Thread: Button interface to Bordmonitor on BMW E39 and E46

I'll be following your unbelievable enthusiasm with great enthusiasm!

So I've taken my board monitor apart and had a good look inside. I can see why you're doing this and I think I have to do the same now too!

I have the Bluetooth in the car however and I'm wondering if there's a way to keep the LED's for that?

The LED's are controlled by iBus, so there is no difference there. At least the board I make will support all LED's. I think Art's is too.

Excellent! Now I want it!

If I was to fit my LCD controller with the screen, I'd need power, VGA, video (reverse camera) and ibus to go to the back of the panel. Could I do what BMW have done and use a flat cable to carry all of those, including enough juice to power the LCD? I know a bit about electronics but I'm not amazing at soldering.

I'm thinking, the RGsB to VGA adaptor (verified this works now) can be put inside the back of the board monitor, taking the RGB lines directly from the boardmonitor connector and giving a VGA signal to the new higher res LCD. Final piece of the puzzle would be to add an ibus activated VGA switcher (maybe it can pretend it's the CD player or something), which would then switch to the external VGA/Video inputs. Add VGA and Phono plugs on the back of the board monitor and voila... BoardMonitor++ ready for an use!

In fact the LED's will be dimmed according to dash lights... ;-)

I put the electronics in the BM house and bought a longer flatcable to interface the LCD panel. No VGA, etc to the door. Depends on what panel and controller you use what is best. Kraimer has done what you are talking about, so have a look at his pics.

Hurry and finish

Thanks for the link to Kraimer's work. I had a look and it's a very good idea that he's used the empty space in the board monitor to place a spring that pull back the thick VGA cable. I may resort to that but look what I found!



I'm thinking to use 2 of these to carry the VGA and the TS USB/POWER on other cable. Do you think if I used multiple lines for the power, that it would enough to power a screen?

Flat cables are a lot better if you can use that instead of the round cables! Looks great!
I think the backlight is the biggest consumer, and that is 200mA or so on 12V. Check spec on cable you use, but yes, using a few lines is probably enough.

Separating ground for backlight would be great for noise immunity too.

After finalizing the code and the electronical design I now must give up the idee of having the same pcb for both E39 and E46 :-(
I made the embarrasing misstake of missing two big holes on each side that are required in E46. It is not only that the space for components is reduced, it is also that one of the big holes have to be where a smaller hole is required from E39. Impossible in other words.
I will now make a third prototype, E46 only...
Even if code is complete and electronics verified I guess I've just lost 200€ and 1 month...

"I've Not Failed, I've Found 10,000 Ways That Don't Work" - Thomas Edison