nalc's BRZ steering wheel audio control saga
 

AUGUST 2013 UPDATE: Tested, Impreza SWCs are 100% plug and play compatible with the BRZ head unit

UPDATE JANUIARY 2014: These other threads may be of interest
http://www.ft86club.com/forums/showthread.php?t=39244
http://www.ft86club.com/forums/showthread.php?t=55024
http://www.ft86club.com/forums/showthread.php?t=51941
http://www.ft86club.com/forums/showthread.php?t=15443
http://www.ft86club.com/forums/showthread.php?t=44827


The 2013 Impreza has an option for the same Fujitsu Ten nav head unit as the BRZ. All trim levels of the Impreza use the same SWCs, and all are compatible with the BRZ. The Legacy SWCs look the same, but due to different resistance values, they are not compatible. If you're buying used, not by model, the Legacy ones have a single connector, whereas the Impreza ones have two connectors. The SWCs are sold as an assembly with the cruise control buttons.

There are six wires going to the SWC side of the assembly - Black, Blue, White, and Orange went directly from the connector to the SWCs, and Pink and Purple went from the Cruise control module to the SWCs.

Black, Blue, White, and Orange went to the SWC. Red, Green, Yellow, and Brown went to the CC, and Pink and Purple went between SWC and Cruise Control.

Black is ground for the illumination.
Pink is positive for the illumination.
Purple is another ground (connected to the black wire internally)
Blue is the SWC audio (connect to Pin 21 of the 28-pin harness)
Orange is the SWC phone (connect to Pin 22 of the 28-pin harness)
White is the SWC common (connect to Pin 23 of the 28-pin harness)

____________ ORIGINAL POST (MUCH OF THIS INFO MAY BE INCORRECT, THIS DOCUMENTS THE PROCESS OF FINDING THE ABOVE INFORMATION) ___________

Greetings folks,

I'm one of the many BRZ owners who is somewhat dissatisfied with the touch screen head unit. I'm happy with the way it sounds and looks, and I like HD Radio a lot. I primarily listen to FM/HD radio, and I miss having six preset buttons on the front of the unit like my old LGT. I don't mind not having steering wheel controls (I've never owned a car with them), but I'd really like to have a tactile button to flip through my presets, rather than using the soft buttons. Steering wheel controls would be nice, but not at the expense of replacing the steering wheel (I quite like the BRZ wheel), or doing extremely costly mods.

I'm endeavoring to add physical buttons somewhere in the car to control radio functions.

As I'm sure many of you know, the Fujitsu Ten head unit has native support for steering wheel audio controls. It's available with them in a few other vehicles, such as the 2012+ Impreza.

http://i.imgur.com/ImVgjKdh.jpg

As a starting point for my modifications, I ordered the SWC module from an Legacy from ebay. This contains two inserts for the steering wheel - the left has the audio controls, the right has cruise control. The same connector is used for both sides, with the base model cars just having the cruise control, and upgraded models having cruise control and SWCs. It looks like it is identical to the Impreza, even though the Legacy has a different head unit. I figure, why would they re-invent the wheel? There were two versions available - one with Vol Up/Down, Seek Next/Last, Mode, and Mute, the other with Vol Up/Down, Seek Next/Last, Mode, Voice Command, Pickup, and Hangup. I bought the one with more buttons since the price was the same, however in retrospect I hardly ever connect my phone to the car, so I don't need the extra phone switches, and I didn't realize before I bought it that it was missing the Mute button, which is something I would use.

http://i.imgur.com/efJEQ13.jpg

I didn't care about cruise control since we already have the little stalk, but I wanted the SWCs.

http://i.imgur.com/Kyg0c7r.jpg

I got the unit, and took it apart. The module with the buttons unscrews from the silver plastic bezel. This is good, as I will likely paint the bezel black at some point. All of the writing is on the black switches themselves, and is backlit.

http://i.imgur.com/mDntoFZh.jpg

The button module itself consists of a plastic piece that the buttons attach to, a PCB, and a backing plate.

http://i.imgur.com/ZhtW8pth.jpg

At this point, it was time to put my reverse engineering skills to the test. I couldn't find any pinouts or wiring diagrams, so I decided to make one.

The 10-pin connector has 9 pins populated, and one of them is terminated in a spade connector for grounding, so there were really only 8 pins to worry about, plus two wires that went between the SWC and the CC modules, but didn't go into the connector.

Black, Blue, White, and Orange went to the SWC. Red, Green, Yellow, and Brown went to the CC, and Pink and Purple went between SWC and CC.

I noticed that Purple and Black were connected together within the SWC module, and the legs of the LEDs seemed to go to them, so I figured they were ground.

The LEDs in the CC module seemed to connect between red and pink, and the LEDs in the SWC module seemed to connect between pink and black, so my initial guess was that red was the positive for the lighting, and black was the ground for the lighting. I connected it to a variable power supply, and it worked, so good news there. However, I will need to do some investigation to measure the voltage on the pink wire. Unfortunately, it seems that the LEDs in both modules are wired in series, so that at full brightness, the red wire would be +12v, the pink wire would be +6v, and the black wire would be ground, with each cluster of LEDs only seeing 6v. However, I haven't confirmed this yet, and I may be wrong. If I'm not wrong, I will need to retain the PCB for the cruise control module and hide it behind my dashboard, or wire in a potentiometer to drop the power to the LEDs enough that I don't fry them, then adjust it to match the exact brightness of the rest of the interior. I was pleased to note that they are red LEDs, so they will match.

http://i.imgur.com/Z7fMHUKh.jpg

Moving onto the switches themselves, I had another problem to solve. The FT head unit uses a total of three pins for SWC controls - there's a audio controls one, and another one for bluetooth phone controls, and a ground. I had three pins (remember, of the eight, I figured out that two were for lighting, and three went only to the Cruise Control module).

I had blue, orange, and white pins. I connected every combination of pins, and made a table of the resistance values I measured.

No Buttons Pressed: O/B 104.5K, O/W 99.8K, B/W 4.71K
Vol+ : O/B 100K, O/W 99.9K, B/W 89
Vol- : O/B 100K, O/W 99.9K, B/W 193
Seek Up : O/B 100.4K, O/W 99.9K, B/W 603
Seek Down : O/B 100.9K, O/W 99.9K, B/W 1146
Mode : O/B 100.1K, O/W 99.9K, B/W 336
Voice Command : O/B 7.82K, O/W 3.13K, B/W 4.71
Hang Up : O/B 5.71K, O/W 1K, B/W 4.71
Answer : O/B 5.03K, O/W 331, B/W 4.71

So, from this, it was clear that white was the common ground, blue was the audio functions (nominally 4.71K, with the buttons varying from 89 to 1146 ohms), and orange was the phone functions (nominally 99.8K, with the buttons varying from 331 to 3.13K)

This corresponds to the values posted in this NASIOC thread from the subaru shop manual, for the SWC from an '09 Impreza, which look completely different

http://forums.nasioc.com/forums/showthread.php?t=749402

22 Ω - Mute
90 Ω - Volume up
200 Ω - Volume down
360 Ω - Mode
690 Ω - Seek up
1.15k Ω - Seek down

4.7k Ω - Nothing pressed

So, it looks like Subaru uses a standard set of values for SWCs, which should mean that it's possible to swap any of them, as my values are all within the standard 10% tolerance of the shop manual values.

Still left to do:

Make sure they actually work with the FT HU. I'm still guessing, and it's a very educated guess since I've confirmed that my Legacy buttons are identical to the Impreza buttons, and that my Legacy buttons would even work with older Subaru head units that had completely different looking buttons, so I really doubt the Impreza would have the same buttons with different values, but I haven't confirmed completely.

Figure out mounting solution. I will probably trim down the bezel, paint it black, and install it on the dashboard just above the trunk release button, where I can just reach over with my left hand and press it. Will also paint it black if I do that. Seems to be room (I will trim down the upper right corner of the bezel)

http://i.imgur.com/dz4XAdA.jpg

Figure out if I can separate the cruise control module without impacting the LEDs in the SWC module.

Find a pin-out of the FT head unit (I know I've seen it a million times but I can't find it in the sticky here or in the sticky on Nasioc) Edit: here it is http://forums.nasioc.com/forums/show...28&postcount=9

1 [NC]
2 Reverse Gear
3 Illumination Dimmer Cancel ("Bright" mode)
4 Mic 5V power supply to mic amp (separate wire)
5 Mic Audio Input + (twisted w/ pin 19)
6 Mic detect (pin tied to chassis ground, not connected to mic module)
7-10 [NC]
11 [NC] (Ground for aux enable)
12 [NC] ("SG" ?)
13 [NC] Aux Video Input (+)
14 [NC] Aux Video Input shield/ground

15 [NC]
16 [NC]
17 VSS
18 [NC]
19 Mic Audio Input - (twisted w/ pin 5)
20 [NC]
21 SWC1 Audio (Seek, Volume)
22 SWC2 Mode & Phone
23 SWC Common
24 [NC]
25 Aux enable
26 Aux audio Right
27 Aux audio shield/ground
28 Aux audio Left

Figure out how to get these wires into the FT head unit. I'll need to extend them which is easy enough to do, but I have no idea what kind of pins I need to crimp on to put in the head unit 28-pin harness.

Figure out where/how to tap in the lighting wires to get it to come on with the rest of the dashboard lights and work on the dimmer.

I will post updates in this thread.

Update: Dire news with regard to this mod. I connected it to the correct pins, but it seems like the FT HU is expecting different resistance values.

I noted the following things - with no buttons pressed, the volume kept going down steadily, even if I turned it up on the knob. Therefore, 4.7K (the no buttons pressed resistance) must be volume down.

I believe Seek Up was Seek Down, and Volume Down was Seek Up.

Next step will now be to find a potentiometer or two and a momentary switch, and start doing it the old fashioned way, sitting in my car with a multimeter recording what different resistances do. I'll start off at maybe 20 ohms just to be sure I don't short anything out, and slowly turn the pot while holding the button down, writing down what the resistance value is everytime it starts to do something different. When I get that, I'll just order the SMD resistors and swap them out for the new values.

If I were to do this again, knowing what I know now, I'd buy the Impreza switch cluster instead of the Legacy. They may look the same, but the Legacy has different resistances.

Update June 19, 2013

I got a 11.26k ohm potentiometer that I had laying around and hooked it up across pins 21 and 23 (SWC Audio and SWC Common)

This is my results

Starting at 11.26K and working down to 22 ohms.

From 11.26K to 6.09K - Nothing happened
From 6.09K to 2.19K - Volume went down
From 2.19K to 529 - Volume went up
From 529 to 100 - Radio tuned down (not seek down, which surprised me)
From 100 to 22 - Radio tuned up

Starting at 22 ohms and working up to 11.26K

From 22 to 436 - Radio tuned up
From 436 to 750 - Radio tuned down
From 750 to 2.17K - Volume went up
From 2.17K to 6.10K - Volume went down
From 6.10K to 11.26K - Nothing happened

Connected between Pin 22 and 23 (SWC Phone and SWC Common)

Nothing happened until I got to the very bottom of the potentiometer range, like 22 ohms, at which point it would mute. I tried shorting it out, and that made it mute too.

I'm unhappy with these results. The stock SWCs are supposed to have seek up and seek down, but I had radio tune, which is annoying. Maybe they're looking for a specific resistance value? I may swallow the bullet and buy Impreza SWCs to see if they work.

Update 6/24:
Found the values on NASIOC:

2011-up Impreza and Forester (both w/ phone/BT buttons): Pin 4: Seek Up 0 Ohms Seek Down 330 Ohms Volume Up 1000 Ohms Volume Down 3110 Ohms No buttons 100K Ohms Pin 13: Mode 0 Ohms On hook 330 Ohms Off hook 1000 Ohms Talk 3110 Ohms No buttons 100K Ohms All models: Pin 14 is the common wire for the SWCs (grounded inside the radio)
I was also told by a member that a short press of the seek button does next preset, but a long press does tune up, so that was the source of my problem. Going ahead with operation "buy new resistors"

Trying to reverse engineer this thing is harder than I expected. Even though it really only needs a few resistors, it has 17 resistors.

R1-R6 are for the LEDs, I didn't measure them
R7 is 68.5
R8 is 112
R9 is 160
R10 is 332
R11 is 820
R12 is 22
R13 is 4710
R14 is 681
R15 is 2200
R16 is 332
R17 is 4.5k

There's also a total of 10 switch pads, despite only having 8 switches, (the voice command and mode switches both push down on two pads each, but only have the metal disc to actually make contact to one of the switch pads). They're just wired in parallel, so no big deal.

I traced out the circuits and figured out what the resistance is.

With no buttons pressed, between blue and white, R = R13 = 4.71K

SW1 (Vol+), R = R12+ R7 (in parallel with R13) = 22 + 68.5 = 90.5 (should be 90 per shop manual)
SW2 (Vol-), R = R12+R7+R8 (in parallel with R13) = 22 + 68.5 + 112 =202.5 (should be 200 per shop manual)
SW3 or SW4 (Mode), R = R12 + R7 + R8 + R9 (in parallel with R13) = 22 + 68.5 + 112 + 160 = 362.5 (should be 360 per shop manual)
SW5 (Seek Up), R = R12 + R7 + R8 + R9 + R10 (in parallel with R13) = 22 + 68.5 + 112 + 160 + 332 = 694.5 (should be 690 per shop manual)
SW6 (Seek Down), R = R12 + R7 + R8 + R9 + R10 + R11 (in parallel with R13) = 22 + 68.5 + 112 + 160 + 820 = 1514.5 (should be 1150 per shop manual)

If you plug in the resistor values I measured above, and compare them to the resistances in post 1 for the commands, that seems to validate my tracing. Everything was spot on except Seek Down which is a bit high, but is probably within range.

This creates a quandry, though. There's no way to swap resistors that it would even be possible to make a higher number switch have a lower resistance than a lower number switch, because the resistors keep adding in series. I can swap values, but from smallest to largest resistance, I'll always need to retain V+, V-, Mode, Seek+, Seek-, whereas the BRZ head unit needs Seek+, Seek-, V+, V-, in that order. So I could get the seek controls to work (which I guess is my real goal) by setting the resistances correctly, but then volume would never be able to work.

My options have narrowed down. I can get the Impreza switches for $125 and just abandon the money I have into this, or I can just get parts bin switches and ditch the nice pretty set of buttons I've got now, or I can break the PCB. I will need to cut the trace at SW3/4 and solder a new trace from SW6 to SW1, which might work.

Ordered the Impreza switches.

Interesting news, everybody!

Turns out that both the Impreza and Legacy switches use the same PCB.

It's marked Niles 156G89.

I measured the resistors as well as the five locations for jumpers. The jumpers are key - they are what allows them to have a common PCB, with traces for both configurations! The issue I talked about earlier is gone.

Legacy Impreza
R1 ? ?
R2 ? ?
R3 ? ?
R4 ? ?
R5 ? ?
R6 ? ?
R7 68.5 681
R8 112 2204
R9 160 N/A
R10 332 N/A
R11 820 331
R12 22 N/A
R13 4710 100600
R14 681 682
R15 2200 2200
R16 332 330
R17 99800 99900
JP1 N/A N/A
JP2 0 N/A
JP3 N/A 0
JP4 N/A 0
JP5 N/A 0

So it looks like by replacing four of the resistors, and removing three, and adding two jumpers while relocating a third, you can turn the Legacy SWCs into Impreza SWCs.

Good luck with this. I'd like to see how things turn out. :thanks:

So the next step is to figure out where to mount these. I may end up converting my Legacy SWCs (which I already cut up) and trying to sell my Impreza SWCs (which are still intact), or I may wire it up to have two sets, driver's side and passenger's side, since it looks like it shouldn't be too hard to convert the Legacy SWCs to work with the BRZ.

Here are some pics. I will probably end up retaining the silver fairing and just repainting it, as the buttons look bad without one. Depending on how I need to make it fit, I can trim off some of the flanges to make it smaller.

http://i.imgur.com/eGneyHAh.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/BKE3p8Zh.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/N5tEn4ph.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/GpkJm5sh.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/R2MEkh5h.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/2ebzqJyh.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/yp6uQOvh.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/g2GLEq4h.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/EKdy6HCh.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/ZhPRB4sh.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/y2wuGKHh.jpg

Any thoughts on mounting? I am leaning towards the right side of the steering column. I have a Limited so there's nothing there besides the blank keyfob cover plate, and that plate seems like a sturdy surface that I could mount the SWCs to. I'll trim the fairing to get rid of that big corner sticking out, and if I do that, I'll probably try to sell the Impreza SWCs and just use the Legacy with the new resistors. Otherwise, I could do to the left of the steering column just above the trunk release, and then use another set on the passenger side. Putting them in the heated switches spot would be nice too, but then I'd need to relocate the heated switches. I was thinking about buying another cubbyhole/USB/Aux piece, and cutting a piece of metal to cover the cubbyhole opening. Then I could put the heated seat switches up there (like a NC miata), and put the SWCs where the heated seat switches used to be. I'll have to do some mock-ups, which I won't be able to do until the weekend after next, although I'll order SM resistors this week to try converting the Legacy SWCs to work. Looks like the ones on there are about 1mm, so hopefully I can find the correct size.

are you aware of the diagnostic screen in the head unit so you can view button functions?

Probably too little too late but if you press all 3 buttons on the HU within a short time period from power up it enters a diagnostic mode and it lets you view SWC functions...may have been options for config too...can't recall ATM...and don't have access to my car currently

I had been intending to do this aswell, surprised to see it wasn't plug and play directly. I thought for sure it would be, I was going to put the buttons on the back of the wheel in the plastic behind the spokes. that way you can use by feel since there is not alot of great options for other placement.

I want physical buttons so bad. Please keep updating!

Well, at this point, it's really just installing it and getting the lighting working. As a high level recap, the 2012+ Impreza SWCs are plug and play. Connect as follows:

Blue wire to HU pin 21 SWC1 Audio (Seek, Volume)
Orange wire to HU pin 22 SWC2 Mode & Phone
White wire to HU pin 23 SWC Common

That will get all of the controls working.

For the lighting,

Black wire to ground
Pink wire to +12v source

I am not sure yet the best spot to tap this into. I'd ideally like to have it light up with the rest of the interior buttons, and I'd like to have the dimmer control it as well, so I need to do some more research there, but the actual getting the buttons to work is done.

What I'm currently working on is trying to get the Legacy SWCs, which work differently than the Impreza ones, working properly. They use a different setup. I bought them first (because they were cheaper and I didn't have the info I have now), and chopped them up for experimenting with, then I bought the Impreza ones. I'd like to get my set of Legacy ones working, because the Impreza ones are completely intact and I'd rather resell them to recoup some of my money instead of just installing them and throwing the Legacy ones in the trash.

I was thinking about an option to locate physical buttons as closely as possible to the shifter. Since that's where my right hand is most of the time, would be nice to just press a button there to "next track", no?

Yes. steering wheel would be most ergonomic but too difficult to fit. If you piece a kit and harness together I would be interested in buying it.

any update? I've been eagerly awaiting =)

Well, here's my status.

I've ordered some SMD resistors from China to try to convert my Legacy SWCs to Impreza SWCs, and I'm still waiting for them to come in. Otherwise, I'm nearly certain that the Impreza SWCs will be plug-n-play, but I'd rather flip them on ebay as they're completely intact, if I can mod the chopped-up Legacy SWCs to be Impreza SWCs. (For those not following, the new Legacy and Impreza have the same circuit boards and buttons with different resistor networks, the Fujitsu Ten head unit in the BRZ needs the Impreza-style resistor network).

I'm trying to figure out how to insert pins into the 28-pin harness. I'm going to try floppy drive connector pins and the pins from a 3-pin computer fan this weekend - if none of those work, I'm going to carefully measure the existing pins with a caliper and see if I can find something in a catalog that will work.

I'm also mulling over my mounting method. I've got a suction cup camera mount and a suction cup radar detector mount, and I want to rig something up. My current top choice for location is to have them sticking out of the steering column on the right hand side below the wipers. I'll likely just mount the adhesive disk that comes with suction cup mounts on the right side of the steering column, then I'll be able to mod the suction cup mount to have the SWCs, and I'll be able to easily adjust or remove them.

For wiring, I'm going to grab a crappy cat5 wire and use that, as the SWCs have three signal pins, an illumination pin, and a ground, so that will work nicely with the cat5, and I'll wire up an intermediate connector to easy installation and troubleshooting.

Update: I replaced the surface mount resistors on the Legacy controls, and confirmed that the replacement worked with my multimeter. It's not the neatest soldering job I've ever done, but those surface mount resistors are freaking tiny. I really would not recommend doing the Legacy to Impreza conversion unless you've got a fair amount of electronics experience.

I finally came up with a good mounting idea - I will install it on the trim to the left of the HVAC controls. It's just above where my right knee is when driving, so it will be very easy to access, and I'm going to mount it with dual-lock tape so I can remove it if necessary.

I got a metal L-bracket and drilled holes to line up with the mounting points behind the SWC module.

http://i.imgur.com/vXMKAnJh.jpg

I attached it with double-sided tape where the two flat surfaces met, then went around it with hot glue

http://i.imgur.com/7m61HDfh.jpg

I trimmed off some excess plastic from the silver bezel

http://i.imgur.com/rcXpJM8h.jpg

I'm going to plasti-dip them both

On the back, I'm going to use a big strip of dual-lock, plus two rubber feet. The idea is that the dual-lock will hold it in place, and the rubber will press against the edge of the HVAC surround so that it doesn't come off when you press it.

http://i.imgur.com/uwNoRZIh.jpg

Rockin' and rollin'

[ame]http://youtu.be/icmGX-dFC_0[/ame]

Wiring inserted into the 28 pin connector (Pin 21 SWC Audio, Pin 22 SWC Phone, Pin 3 SWC Ground/Common)

http://i.imgur.com/tYVN3h0h.jpg


Cut a notch into the radio surround. I have a plasti-dipped interior and I know it looks shitty. I wanted to try out the look of thee AUDM base model black interior before dropping $200 to buy the parts.
http://i.imgur.com/Ro3VXEIh.jpg


Here it is installed, I trimmed the top right corner of the SWC button bezel, it was sticking out too far and actually touching the bottom left corner of the head unit. Probably will repaint this, again, this is shitty plasti-dip.
http://i.imgur.com/0LeDC3oh.jpg

I know the video is pretty crappy and shaky, I took it with my phone, and the pinging noise is that it was raining (I had a cover on my car, that's why it was so dark)

Everything works.

From top to bottom, left to right

Volume control

Seek - a short press goes to previous/next preset, a long press tunes

Mode - a short press does next mode, a long press does mute

Voice command - I guess it lets you give it a voice command, I don't have voice commands set up

Pick up / Hang up phone - I didn't have a phone connected.

would you sell this to make it a plug and play solution? or can you make me thise to plug into my headunit and i'll ifgure out mounting on my own? PRETTY PLEASE?!?!?!?!

It's pretty much a "splice, insert, and play" solution

Buy Impreza SWCs

Salvage pins from a PC front panel button, LED, or USB header, stick them in your 28-pin connector.

Splice 5 wires.

Where are you in NJ? I have another set of Impreza controls (as you may recall, I bought Legacy controls, couldn't get them to work, bought Impreza controls, realized I could use the Legacy controls, converted them, and kept the Impreza controls unmolested to sell when I had some free time), and enough pins to connect them. I'm right over the Walt Whitman bridge in PA. You could stop by one weekend, or I could just toss the stuff in the mail to you.

i'm at 08837. i'd love to come by and make this work, i can always remount it later on to where i want.

You're welcome to come by PA, that's a little far for me to want to drive to meet up with you though. If I solder stuff in advance, it's a 5 minute job to install them. Or, if you want, I can just solder up the pins to the right wires and mail it to you if you'll cover the $50 that I paid for the SWCs on eBay. Or, if you're comfortable with soldering, I'll just send the SWCs and the pins and let you know what to connect. It's pretty straightforward, although that didn't stop me from inserting them incorrectly the first time I put it together. You just chop off the SWCs, which have six wires. One is illumination positive, one is illumination ground, one doesn't need to be connected (it is to share a ground with the cruise control), and the remaining three go into the 28-pin connector. There's no need to even open the SWC module (my SMD soldering was all to get my Legacy SWCs working, the Impreza ones are plug-n-play)

I'm curious what you have in mind with mounting, my current solution is fairly crude. I was thinking of trying to fit them to the left of the head unit, then using bondo and a lot of elbow grease to combine the head unit bezel and the SWC bezel, then having the whole thing painted. You've got a fantastic custom interior, so I'd really like to see how you fit them in.

I figured I may as well consolidate the info here.

The 2013 Impreza has an option for the same Fujitsu Ten nav head unit as the BRZ. All trim levels of the Impreza use the same SWCs, and all are compatible with the BRZ. The Legacy SWCs look the same, but due to different resistance values, they are not compatible. If you're buying used, not by model, the Legacy ones have a single connector, whereas the Impreza ones have two connectors. The SWCs are sold as an assembly with the cruise control buttons.

There are six wires going to the SWC side of the assembly - Black, Blue, White, and Orange went directly from the connector to the SWCs, and Pink and Purple went from the Cruise control module to the SWCs.

Black, Blue, White, and Orange went to the SWC. Red, Green, Yellow, and Brown went to the CC, and Pink and Purple went between SWC and Cruise Control.

Black is ground for the illumination.
Pink is positive for the illumination.
Purple is another ground (connected to the black wire internally)
Blue is the SWC audio (connect to Pin 21 of the 28-pin harness)
Orange is the SWC phone (connect to Pin 22 of the 28-pin harness)
White is the SWC common (connect to Pin 23 of the 28-pin harness)

Update: I finally got around to hooking up the illumination. If you insert a stripped wire into each of the two pins, the buttons illuminate properly (they switch on with the rest of your interior lights)

http://forums.nasioc.com/forums/show...6&postcount=24

Connector D

Pink on the SWCs is Illumination+ which goes to Pin 10 (I believe this was purple on my car)

Black on the SWCs is Illumination- which goes to Pin 15 (this was black with a silver stripe on my car)

where in PA are you?

and i was thinking of some how molding it some where but idk where, somewhere in the center console ideally...but that depends, can i take the buttong apart or they need to stay in that housing for the steering wheel...

wat

I'm in Media PA.

You can take the buttons out of the silver trim, but the buttons themselves can't be separated, they are all on the same PCB.

http://i.imgur.com/g2GLEq4h.jpg

That's as much as you can take it apart. Also note that the buttons aren't all quite in a plane, they are a bit concave between the vol/seek and mode/voice, and a bit convex between the mode/voice and pickup/hangup. You wouldn't be able to mount them to a flat plane.

thats like an hour and a half from me. i'm trying to think where these can be mounted...i just HATE the tiny touch screen buttons on the brz nav. wish there was a way to somehow fit this to the steering wheel, maybe the bottom piece can he cut/molded to fit this?

I've since relocated the SWCs to the steering column. They're very inconspicuous there, and still pretty easy to access. Looks a lot nicer than the old bracket by the kneepads.

http://i.imgur.com/L4YxaBch.jpg

I've also found a nice feature. If you hold down the AUDIO button for more than a second, you can turn off the screen of the HU. The audio will still play, but the screen stays off (totally off, not just black) until you press the AUDIO button again.

With my SWCs, I can navigate next/previous track with the HU screen off, as well as volume. Next/previous track works normally, you just don't see anything, and volume will temporarily turn the screen on, showing a black screen with a volume bar at the bottom for a couple seconds, and then turn the screen off again.

Hey, This is pretty cool. it annoys me that with the touchscreen you have to go through menus meanwhile the hand controls get shortcuts!

Are the switch modules too large to mount onto the steering wheel itself? or did you not want to complicate your life that much?

Does anyone know if there is some special piece that needs to be used to route the wiring through the steering wheel? or do you just let the wire twist?

Mainly because I would want to either mount them on the front or the back of the steering wheel rather than on the steering column.

This car would have been perfect if they just included the darn'd controls. :mad0260:

All the other Scions have them. They deliberately kept this one as simple as possible to make swapping parts as easy as they could. They must have had a racing series in mind the whole time. This car is what the Fiero failed at so long ago.

Well, there's two main problems with having them on the rotating part of the wheel.

1 - you need a way to get electrical signals from the rotating part to the stationary part. You can't just run an ordinary wire because it will twist, kink, and cause problems. Cars use something called a clock spring, which is a little cylinder that has wound up ribbon cables in the middle. As you turn the wheel, the cables wind and unwind, allowing you to carry an electrical signal to the steering wheel.

So the big question is whether or not there are enough contacts on the twins clock springs to carry the extra signals. If there are, you could likely use them for SWC signals, but if there aren't, you'd need to replace the clock spring with one that has more contacts. One possible alternative, if you're willing to do some considerable modding, would be to either remove the cruise control stalk and use that wiring for SWCs instead, or use a circuit to make your cruise control stalk control the audio when cruise control is off, like this guy
http://www.ft86club.com/forums/showthread.php?t=15443

2 - you need a way to mount the SWCs to the wheel. The twins have the leather wrapped spokes going all the way to the airbag in the center, there's no plastic bezel over the spoke that could be used. I'm not sure if there's any way to get a clean SWC install with the factory wheel - you might need a different wheel, if that's even possible.

It's certainly within the realm of possibility, but you've got to have the stomach for some serious tinkering. The way I have the SWCs, they can be installed and removed within an hour, with no permanent modifications to anything.

Hmm, This is a project for when I hit the lotto. I have a playlist on my ipod so it isnt a huge deal for me. but if there are enough points on the preinstalled clock spring...I do have a 3d printer to mockup the steering wheel mounts and then have the steering wheel re-wrapped/padded at a custom leather shop. But either way it would cost a bunch for a new wheel if i destroy the stock on and if successful I would need to have it re-wrapped.

If only I had another car and time. Thanks for the reply though.

Hey,

I opened a thread for on wheel controls. I am going to be referencing your trial and error when wiring it up.

There appears to be 7 pins available in the wiring harness for the steering column (white connector). I am looking for a spare steering wheel (offering 80bucks plus shipping from the classifies here) so i can mock it up. you have to use 5 connections to the switches correct (going from what I understood from this thread)?

Are there even "pins" in these available spaces on that connector? Usually if there's no wire then there's no pin there. If there's no pin there's no conductor on the clockspring connecting these pins on the other side.

Thanks for the hint, once I have some time I will have to pull the air bag off and see if the connector to see if all the pins are wired. If I cant access it I would have to try from the other side...which I would need to figure out how to do anyway.

so @nalc - basically buy the impreza controls, run the wires in the first top of post accordingly, and all buttons work?

So we are just left to figure out a mounting solution.

Yup. I've currently got it attached with 3M dual lock on where my key fob would normally be (I have a Limited) and it's inconspicuous and easy to access without needing to do anything too fancy to mount.

Thanks for all the help. I sent you a PM.

@t.chk - I had swapped an 08 sti steering wheel in my 05 sti back in the day, and I had to solder on the clock spring. It requires removing the clock spring and soldering on both sides. Its not too bad but its annoying to pull the clock spring out and you have to semi take it apart. Need to be very careful with it as well as if you over-rotate it you will break it.

A good spot to mount this would be either how nalc has it or on the plastic piece that surrounds the ignition wires/wheel.

Yea the work is piling up on this project. for the convenience it is being less worth it to mount them on the steering wheel, might set it up as Nalc has them. The most difficult part is finding the Impreza hand controls, it appears that Subaru does not stock them anywhere and the 2 dealers I went to had no clue what their part numbers where -__-

http://s29.postimg.org/6d8jq9zrr/REGION_0767.png


Looks like there are actually pins there that might not be in use?? These pics are from two different threads

Thanks for the picture, what the concern is if the pins are connected through the clock spring to the other end of the steering column. I am planning on testing it by connecting a 9V battery to 2 pins on one side and an LED to the corresponding pins on the other to see if it lights up if it does it is proof all the pins are connected and not just some of them. But it is looking more positive they are all connected...because then why put the pins on in the first place?