker switch and mutes the stereo using the reset button.
Of course, yours is electrically different because it controls an aftermarket unit via a proprietary analogue interface rather than a digital bus, but we've clearly had the same idea.

If you don't care about having DIS, it's an excellent feature that's both intuitive and convenient.

Cheers,

Tom
Click to expand...
Great minds and all that :) I never read your post on the MFWS

Never say never, but I have lived without DIS for many years and having gone 'aftermarket' on the Head Unit (although it was choosen to look similiar to the RNS head units) the only real advantage of DIS is the MPG displayed, and I can judge this by zeroing the trip on fill up of tank and 130 miles per tank division means I'm on track for 68 to 70 MPG, which is my cars norm, maybe a little better now with the new long 5th gear.
So for now the DIS stalk as a practical and functional use, plus it came with the later C.C. stalk (as against the early totally none logical C.C. stalk that I have in my blue A2) so I will be reverting to C.C. on the left hand stalk and seeing if I get on with it any better (the binnacle buttons for C.C. will remain until I am totally happy with the C.C. stalk
Cheers,
 
depronman said:
Great minds and all that :) I never read your post on the MFWS
Click to expand...

I've never actually posted about it. I've got a few further ideas on how to develop it, so will do a write-up once I'm totally happy with it.

Despite having retrofitted DIS in countless cars and providing the Colour DIS upgrade, I don't have DIS in my own A2. As you say, I can judge my mpg fairly accurately simply based on how many miles I've done since the last fill-up.
 
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