Thread: Button interface to Bordmonitor on BMW E39 and E46

That's Art work

how do the boards fit in there? Can I still keep the metal frame and plastic bit that are there? I need them to stabilise my screen!

Yes, you detach the board that holds the buttons with its flat cable as well as the connectors for the knobs.
Then remove the lcd controller board.
Fit the flat cables to the new pcb's and fit it all together with two screws in existing screw holes.
Three wires are then needed to the house. Ibus, 12V battery, and GND. Or just ibus if you have power available on your lcd controller.
There is one 8pin flatcable connector (0.5mm) with DAC outputs and ground that on my lcd controller fits right in. I should have placed a pinlist there too... :-(
See post #1 for pics.
I cut my frame to get more room for display and controller, but that is not nessessary.

Hi guys,

nice to see that your projects also approaching. In the recent time I created a new OpenBM device with 7'' display with LED backlight. Additionally I am using the photo-sensor found in the bordmonitor: The brightness of the display background LEDs are controlled by the environment light. Here are some pictures:

On the side you see my button controller pcbs. They are connected with a flat cable together as also to the display VGA controller board. A MOSFET controls the power to the VGA board. A DAC IC emulates display keys, so that I can switch inputs for example.


Here we see the 7'' display. The red cable comes from my board to control the LED background of the display. The control is done pure in hardware by PWM pulses.


Thats IT. Only this connector is needed GND, +12V, IBUS and DIMM (dimmable background leds. All that signals can be found on the MID connector for example.


Some cuts are not really line aligned, but here is the idea. Complete 16:9 bordmonitor for CarPC installations. Nothing else than this 4Pin BMW-Connector and VGA is required